Advancing Dogs and Rushing Lions: Animals and the Imagery of Conflict in the Poem of Almería
- Autores: Alun Williams
- Localización: A Plural Peninsula: Studies in Honour of Professor Simon Barton / coord. por Antonella Liuzzo Scorpo, 2023, ISBN 9789004425460, págs. 378-399
- Idioma: inglés
- Enlaces
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Resumen
The Hispano-Latin chronicle known as the Chronica Adefonsi Imperatoris (translated by Simon Barton into English in The World of El Cid, co-edited with Richard Fletcher) was completed in c.1147, towards the end of the reign of Alfonso VII of León-Castile (r. 1126–1157). It consists of three books: the first two are in prose and the third, an unfinished poem in rhythmic hexameters, celebrates the success of the Castilian Christians and their allies in wresting the port city of Almería from Muslim hands. The text is anonymous, though clues within the narrative suggest a single strand of authorship and aspects related to the author’s identity. The chronicle is a eulogy written in praise of Alfonso VII’s military successes against competing Christian kingdoms in Iberia and Muslim al-Andalus. A striking feature of the author’s construction of history is his facility to incorporate biblical imagery into the language of conquest and in his depictions of the infidel. This is particularly apparent in the author’s use of animal-based imagery which indicates a derivation from a wide exegetical and classical corpus. This body of familiar metaphors will be studied comparatively, examining purpose and implications as well as style. The case of Iberia is particularly significant as it combines a long-standing and comparable use of such imagery in the wider Mediterranean with that which was also adopted in different parts of the medieval Latin West.