Studying the novel "Celestina" in Spanish classes at the university

Khimich Galina Aleksandrovna ORCID: 0000-0002-6896-5007 PhD in Philology Associate Professor, Department of Foreign Languages, Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, RUDN University 117198, Russia, Moscow, Miklukho-Maksaya str., 10A, Nakhimovsky Ave., 22-201 galajimich@mail.ru

Introduction

"Celestina", or the novel-drama "Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea" is one of the most interesting and, perhaps, the most controversial works of Spanish classical literature. In Spain and Latin America, it not only occupies a worthy place in any, even the shortest encyclopedia of literature and on the bookshelves of libraries, but is also studied in schools and universities, re-read, becomes the plot basis for films (the last film "Celestina" in 1996 starring Penelope Cruz) and theatrical productions.

This book continues to be re-read and studied. One of the most interesting studies of the XXI century is the work of David Felix Fernandez Diaz, who studies the "metalanguage" of the work, dialogue as a form that allows the author to reflect the social conflict of time and transformations in the society of Spain at the end of the XV century ^[1]; Monica Herrera Guevara, in an article published in the journal of the University of Mexico, explores social and economic transformations, taking place in Spain during the era of Catholic Kings and their manifestations in the novel ^[2]; Marta Lopez Izquierdo presents a modern view of the system of characters in the work ^[3].

Celestina is actively used in Spain and in teaching Spanish as a foreign language both in universities and in language schools working according to the methodology of the Cervantes Institute ^{[4, 116-119]}. Teachers of Spanish as a foreign language from Europe and Latin America are exploring various possibilities of including tragicomedy in the language teaching process. Teachers of the University of Mexico talk about the importance of studying works of classical Spanish literature in the master's degree program for training specialists in the Spanish language ^[5]. The topic of introducing a work of art into the process of teaching Spanish as a foreign language is discussed in a number of works in relation to different age groups of students ^{[6, 7]}. Jose Manuel Foncubierta from the University of Huelva, appealing to the methodology of the Cervantes Institute, suggests including a literary text in a game developed by him for the purpose of teaching the language ^[8]; Beatrice Martin Gascon from the Complutense University of Madrid focuses the attention of Spanish language teachers on films based on works of classical literature as the richest resource in the methodology of language teaching ^[9]. Colleagues from the University of Leida and Haena emphasize the importance of classical fiction in the process of teaching Spanish as a foreign language for the formation of nonverbal communication skills ^{[10, 11]}. Teachers of the University of Qatar raise the issue of cultural differences between Spain of the XV century and Muslim countries, which leads to the fact that the student "feels uncomfortable", I discuss the personal problems posed in the work ^[12].

The novel-drama is included in various textbooks for teaching Spanish as a foreign language, dedicated to the history of the country and literature (Barros Lorenzo R., Gonz?les Pino A.M., Freire Hermida M. Curso de literatura. Espa?ol lengua extranjera. – EDELSA, 2010. – 175 p.; Tamames R., Quesada S. Im?genes de Espa?a. – EDELSA, 2006. 146 p.); adapted books for reading for different levels of language proficiency with pictures and exercises (La Celestina. Fernando de Fojas. Nivel III. Colecci?n Lecturas cl?sicas graduadas. Madrid, EDELSA, 2007; La Celestina. Nivel 3 B1. AUTORES Fernando de Rojas Riducc?on lingstica, actividades y reportajes de Raquel G. Prieto. Madrid, ELI, Lecturas J?venes y Adultos, 2011) and guidelines for working in the audience and theatrical production (Soluciones a las Actividades de La Celestina Fernando de Rojas. Edici?n de Jos? Antonio Torregrosa D?az. Serie Cl?sicos hisp?nicos. - Anaya. 2015, - 18 c.).

