The Subversive Role of Irony in the Libro del Cauallero Zifar. Issue 6 (June 2020) - ZUWIYYA, Z. DAVID
Abstract : The fourteenth-century Libro del cauallero Zifar may seem at first dogmatic and straightforward. The chivalric hero through his Christian faith achieves his dream of restoring royalty to his lineage. However, closer examination reveals that the author has set up subtle ironies that target a society that requires the best of its citizens and the most pious Christians to hide their identity out of fear of dishonour and rejection. For example, Zifar becomes poor when the king he serves marginalizes him. His misfortune continues when he loses his children and his wife. Things begin to look better when he courts the princess of Mentón, but this is only possible because he silences his former life. By returning again to the motifs of his previous marriage and humble origins, the author constructs a situational irony that plays on the reader's expectations and highlights the unjust exigencies of social class in medieval Spain.