Melibea, a Beatrice in Inferno

Abstract

Of the respective readings of works of idealistic fiction (sentimental novels, Byzantine novels, Moorish or pastoral novels), women readers such as Melibea were able to internalise novelistic models that they adopted haphazardly and that came to sublimate the real or the mundane. This was a kind of reading that—they believed—dignified themselves. But, when faced with cases of real love, such as that mentioned by Calisto at the beginning of La Celestina, there simply are no literary solutions. Calisto, sick with love, calls on the witch Celestina, asking her to prepare a spell that will steal away the angelical part of Melibea, who, once caught in Celestina’s nets, will then descend to the “inferno” of Calisto’s human love. Exactly the opposite of Dante’s Beatrice.