In this engaging study Jean Dangler examines the way that ideas of
difference were forged in four types of medieval Iberian discourse:
muwashshah/jarcha poems from al-Andalus, Andalusi "cutting poems,"
medical literature about the body, and portrayals of the monster.
According to Dangler, these texts demonstrate the two fundamental
precepts of medieval Iberian alterity: multifaceted subject formation
and the embrace of contrasts and the negative.
Medieval Iberia was a multicultural territory of Muslim, Jewish, and
Christian societies. These communities had constant geographic,
cultural, political, and economic contact with one another. Because
medieval Iberia was not hierarchical and homogenous, medieval
subjectivity was not always marked by essential qualities of character,
but was mutable and shifting. The adverse was often esteemed in the
making of meaning and the forging of the social order. Dangler explores
how the four discourses she analyzes changed in the early modern period,
from an acceptance of difference to more rigid concepts of subjectivity
and the marginalization of difference. This shift accompanied the rise
of the Castilian nation-state and its imposition of static hierarchies
of value.
This book will appeal to a broad range of medievalists. It makes an
important contribution to the growing interest in medieval Iberia and
offers a nuanced understanding of medieval history and culture in
general.
