Text, Translation, and Critical Interpretation of Joan Rois De Corella's Tragedia De Caldesa, a Fifteenth-Century Spanish Tragedy of Gender Reversal: The Woman Dominates and Seduces Her Lover

This monograph on Joan Roís de Corella (1435-1497) offers to the English-speaking world the discovery of a prominent literary figure, worth of recognition as a leading exponent of the Renaissance in the Catalan domain. Peter Cocozzella intends to bring into focus Corella’s distinctive contribution as embodied in a work that bears the title of Tragèdia de Caldesa (‘Tragedy of Caldesa’). Contrary to the trend of criticism that flatly denies the stage-worthy qualities of this magnificent text, Cocozzella proposes that Corella’s masterpiece constitutes a full-fledged theatricalization of a form of tragedy that stems not from Aristotelian principles but, rather, from the description formulated by Isidore of Seville. Corella delves into a radically conflictive interaction of male and female characters. Arguably, his Tragèdia trans-values the Ovidian myth of Narcissus into the ambiance of the Hispanic “erotic hell” and reveals that the theme of emasculation in literature goes back at least to the fifteenth century.