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The book is divided into five parts. The first and best-known part is a series of 51 short stories (some no more than a page or two) drawn from various sources, such as Aesop and other classical writers, and Arabic folktales.
Tales of Count Lucanor was first printed in 1575 when it was published at Seville under the auspices of Argote de Molina. It was again printed at Madrid in 1642, after which it lay forgotten for nearly two centuries.[1]
The book exhibits a didactic, moralistic purpose, as would much Spanish literature that followed it. Count Lucanor engages in conversation with his advisor Patronio, putting to him a problem ("Some man has made me a proposition..." or "I fear that such and such person intends to...") and asking for advice. Patronio responds always with the greatest humility, claiming not to wish to offer advice to so illustrious a person as the Count, but offering to tell him a story of which the Count's problem reminds him. (Thus, the stories are "examples" [ejemplos] of wise action.) At the end he advises the Count to do as the protagonist of his story did.
Each chapter ends in more or less the same way, with slight variations on: "And this pleased the Count greatly and he did just so, and found it well. And Don Johán (Juan) saw that this example was very good, and had it written in this book, and composed the following verses." A rhymed couplet closes, giving the moral of the story.
Origin of stories and influence on later literature
Many of the stories written in the book are the first examples written in a modern European language of various stories, which many other writers would use in the succeeding centuries. Many of the stories he included were themselves derived from other stories, coming from western and Arab sources.[2]
Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew has the basic elements of Tale 35, "What Happened to a Young Man Who Married a Strong and Ill-tempered Woman".[a]
The book opens with a prologue which introduces the characters of the Count and Patronio. The titles in the following list are those given in Keller and Keating's 1977 translation into English.[4] James York's 1868 translation into English gives a significantly different ordering of the stories and omits the fifty-first.[5]
Juan Manuel's format was evidently unsatisfying to his patron, James III of Jérica. In the latter sections of the book, he abandoned the parable device and tried to find a balance between brevity and substance acceptable to James. Parts 2 and 3 are collections of 150 succinct proverbs. In part 4, Lucano complains that the proverbs are too obscure, and Patronio responds with several direct lessons. The fifth and final part is a discourse, occasionally incorporating parables, on the importance of good works for salvation.
The book is being read by Madrid schoolchildren in Rebecca Pawel's novel Death of a Nationalist (2003).
In 2016, Baroque Decay released a game under the name The Count Lucanor. As well as some protagonists' names, certain events from the books inspired past events in the game.
^Aarne-Thompson-Uther. "The Broken Pot". Panchatantra. Translated by D. L. Ashliman. Air Castles. Retrieved 10 March 2010.
^Don Juan Manuel (1977). The Book of Count Lucanor and Patronio: A Translation of Don Juan Manuel's "El Conde Lucanor". Translated by Keller, John E.; L. Clark Keating. New York: Peter Lang. ISBN9780813152936. JSTORj.ctt130hw16.
Devoto, Daniel (1972). Introducción al estudio de don Juan Manuel y en particular de El Conde Lucanor: Una bibliografía. Paris: Ediciones Hispano-americanas. OCLC748273.
Deyermond, Alan (1985). Reinaldo Ayerbe-Chaux (ed.). Introduction - 'Libro del Conde Lucanor'. Madrid: Alhambra. pp. 3–49. ISBN9788420510385.
Kaplan, Gregory B. (1998). "Innovation and Humor in Three of El Conde Lucanor's Most Amusing Exemplos: A Freudian Approach". Hispanófila. 123 (123): 1–15. JSTOR43894957.
Menocal, Maria Rosa (1995). Michael M. Caspi (ed.). "Life Itself: Storytelling as the Tradition of Openness in the Conde Lucanor". Oral Tradition and Hispanic Literature: Essays in Honor of Samuel M. Armistead. New York: Garland: 469–495. ISBN9780815320623.
Sturm, Harlan
Sturm, Harlan (1974). "Author and Authority in El Conde Lucanor". Hispanófila. 52 (52): 1–10. JSTOR43807570.
Sturm, Harlan (1969). "The Conde Lucanor: The First Exemplo". Modern Language Notes. 84 (2): 286–92. doi:10.2307/2908021. JSTOR2908021.
Wacks, David A. (2006). "Reconquest Colonialism and Andalusi Narrative Practice in Don Juan Manuel's Conde Lucanor". Diacritics. 36.3-4: 87–103. hdl:1794/8228. JSTOR20204143.
Spanish Wikisource has original text related to this article: Conde Lucanor
