SOURCE: Murray, James C. “Nature: A Measure of Conduct in the Libro de buen amor.” Kentucky Romance Quarterly 21, no. 1 (1974): 3-13.

In the following essay, Murray considers the implications of the term “measure” with respect to personal conduct in The Book of Good Love.

Critical studies of the Libro de buen amor¹ have pointed out that Juan Ruiz shows a preoccupation with measure in his description of the god of love, Don Amor, and in the planctus or invective against the death of Trotaconventos, the Archpriest's go-between.² But while studies of mesura have been limited to such isolated passages, the reader of the Libro notices that Juan Ruiz has scattered the concept of mesura throughout other passages just as he has done with other key concepts, e.g., buen amor, cordura and locura. In the present study I demonstrate that the author elaborates the theme that nature is a...