Rodrigo Cota’s Satire of Juan de Mena in the <i>Diálogo del amor y un viejo</i> and the Genesis of the Prologue to <i>La Celestina</i>

Abstract

This study traces the reasons that led Rojas/Proaza to cite Juan de Mena or Rodrigo Cota as the possible authors of the first act of La Celestina. With this aim, I identify passages in Rodrigo Cota's Diálogo del amor y un viejo in which references to the Cordovan writer appear. The conclusion is that Cota, diametrically opposed to the author of Laberinto de Fortuna, made a severe criticism of him, in a concealed way that has been ignored by the critics until now. The celestinesque prologue, therefore, places us in the two literary extremes of the time (Juan de Mena's cultured one and Cota's satirical one) and reaffirms the hypothesis that it is full of falsehoods and calculated ambiguity.

Keywords

• siglo xv, la celestina, juan de mena, rodrigo cota, diálogo del amor y un viejo