Minerva y la reformulación de la masculinidad en "Cristalián de España" de Beatriz Bernal

• Main Author: Montserrat Piera
• Format: Article
• Language: Catalan
• Published: Universidad de Valencia 2010-12-01
• Series: Tirant
• Subjects: Arthurian literature; women’s writing; virgo bellatrix; crossdressing; readers; dissemination of chivalry novels; Beatriz Bernal; Cristalián de España; Minerva
• Online Access: http://parnaseo.uv.es/Tirant/Butlleti.13/06%20Piera.pdf

In consonance with masculinist paradigms present in Arthurian romances, the knight is, generally, the doer, the agent, or the acting partner while the lady is fragile, passive and, therefore, does not engage in any action. This gendered reading, however, cannot be applied to the chivalresque novel Historia de los invictos y magnánimos caballeros don Cristalián de España, Príncipe de Trapisonda, y del Infante Lucescanio su hermano, hijos del famosísimo Emperador Lindedel de Trapisonda, published by Beatriz Bernal in Valladolid in 1545. This article explores the strategies used by the autor of this text to effect a refashioning of the chivalresque genre and to defy its generic roles.