MENA, Juan de. - Spanish poet, b. at Cordova in 1411, d. at Torrelaguna in 1456. He studied for some time in Rome, where he was initiated into humanistic culture; on his return to his homeland he was appointed chronicler and secretary for Latin letters by King Juan II.
He fell under the spell of Dante's Commedia, from which, as well as from the Aeneid and the Pharsalia, he drew suggestions for the allegorical poem in octaves of dodecasyllables El laberinto de Fortuna: a journey to the "great house" of the beyond, where, guided by Providence in the semblance of a beautiful woman, the poet beholds the "máquina mundana," made of wheels and circles named after the planets and populated by spirits. M. also pursues Dante's tendency to reconnect with earthly life through episodes drawn from legend or history, which constitute the artistically happiest section of the ponderous work and the first attempt at a celebration of the national story. Less valid is the unfinished rhymed sermon Coplas contra los pecados mortales; but M.'s entire oeuvre, in its vigorously personal style, is often clouded by hyperbata and exoticisms, clearing only in the zones of achieved poetry.
Bibliography3 worksedd.: El laberinto de Fortuna, with prologue and notes by J. M. Blecus (Clásicos castellanos, 118). Madrid 1943. Studies: B. Sansiventi, I p
BIBL.: edd.: El laberinto de Fortuna, with prologue and notes by J. M. Blecus (Clásicos castellanos, 118). Madrid 1943. Studies: B. Sansiventi, I primi influssi di Dante, Petrarca e Boccaccio sulla letteratura spagnola, Milan 1902, passim: R. Folché-Delboac, Etude sur le « Laberinto » de J. de M., in Rev. hisp., 9 (1902), pp. 75-138; P. Hanssen, El Arte mayor de J. de M., in Annales Univ. Chile, 68 (1906), pp. 179-200; C. R. Post, The sources of J. de M., in Rom.
rev., 3 (1912), pp. 223-79; J. M. Aguado, Heredades y casas... de J. de M., in Bol. Ac. esp., 19 (1932), p. 499 ff. and 22 (1934), p. 49 ff.; A. Valbuena Prat, Historia de la literatura española, I, Barcelona 1946, pp. 238-55.
Navarra, Enzo. “Mena, juan de.” In Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VIII, coll. 668–669. Città del Vaticano: Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952. https://azioneromana.com/article/mena-juan-de.
MLA
Navarra, Enzo. “Mena, juan de.” Enciclopedia Cattolica, vol. VIII, Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico, 1952, coll. 668–669. Azione Romana, https://azioneromana.com/article/mena-juan-de.
BibTeX
@incollection{ec8_mena_juan_de,
author = {Navarra, Enzo},
title = {Mena, juan de},
booktitle = {Enciclopedia Cattolica},
volume = {VIII},
pages = {668--669},
note = {Cited by column},
publisher = {Ente per l’Enciclopedia Cattolica e per il Libro Cattolico},
address = {Città del Vaticano},
year = {1952},
url = {https://azioneromana.com/article/mena-juan-de}
}
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