Session “Re-reading the Archpriest: Deconstructing Autobiography and the Libro de buen amor” for the International Congress on Medieval Studies at Kalamazoo 2024.
- Location: Kalamazoo, MI
- Date: 9-11 May 2024
- Submit proposal to Paul Larson ([email protected]) before 15 September 2023.
- Contact: Paul Larson ([email protected])
- Call for Papers (below)
The problems with autobiography are multiple, contradictory, and chaotic. The Archpriest pretends to tell us the story of his life, but the multiple literary digressions, insertions, and omissions undermine the implied linearity of autobiography. Dissing the Augustinian model of the Confessions, the Archpriest refuses to conform to the genre, fragmenting the narrative of his life in such a way as to defeat reader expectations and narrative tropes of heroic models. Papers in this session will focus on and question the structure of autobiography as it pertains to the LBA, but they might also focus on other biographic structures from the “Mester de Clerecia” tradition, which may or may not include the lives of saints, Marian miracles, and epic narratives from across the Iberian Peninsula.