Leriano and Lacan: The Mythological and Psychoanalytical Underpinnings of Leriano's Last Drink

LERIANO AND LACAN: THE MYTHOLOGICAL AND PSYCHOANALYTICAL UNDERPINNINGS OF LERIANOS LAST DRINK E. Michael Gerii University of Virginia Allegory is the psychology of an age that did not yet have psychology. -CS. Lewis The amount of critical attention paid to the climactic moment of CárceldeAmor, where Leriano shreds Laureola's letters, places them in a goblet ofwater, and consumes them as a last libation prior to expiring, provides a measure of the striking nature of this episode in the context of the thematics of love, death, language, and desire that structure Diego de San Pedro's romance. The event constitutes a powerful emblematic image that resonates with overt and subliminal meaning, and one that speaks both to the lay and the professional critical imaginations. That said, however, debate continues as to the sense, origin, and consequence of the incident portrayed by San Pedro as Leriano's last mortal gesture. The most recent contribution to the discussion is a posthumous, fragmentary , yet trenchant essay by Keith Whinnom prepared for publication by Alan Deyermond, Whinnom's literary executor. Whinnom's "Cardona, the Crucifixion, and Leriano's Last Drink" (1997) signals both an original contribution on the matter and an excellent summary of the various critical interpretations of the scene. Rather than rehearse the latter, however, I will simply summarize Whinnom's conclusions and use them as a point of departure for amplifying his observations while seeking to place Leriano's actions within a broader mythical setting and the larger framework of the psychoanalytical implications of his gestures. After reviewing the critical literature on the episode, pointing toJuan de Cardona's nearly contemporary borrowings from San Pedro, La corónica 29.1 (Fall, 2000): 113-128 114,E. Michael GeriiLa corónica 29. 1 , 2000 Whinnom concludes that "Cardona's use of Cárcel de Amor only two generations after San Pedro wrote his romance lends some support to the hypothesis that early readers may have looked for analogies no further afield than the literature of the Passion" (212-13). In short, for Whinnom San Pedro probably did not intend to evoke any larger symbolic meaning in his portrayal of Leriano's last act beyond a direct allusion to Christ on the Cross.' Yet when viewed through a larger theoretical lens, the episode resonates with a significance that appears to transcend an exclusively historicist reading. Prior to Leriano's last drink as Cárcel de Amor draws to a close, the events in it point to a story about to end in failure, disintegration , separation, and frustration. Desperately in love with Laureola, the king of Macedonia's only heir, and falsely accused by an envious rival of having sleptwith her, despite his heroic efforts to prove otherwise, Leriano has been spurned by Laureola lest she give substance to an earlier treasonous accusation that would invoke la ley de Escocia, whereby sexual relations not sanctioned by canonical marriage were punishable by death. On his deathbed and overcome with sorrow, Leriano has resigned himself to never having Laureola and can look forward only to gloom, desperation , and death. Placed in what appears to be a hieratical, ritual settingjust prior to relinquishing his soul, Leriano's final gestures constitute mimetic acts designed, like all rituals, to resolve conflicts, symbolically reversing discord in the search for closure and reconciliation. In his exploration of romance archetypes in Cárcel, Joseph Chorpenning (1992), following Northrop Frye, connected Leriano's deathbed acts to the motif of sparagmos. The archetypal mythos of sparagmos usually entails the ritual mutilation of a sacrificial victim, which, through scapegoating, seeks to reinstate order and a sense of union to a community. According to Frye (1969) , in sparagmosthe theme of the vanishing of the hero or heroine often takes the form of the ripping to pieces oftheir body: "Sometimes the hero's body is divided among his followers, as in Eucharist symbolism; sometimes it is distributed around the natural world, as in the stories of Orpheus and more especially Osiris" (192). Sparagmos is permeated by "the sense that heroism and effective action are absent, disorganized or foredoomed to defeat, and that confusion and anarchy reign over the world". Its images of dis1 Additional relevant bibliografi...