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Comments
Facts and Chronology
Position on Authorship
Scholars in each side
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The merits of Nueva Filosofía are immaterial of the author's gender. Either one adds no intrinsic value except in the anecdotal or the historical. We know of no further work by either Miguel or Oliva. before, during or after the publication of NF to guide us or define their credentials. In addition to the devotees of Oliva's or Miguel's authorship, we must attest other claims. Numerous are the skeptics who suspect that NF was in part or totally bagged through less than meritorious means. One plausible source is a fleeing dispossessed marrano ("converted" jew); this heterodox thought started with no less than the divino Valles, the Spanish Vessalius, a contemporary of the Sabucos. Many scholars are otherwise convinced that in the manuscript of NF, traces of at least two hands are indisputable. They point out significant differences in style throughout the treatises. Other students of Sabuco bring up credible evidence of a woman's hand in some chapters, in clear-cut contrast with more habitual -masculine- writing in other. Opinions all over the gamut. The English translators of Nueva Filosofía have intimated their uneasiness while sorting out the right author for the first-ever translation. They have published several papers elaborating on their disquiet. Certainty is elusive; the truth behind the authorship might never be unveiled. Vintro and Waithe |
report having found in their research insufficient grounds for the belated and dramatic daughter-to-father authorship pushover. Even a casual observer will not fail to remark that in 20C Spain some scholars scurried out to adjudicate the authorship to more trustworthy masculine hands, i.e., rescuing Nueva Filosofía from Oliva. In fact, the less than commendable spectacle of accursed daughter, daughter-suing-father, hung dowry, unsettle debts, and assorted other feuds paint a sobering picture of this upper-middle-class 16C Alcaraz family which was, otherwise, the cradle of a prescient book. Better, perhaps, would have been to stash away all this laundry, ignore the author's gender, and focus on Nueva Filosofía, a text worth revisiting. For it seems that regardless of where the debate starts, every argument favoring one source launches a lethal counter-argument of authorship. Even if at times the cumulative uncorroborated evidence would appear as favoring Miguel's, it still is no match for the hard facts opposing Oliva's relegation. Hence, caution should prevail, and further detraction of Oliva's authorship be contained. This is the approach taken by the English translators, and it strikes as a prudent and wise one. Those ready to cast aspersions of feminism at this attitude should pause lest they find themselves throwing stones at their own male-chauvinist roof. |