El discurso humanista de educación masculína: Formas de autocontrol en El scholástico de Cristóbal de Villalón

Abstract

In his work El scholástico Cristóbal de Villalón proposes the construction of a new model of a citizen able to fulfill the demands of the centralized State in the political frame of the Spanish Empire. In this literary text the author echoes the struggles of the humanists who linked up with an emerging bourgeoisie in an attempt to impose new forms of thinking and behavior in order to give rise to an autonomous male subject of civility. Through the creation of an ideology of male conduct based mainly on the principle of self-control, the author deviates from Castiglion's Il cortesano, which is more concerned with defending a specific aristocratic lifestyle. At the same time the ideology emanates from El scholástico denotes the crisis of male identity suffered by the members of the bourgeoisie, who were obliged to negotiate a position of authority in a society still dominated by the Church and the Nobility. It is the work's humanist orientation that is responsible for offering to the male citizen a model of self-fashioning that promulgates control over their own bodies and discourses. It is not surprising that this ideology of control matches the political agenda of the new centralized State perfectly.