La Celestina: Themes of Love, Death, Fortune and Magic

Characters: Elicia and Areusa

Elicia and Areusa:

• Celestina is protected.
• Social desire for freedom, refusing to surrender to the lords.
• Social resentment.
• Elicia is determined and Areusa is shy. After the death of Celestina they change roles.

6. Time

• Flexible time, used in accordance with the requirements of the project.
• An explicit time can be distinguished for the action shown, and another implied, not shown (one month between Acts XIV and XV).

7. Themes

The author offers a pessimistic view of the world, in constant conflict and confrontation.

Love

Love:

• Courtly love is presented as parodic and demystifying:
• • The idealization of women and the refined language hide the same stark sexuality present in servants and prostitutes.
  • Gone is the ennobling nature of love.
  • The excesses and exaggerations of Calisto contribute to this caricature of character.
• Opposite view is that of Celestina:
• • Love appears as a biological need.
  • Also as pleasure, without hindrance or moral considerations.
• Other aspects of love: a dominant force and ambivalent.

Weather and Time Awareness

Weather:

• Acute awareness of time and the brevity of the moment.
• This awareness leads characters to enjoy earthly pleasures.
• The pursuit of pleasure becomes an important motive for the characters.

Death

Death:

• A constant, frightening presence throughout the play, true in all cases.
• Appears as a punishment for transgressive behavior.
• Appears as an example of the brevity of earthly things.
• An executing, cruel fate.
• Offers no solace of salvation.

Fortune

Fortune:

• A blind force: capricious, irrational, and indifferent, which causes disorder in the universe.
• Its whims are reflected in the death of most of the characters.

Magic

Magic:

All of society believed in the reality of magic and in the effectiveness of spells. The use of magic in the play is evident: Celestina casts a spell to dominate the will of Melibea.

8. Intention of the Work

There is a protest against the oppression to which converts were subjected; there is no exaltation of romantic love. Rojas tried to show the destructive effects of passion and to criticize courtly love. He may have wanted to admonish the young nobility to choose their servants more carefully. Rojas was a moralist full of pessimism who saw the effects that flow inexorably from causes in human nature.

Features of Courtly Love in Medieval Spanish Literature

Features of courtly love in medieval Spanish literature:

• Love is polite, requiring some degree of nobility.
• Presents the beloved as admirable and worshipped by the lover.
• Marriage is not excluded.
• The objective is to achieve sexual intercourse.
• It is often frustrated.
• It is tragic, not comic.
• There is a transposition of religious imagery and emotions into sexual love.
• The lover recognizes his inferiority to the lady.
• The lover's passion can be fully reciprocated by his lady.
• The lovers try to conceal the secret of their love.