"¡Notable sujeto!" Terms of Dismemberment in EL médico de su honra

Twenty years ago, Nancy J. Vickers wrote a seminal essay on Petrarch's use of the Actaeon myth in which the hunter, spying the goddess Diana naked, is transformed, in retaliation, into a stag, and is torn to pieces by his own hounds. Vickers contends that Petrarch's poetry esthetically fragments his beloved Laura to protect his own subjectivity against the female's threatening gaze. In this article, I suggest that El médico de su honra, which also cites Actaeon, can be taken as a literalization of the Petrarchan lover's figurative dismemberment of the love object. Gutierre undertakes the defensive action in order to protect his manhood, to suppress domestic and political subversions, and to obtain sexual pleasure. To varying degrees and for related reasons, Enrique, Ludovico, and King Pedro participate in Gutierre's exceptional adventure.