Despite its popularity in Spain, the novel-drama "Celestina" did not receive due recognition in Russian culture and did not become the object of deep scientific study, although already in 1959 a translation of the novel into Russian by N. Farfel with a deep introductory article by E.M.Lysenko (Fernando de Rojas Celestina. Translated from Spanish by N. Farfel, - M., State Publishing House of Fiction, 1959). Probably the most famous stage production based on the novel is the play of the Sovremennik theater "Celestina" directed by N. Kolyada, with Liya Akhedzhakova in the role of Celestina herself. In recent years, the "Tragicomedy of Kalisto and Melibeya" has not become the subject of a comprehensive scientific study, despite the fact that the lifting of prohibitions on the impartial study of both religious and personal-social topics could shed light in Russian literary criticism on the deep themes of the novel-drama and open up new facets of its implicit meanings. Nevertheless, the few studies of this work in recent years affect, for the most part, not the deep problems of the work, not its socio-historical conflict, but only certain topics less important for understanding the work, such as, for example, the problem of genre ^[13], changing the foundations of private life in society ^[14], the topic of laughter in the novel, the language of the work.

The novel-drama has also not received proper recognition in teaching Spanish as a foreign language at the Russian linguistic school. Nevertheless, we believe that a work of such historical and cultural significance can and should be included in the education system of Spanish and Spanish translators, especially at the university level. 

1. In the article, we will describe approaches to working with text in Spanish classes for levels B2-C1, developed jointly by Professor Sergio Palacios (Inispania Academy of Foreign Languages, Madrid), tested at the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences of the Peoples' Friendship University of Russia and included in the textbook "Spain: History, Society, Literature" (Chemical G.A., Palacios S. Espa?a: historia, literatura, sociedad. Siglos XIII–XIX: A textbook on the Spanish language. Advanced level. M.: KDU. 2022b, 201 p.).

The theoretical basis of the research was the work of leading Spanish methodologists in the field of teaching Spanish as a foreign language, which advocates the need to introduce literary texts into the process of teaching foreign languages ^[15-18], as well as the research of Professor Sergio Palacios, in which he describes the technique of working with artistic texts at various stages of mastering Spanish as a foreign language ^[19].

Practical significance of the work: recommendations on the use of the materials of the novel "Celestina" in the process of teaching Spanish as a foreign language at a university for future translators, presented in the work, can be used in the process of teaching the specialty language, literature, culture and history of Spain, as well as intercultural communication.

 "Tragicomedy of Calisto and Melibea" from the point of view of potential interest for Spanish classes as part of the training of future translation students

The work about the tragic love of Calisto and Melibea and the procuress Celestine was first published in 1499 in the Castilian city of Burgos. Published first as a comedy, and in 1502 as a tragicomedy, the story was known as "Celestine" and until the publication of "Don Quixote" by Cervantes was the most common of all works of fiction. From 1499 to 1634, more than 100 editions in Spain are known, as well as translations of the book into French, Italian and German.

"Celestine" was published anonymously. The author of "Celestina", no doubt, does not identify himself for fear of damaging his own reputation in the era of the Inquisition, which differed from other reasons for the anonymity of earlier works of the Spanish late Middle Ages, among which one can name belonging to the epic genre and the original oral existence of the text (as, for example, in the case of "Songs about My Side") or the desire to emphasize the divine providence and the insignificance of the author's role as conveying the words of God in the human language of the works of the learned religious art "mester de cleresia". It is known about the author, Fernando de Rojas, that he was born in 1470 in the town of Puebla de Montalban near Toledo in a family of converted Jews, whose surname will later appear in the documents of the Inquisition trials in connection with accusations of secret confession of Judaism. It is the national theme of the new social order of the epoch of the end of the XV century, so emotionally close to the author, that will become the central axis of the collision of the work. In 1492, in an effort to unite Spain not only on a territorial, but also on a religious principle, Catholic kings Isabella and Ferdinand expelled Jews from the country. Only those who convert to Christianity are allowed to stay, but a huge number of families, having made a public appeal, continue to profess Judaism in secret, which causes a large number of Inquisition courts, the division of the nation into "old" and "new" (converts) Christians and the increasing persecution of Jews remaining in Spain in the XVI century.. Fernando de Rojas receives an excellent education at the oldest in Spain and perhaps the best in his time University of Salamanca, and a bachelor's degree in law, then he moves to the province of Avila, the town of Talavera de la Reina, where he reaches the post of mayor of the city. Such a brilliant life trajectory and career of a native of a family of newly converted Jews, without a doubt, could have been tarnished by writing a work so realistic for its time, raising a lot of social problems, containing deep criticism of the existing social structure.

