Sex, Scandal, and Sermon in Fourteenth-Century Spain

Louise M. Haywood is Senior University Lecturer in Medieval Spanish Studies at the University of Cambridge, and a Fellow of Trinity Hall, Cambridge

• Humour and the Humours * On the Gaze and the Grotesque * The Stand-Up Archpriest

"I must admit that my own misreading does not even begin to do justice to the far-reaching, academic brilliance ensconced between the two covers of this work for which one can only beg the author s forgiveness along with the reader s understanding and encourage the reading of this work for oneself." - Medieval Feminist Forum"This outstanding monograph, by the author and editor of A Companion to the Libro de Buen Amor, is informed both by contemporary theory and by a secure grounding in the ecclesiastical and literary traditions of the Middle Ages. Haywood studies the body, the gaze, and the comedic role of the authorial voice, in a volume which should become a new classic of Libro de Buen Amor studies." - Dorothy Severin, University of Liverpool"As the first attempt in a very long time to formulate a comprehensive interpretation and understanding of this fiendishly rich and difficult work, Haywood's book is filled with provocative insights and abundant new observations . . . Haywood's close readings of the text, whether they discover orthodoxy or depravity, never stray from the fact that, at its heart, the Libro is a book that rehearses the Christian struggle between the material and spiritual world." - Speculum