La inversión paródica de la semplicetta farfalla y de otros motivos amorosos en el Aula de cortesanos (1547)

Abstract

One of the main representative authors of anti-court literature was the poet Cristóbal de Castillejo (1490?-1550). Our study aims at launching a reflection on the importance of Castillejo’s works where flattery is presented as a satirized topic, especially in his dialogue entitled Aula de cortesanos (1547), which is one of the most important compositions in his career. Flattery, one of the major vices of the courtier, is associated in Castillejo’s works with fake love as opposed to the idealized traditional conceptions. To describe the presence of this vice at the court, Castillejo uses traditional love topics which he distorts with humor. For instance, the metaphor of the semplicetta farfalla, which was popularized through Petrarchist poetry, is ironically used to compare the courtiers’ illnesses with their own limerence. Other parts of the composition also foreshadow an interesting parody of the courtly love code which is turned into a purely rhetorical-stylistic exercise