The system of images of the work is built in the spirit of the era – "Celestine" refers to the period of Pre-birth: it seems to be constructed according to geometrically verified lines and has clarity and parallelism, which makes the plot understandable and easy to read. Each hero has his own "couple" or his antipode, and at all levels of social structure: "gentlemen are servants", "young people are elderly", "men are their pairs of women". Only one Celestine does not have a pair for any of these reasons, she is the center and the reason, the focus of the work, the "hero of her time".

The plot of the work, at first glance, is similar to "Romeo and Juliet", but a detailed study of it shows that the love conflict is just one, and not the most important, theme of the work. Plot construction indicates that it is much more interesting for the author:

• topical topics of a social nature raised in the work: the coexistence within one society of the "high" morality of the nobility and the power of money, the thirst for profit and the "low" morality of the lower classes; the problem of honor and nobility of the lords and the venality of servants; the problem of envy and betrayal for the sake of profit;
• eternal themes: misunderstanding of children and parents; true love and death; fate and deed, suicide.

There are three main reasons why the work "Celestine" remained outside the framework of teaching Spanish as a foreign language in the Soviet linguistic school:

• when divided into "bad" and "good" in the Soviet tradition, the rich and noble turned out to be bad, and the poor and rootless turned out to be good. In this work, this picture is reversed and it is the nobility here that is endowed with all the positive qualities: honor, loyalty in love, valor and nobility, while the servants are envious, greedy and corrupt.
• The end of the Middle Ages and the beginning of the Renaissance determined the free introduction into the work of previously forbidden topics concerning personal, including sexual relations of the heroes of the tragicomedy, perhaps too frank for a detailed reading of this work in the audience.
• The topics raised in the work are still so acute that many teachers prefer not to raise them in the classroom: the topic of mutual understanding between children and parents, the topic of suicide.

Also, the main historical conflict of the work, which is hidden between the lines and "not readable" in the work without additional analysis of the text, was not clarified for all readers. We are talking about the main historical conflict of the work, about the most important and simple question, which, for some unknown reason, is usually not asked: Calisto and Melibea are in love with each other, both of them come from wealthy families, between whom there is no enmity, as between Montague and Capulet, Calisto is honest and noble, so why he does not propose marriage to his beloved, why do they meet in secret? The answer to this question lies in the plane of history and linguistics. Melibea is not a traditional Spanish name, this name was supposed to give Fernando de Rojas's contemporaries the origin of the girl: she is from a family of wealthy converted Jews. We find proof of the family's solvency in the monologue of Melibeya Pleberia's father after the death of his daughter, who threw herself from the castle tower: "For whom did I erect towers? Won a good reputation? Planted trees? Built ships?". It can be assumed that Melibeya's father was rich and, perhaps, in the era of discoveries, was engaged either in shipbuilding or equipped expeditions.  But if the Calisto family belonged to the "old" Christians, then Melibei – to the converts, at the time of writing "Celestina" they were not trusted in society, and later they will be prosecuted by the Inquisition court.  But what the author's contemporaries easily understood in the XXI century requires additional explanation.   Thus, the author's personal theme sounds in the work: Jewish converts in Spanish society at the end of the XV century.

A brief analysis of the novel "Celestina" shows that its study in the classroom of Spanish as a foreign language at the university when working with future translators has the following undeniable advantages:

1. Acquaintance with the classic work of Spanish literature, which makes up its golden fund, the cultural code of the nation, widely known in Spain and Latin America, proper names from which have become common names.

2. Since the work was written during one of the most important, most intense and difficult to interpret and understand historical periods of the history of Spain – the reign of Catholic Kings, the collection of lands and the creation of a centralized state of Spain, the end of the Reconquista, the great geographical discoveries and the redistribution of the world between Spain and Porugalia with the help of the Treaty of Tordesillas, on the one hand, and the introduction of the Inquisition and the mass expulsion of Jews and Muslims from the Iberian Peninsula, the events described by Fernando de Rojas, are of interest to future translators in order to understand the processes that took place in society at the end of the XV - beginning of the XVI centuries, can serve as an illustration, a personal look at the events from the inside, which is always valuable in order to avoid a one-sided perception of history.

