Abstract
This article explores the connection between grim melancholy and its psychiatric effects on the monarchical class in the literature of medieval Iberia. Medieval medical epistemology posited that when the black humor burned, the ensuing vapors ascended to the head, creating a disconnect between cognitive perception and the empirical reality. Supported by readings of the works of King Alfonso X, Ramon Llull and Juan Manuel, this study shows how melancholic madness contained within it the impulse to dehumanize the victims of this condition and to expel them from their community and from social life.
Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica (1947-), volume 66, 2, July-December 2018, is a semi-annual publication edited by El Colegio de México, Carretera Picacho Ajusco 20, Ampliación Fuentes del Pedregal, Tlalpan, C.P. 14110, Mexico City, Mexico, Tel. (55) 5449-3000, http://nrfh.colmex.mx/index.php/NRFH, nrfh@colmex.mx. Editor: Pedro Martín Butragueño. Assistant editors: Alejandro Rivas and Jesus Jorge Valenzuela. All Rights Reserved: 04-2015-070112341900-203, ISSN (print): 0185-0121, ISSN (electronic): 2448-6558, as registered with the National Copyright Institute. Typographical composition: El Atril Tipográfico. Person in charge of updating this issue: Perla Reyna Muñoz; date of last update: June 26, 2018.
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