The Footprint Fallacy: Celestina’s Resistance to Intention

In studying the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea, This article reconsiders the controversial debate around Celestina’s intention by linking intention with irony and apophasis and by studying the interrelationship of intention, meaning, and interpretation. The split between words and intentions is seen through financial symbolism and in the way the author avoids the responsibility intrinsic to his intentions. By exploring intentio, one of the most ancient hermeneutical concepts, and by studying the tension between the paratexts of the Tragicomedia de Calisto y Melibea and the work itself, we can discover an internal resistance to the element of intention, which crystalizes as the “footprint fallacy.”