3. Topics covered in the work: life, love and death, the relationship of children and parents, fate and deed, greed. Venality, cunning and nobility are of interest to a foreign language teacher in order to train spontaneous dialogic speech, express their own point of view in a group, and can also serve as topics for writing essays, essays, letters to a friend. Comparison with the well-known work "Romeo and Juliet" by W. Shakespeare brings additional opportunities to the organization of dialogue in Spanish, gives the opportunity to develop speaking skills.

4. Development of linguistic and lexico-grammatical competencies and increase of vocabulary.

5. Stylistic diversity (the work presents both the speech of the nobility of the era and the servants) and the combination of dialogues and analytical monologues allows you to work on the stylistics of the text and improve reading skills, both translated and fluent.

The study of the novel-drama "Celestina" in the classroom of Spanish as a foreign language at the university as part of the training of future translation students

As we have already noted in the Introduction, the novel-drama "Celestina" is widely used by Spanish methodologists in the process of teaching Spanish as a foreign language. Nevertheless, we believe that in the Russian linguistic school of teaching foreign languages at the university, the approach proposed by colleagues from Spain is not effective and requires significant processing. This fact is due to the fact that modern methods of teaching Spanish in Spain are designed to teach the language to the widest audience, including within the framework of "idiomatic tourism" ^{[20, 1387-1388]}. Since teaching Spanish in Spain has gone beyond the university environment and is aimed at any interested person of any age and social group, colleagues from Europe do not always have the task of forming competent specialists of a high professional level in the field of both language and culture, national identity, translation, which in the case of university education in Russia is a priority. This explains the difference in methodological approaches: if in Spain the emphasis is on getting students interested and briefly acquainted with the work ^{[21, 60; 1, 130-131]}, in the case of the Russian linguistic school, the priority is a deep study of the work in connection with historical and social processes, which leads to an awareness of the roots of the identity of the nation, the analysis of the national character and the cultural and historical context of the epoch - all this allows for full–fledged intercultural communication, professional dialogue and competent translation.

 The practice of introducing a literary text into the process of teaching Spanish as a foreign language at a university for students studying under the Translator program has shown that an artistic text of any historical epoch should be used in the process of teaching foreign languages not only as a linguistic model for imitation, but also as a source of knowledge of the epoch, the key to understanding historical and social processes, cultures and worldviews. When introducing a literary text into the process of teaching translation students, especially non-philological specialties, we apply the following basic principles of work ^{[22, 982-983]}:

1. Contextualization of a literary text: the study of historical, social, economic, geopolitical and cultural contexts of the epoch.

2. Selection of semantically completed fragments for reading.

3. Development of "keys" for text perception.  It is important that classes turn into an independent search, in which textbook assignments are directed, and the teacher encourages learning. We consider this attitude to the subject to be the main factor that allows students to successfully master the course.

4. Compilation of heterogeneous tasks that arouse the interest of students, not repeated from class to class, for the formation of various skills.

Work with the text of the work "Celestine" can be divided into the following stages of work:

1. Acquaintance with the history of the period of the end of the XV century.
2. Viewing home reading, discussion and retelling of the text about the historical, cultural and social context of the epoch in the classroom.
3. Analytical oral tasks, including generalization and verification of assimilation of historical material.
4. Reading and working with the text of excerpts of the novel "Celestine".
5.  Analytical oral and written tasks after reading the work, training speaking and writing, as well as systematizing the acquired knowledge through creative search.

Special attention should be paid to acquaintance with the history of the period of the end of the XV century. The most important topics here are: the political union of Castile and Aragon and the history of the unification of lands on the peninsula by Catholic kings, the conquest of Granada and the completion of the eight-century reconquista, within the framework of the policy of a single state, the creation of the first grammar of the Spanish language by Antonio Nebrija, the expulsion of Muslims and Jews and the introduction of the Inquisition, within the framework of the policy of expansion of the state, the equipment of the Columbus expedition, the discovery of America and the signing of the The Treaty of Tordesillas, in culture and mentality – the transition from the Middle Ages to the Renaissance.

