Language and Authority in the Celestina . Institutions, Incongruence and Shifting Symbolic Power

Abstract

George Shipley (1968) writes that the power inherent in the word operates transitively in the world spoken of. Bound up in this statement are three syllogisms that I shall examine in this article: that there exist different worlds in the Celestina other than the one spoken of; that language operates in Rojas's work within and according to these fictional worlds; and that language has contradictory values and linguistic power can thereby be continually transmuted. Making use of theory propounded by Pierre Bourdieu, which acknowledges the legitimacy of linguistic authority according to the social constructions in which it is embedded, I shall explore the shift in verbal mastery of Melibea and Celestina, arguing that the intermingling of fictional worlds —of courtly love and prostitution— affects irrevocably their linguistic authority and that language in the Celestina destabilizes as much as it can empower.