Images of identity and alternity in the spanish literature of the Middle Ages and the Renaissance

Unlike any other European country medieval Spain can serve as a role model for the exemplary co-existence of a multi-ethnic society of Jews, Moors and Christians.But Spain is not only known for its medieval cultural ascendancy which had flourished on the basis of this complex and heterogeneous social structure. It is also an example of an early modern state marked by inquisition and uniformism which did its utmost to banish the other from social life. The transformation from a unique European cultural diversity towards a normative uniformity took hardly more than 150 years.This development is most clearly apparent in the relationship of alterities. Therefore, the perception and depiction of the other can be regarded as an indicator of the different phases of Spanish ethnogenesis.Against this thematic background the thesis on hand is concerned with analysing the paradigms of alien perception in the literature of the Convivencia (Alfonso X, Código de las Siete Partidas; Berceo, Milagros de Nuestra Señora; Juan Ruiz, Libro de buen amor), an epoch marked by mass conversions (Vicent Ferrer, Sermons) and the emergence of the ideology of Casticismo (Sarmiento: Sentencia-Estatuto; García de Mora, El Memorial; El Alboraique; Reyes Católicos, Edicto de la expulsión de los judíos).Furthermore, four texts from early colonial literature will be analysed and interpreted with reference to the phases of Spanish ethnogenesis, in order to achieve a wider perspective (Colón, Diario de a bordo; Cortés, Cartas de relación; Las Casas, Apología; Sepúlveda, Apología; Nuñez Cabeza de Vaca, Los Naufragios).Within this analysis, special attention will be paid to the various codes used for constructing alterities, while focussing on the mechanism which these constructions are based on.The gradual transformation of the image of the other underlines the emergence of the Caticismo ideology over centuries, a process fundamentally changing the relationship between identity and alterity