Reading and working with the text involves a careful preliminary selection of fragments from the text of the novel for translated reading: dialogues of the main actors of the tragicomedy, representing different social groups: scene 1 of Act 1, in which Calisto announces his love to Melibei; a conversation between Calisto and his servant Sempronio (scene 4 of act 1), in which the servant advises to resort at the services of Celestine's pimp; the scene of Celestine's murder by servants and their women because of a dispute over the division of profit (scene 10 act 12); an episode of a secret meeting between Calisto and Melibea and the tragic death of a young man (scene 3 - 5, act 19) and a monologue–the crying of Pleberius after the suicide of his daughter Melibea (act 21). These scenes not only reflect the difference between dialogic and monologue speech, not only show the main events of the plot, but also allow a deeper understanding of the motives of actions and the difference in behavior of different characters as representatives of social groups of their time. The selected fragments can be used, depending on the interest and preparation of the group, to train translation techniques, reading with elements of lexico-grammatical and syntactic analysis, as well as for the practice of cursory reading in order to retell or answer the teacher's questions.

Exercises after reading the work are aimed at developing oral speech skills with an element of analysis. The tasks of this stage can be divided into several blocks:

1. Work on the image system. Since the work of the Pre-Romanticism era is built with "geometric precision", we suggest that students fill out the plates by finding a pair for each of the characters, for example, Calisto and Melibea, Pleberius and Alice, etc. Also group the characters into categories: young and old, seniors and servants, write adjectives characterizing each of the groups. This systematization will allow you to ask questions for a general discussion: "Why does Celestina not belong to any of the groups and does not have a pair?", "What is the author's goal in building such a geometrically verified system of characters", "What, in your opinion, can the phrase "to be celestina" mean in modern Spanish?".
2. Discussion of the main themes of the work. One of the homework assignments may be a proposal to write a list of the main topics of the work, in order to voice and explain your choice in class and present the author's point of view on each of the issues raised.
3. Explanation of the tragic ending of the work, comparison of the tragicomedy with the work of W. Shakespeare "Romeo and Juliet". Students are invited to read two opinions of Spanish critics about the tragic finale of the work "Celestina" and write an essay explaining their position in order to read it in class and argue their point of view. The second task of this block may be a comparative analysis of the main themes of two works ("Celestine" and "Romeo and Juliet"), in which, without a doubt, the range of issues of "Celestine" will be much more impressive.
4. The final stage of mastering the work and its historical context can be a detailed analysis of the social and historical-political context of the work prepared at home or in class, an explanation of the theory of the Jewish origin of Melibei as a key to understanding the deep historical meaning of the work and writing a letter or an oral story to a friend from Spain on the topic "I recently read Celestine, incredibly, how much I've learned about the era."

Conclusion

Thus, we come to the following conclusions. The work "Celestina", published in 1499 by Fernando de Rojas, so limited to the present day in the process of teaching Spanish in the Russian linguistic school, is a unique and interesting material for the development and understanding of historical and social processes that took place in Spain during one of the most significant periods of its history: the era of unification of lands, world discoveries and the end of the reconquista.

The technique of working with the work in the classroom, based on the principles of contextualization, careful selection of passages for translation, the development of "keys" for independent search of students and the compilation of heterogeneous tasks, arouses the interest of students and contributes to the achievement of the objectives of the lesson: the development of reading, writing and speaking, as well as historical, cultural and literary competencies in the study of Spanish as foreign.

The combination of historical, social and literary aspects in the study of a classical work of art in the process of teaching a foreign language gives positive results. Students not only gain new knowledge and broaden their horizons, but also train various types of activities, translation and viewing reading, speaking with elements of analysis, participate in debates on social and political topics.

Prospects for further research: it is planned that this work will be another step in the comprehensive analysis and writing of methodological developments of classes in the entire course "Spain: history, society, literature" from the XIII to the XX century, the practical application of which in the classroom by Spanish language teachers will make it easy and effective to work with both historical material and artistic texts from various eras at advanced levels.