SOURCE: Williams, Lynn. “The Burden of Responsibility in the Libro de buen amor.” Modern Language Review 85 (1990): 57-64.

In the following essay, Williams examines Ruiz's abdication of personal responsibility for his sexual behavior but notes that he appears to be joking. Williams teaches at Brigham Young University.

In three of the early sections of the Libro de buen amor, Juan Ruiz explains to his public how, for various reasons, he is conditioned to love women. In stanzas 71-76 he uses the unimpeachable authority of Aristotle to argue that men and animals are biologically determined to seek ‘juntamiento con fenbra plazentera’ (st. 71d),¹ and since he is a man like any other, it is natural, perhaps even inevitable, that from time to time he too should feel the attraction of the opposite sex.² Paraphrasing St Paul (1 Thessalonians 5.21), the Archpriest tells us rather cheekily that one must taste things in order...