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El horizonte de expectativas y las comunidades interpretativas en fray Luis de Granada: el Libro de oración y meditación, la Guía de pecadores y la Introducción al símbolo de la fe

Garcia Garcia, Rafael
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1281991692

Abstract Details

2010, PhD, University of Cincinnati, Arts and Sciences: Romance Languages and Literatures.
This dissertation studies the reception of some key religious works by Fray Luis de Granada (1504-1588). Looking at the number of editions of his books, Fray Luis was the most successful author of the so-called Spanish Golden Age (16th- 17th centuries), ahead of writers such as Cervantes, Lope de Vega and Calderón, to name just a few luminaries of the period. This study uses reader-response theories and focuses on Fray Luis’ most important works: The Book of Prayer and Meditation (1554), The Sinner’s Guide (1556-1567) and Introduction to the Symbol of Faith (1583). These works were considered pious and sound Catholic doctrine by some. Others, however, thought that they would contribute to destabilizing the order of society. In order to give an answer to this interesting phenomenon, I use some reader-response theoretical tools such as Stanley Fish's concept of interpretative communities and Jauss' horizon of expectations. According to my investigation, there were four religious interpretative communities in sixteenth century Spain: the traditional, the affective, the Alumbrados and the protestant. This helps to clarify the controversy around mental prayer, the main topic of Fray Luis de Granada’s works. Otherwise, it might seem that there were isolated authors instead, who claimed four particular causes, more or less related to each other. On the contrary, Spanish Renaissance spiritual writers showed a clear conscience of belonging to a community with which they shared interpretative strategies; that is, a set of shared values and principles. I conclude that only two, the traditional and the affective, were really interacting in the Spanish state of affairs, in a relationship both tense and belligerent. Since Spain took on the role of defender of the Catholic faith, the other two, the Alumbrados and the Protestant, were outcasts and remained clandestine. However, they have to be taken into consideration because they operated in the background as well. As a matter of fact, the traditional community accused the affective interpretative community of being a sort of Protestantism or alumbradismo in the making. Additionally, I analyze the influence of Fray Luis de Granada’s works upon the upcoming Baroque style. His prose presents characteristics that singularly distinguish him from the rest of the spiritual writers at the time he published his first works: the fact that he was the spokesman of some ground-breaking ideas that cost him the prohibition of his books in 1559, such as the universal call to mental prayer and holiness, and his literary style that stands out from that of his contemporaries. The religious literature previous to Fray Luis had a less careful style and syntax. Granada surprised the horizon of expectations of his first readers with a literary prose that even surpasses non-religious literature. He has the merit of stabilizing the Spanish sentence by determining its dimensions, proportioning its members symmetrically and giving it sonorous terminations. Unlike his predecessors, he accomplished adoption of the Ciceronian style, which was one of the great aesthetic distances that Fray Luis introduced to Spanish prose.
Carlos Gutierrez, PhD (Committee Chair)
Connie Scarborough, PhD (Committee Member)
Maria Moreno, PhD (Committee Member)
319 p.
Romance Literature
Horizon of expectations; Interpretative communities; Reception; Luis de Granada; religious literature; Prayer

Recommended Citations

Citations

  • Garcia Garcia, R. (2010). El horizonte de expectativas y las comunidades interpretativas en fray Luis de Granada: el Libro de oración y meditación, la Guía de pecadores y la Introducción al símbolo de la fe [Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1281991692

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Garcia Garcia, Rafael. El horizonte de expectativas y las comunidades interpretativas en fray Luis de Granada: el Libro de oración y meditación, la Guía de pecadores y la Introducción al símbolo de la fe. 2010. University of Cincinnati, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1281991692.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Garcia Garcia, Rafael. "El horizonte de expectativas y las comunidades interpretativas en fray Luis de Granada: el Libro de oración y meditación, la Guía de pecadores y la Introducción al símbolo de la fe." Doctoral dissertation, University of Cincinnati, 2010. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=ucin1281991692

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

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This open access ETD is published by University of Cincinnati and OhioLINK.