Fernando de Rojas was a Spanish author and dramatist, known for his only surviving work, La Celestina (originally titled Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea), first published in 1499. It is variously considered "the last work of the Spanish Middle Ages or the first work of the Spanish Renaissance".
Background
Rojas was born at La Puebla de Montalbán, (Toledo), to a family of Jewish descent. Contemporary documents refer to Rojas as "converso", but scholarly opinion differs on whether this means that he himself converted from Judaism to Christianity or whether the term implied that he was "de linaje de conversos" – of convert descent.
Jewish descent was not a bar to social advancement, and Rojas's family had been recognised as hidalgos for at least three generations. Nevertheless, converso families lived under the shadow of the Inquisition and were vulnerable to accusations of secretly practising Judaism.
Education
It is also probable that as a young man Rojas obtained a law degree at the University of Salamanca.
Career
The Celestina, originally entitled Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, apparently was written during this period (c. 1497).
The first known edition of the work, divided into 16 acts and referred to as a comedia, appeared in 1499 in Burgos.
It was first published in English by John Rastell in 1530 as Calisto and Melebea.
An expanded version, the tragicomedia, in 21 acts, appeared in Seville in 1502.
Written in prose dialogue, La Celestina is superficially the story of the love of a young nobleman, Calisto, for Melibea, a lady of high birth.
Through their weakness, however, the two lovers prove unworthy of their roles as hero and heroine, and it is Celestina, a professional go-between hired by Calisto to aid him in seducing Melibea, who emerges as the central figure and whose force of character enables her to control the destinies of all who enlist her aid.
The words themselves often rush forth in spates, and the action is unhampered by convention.
Views
Nevertheless, her unswerving adherence to elemental hedonism and her epic conception of herself and her vocation make her as great an example of that basic Spanish quality of integralism as the Cid or Don Quixote. The artistic freedom with which La Celestina is written, its unrestrained employment of both dramatic and novelistic techniques, its presentation of all classes and categories of people, and the continual perspective of their evaluations of each other and their own lives are all reflected in the almost Rabelaisian freedom of Rojas' style.
