Reception as resistance: Reflections on the 'Ovidian root' of the Libro de buen amor

Abstract

Far from being transparent and neutral, the reception of Ovid’s corpus eroticum in the Libro de Buen Amor reveals, on the one hand, resistance to the Latin text as a result of the different literary systems in which both authors are set and the vicissitudes of the transmission of Ovid, not only as a text but as a convention and an authority and, on the other, that this same reception seems to be an appropriation of the Ovidian tradition by Juan Ruiz, Archpriest of Hita, who uses and incorporates it into his own literary and aesthetic project. To reflect on such discrepancies, we need to demonstrate a fundamental aspect of comparative literature: the conditions of production and enunciation of the literary discourse. In other words, the relationship between a text and the literary and cultural system which provides the codes and literary conventions that make an influence or specific trace meaningful. Accordingly, this article presents the reception of Ovid also as a form of resistance to Ovid.