Poverty, stigmatization and amorous exemplariness in Celestina's daughter (1612) of Alonso Jeronimo de Salas Barbadillo a moralizing interpretation of The Pícara through the cortegiana filosofia and the novelle

Abstract

During Philip III´s reign, the Spanish society went through a series of intense elitization and marginalization processes that mainly came from a particular reception and assimilation of the anthropological and cultural model presented by Castiglione –what has been defined as cortegiana filosofia– that, ultimately, made use of the old ideal of neoplatonic love with regards to presenting a new common paradigm of public virtue and  onestyaimed at preserving and sustaining socio-religious institutions such as marriage. The short novel, echoing this through the tradition of Italian novelle, made use of the picaresque universe so as to act as a moralizing channel of this amorous  exemplariness. This will give rise to the defense of the maxim that well-being is a synonym of well-loving. The present paper aims to analyze the aforesaid through a particular short story: Alonso Jerónimo de Salas Barbadillo´s La hija de Celestina, o la ingeniosa Elena (1612).