Savo Publishes Book
Portraying Authorship: Juan Manuel and the Rhetoric of Authority, by Dr. Anita Savo, has just been published with the University of Toronto Press (May 2024). The book shows how the medieval Castilian writer Juan Manuel convinced readers of his role as an individual author, even though he worked in a collaborative manuscript culture.
Dr. Savo tells us:
“Combining literary analysis with book history, I reveal how Juan Manuel forged his authorial persona, “Don Juan,” by adopting various medieval writerly roles, thereby reaping the ethical benefits of each one for himself. Don Juan’s authorial self-portrait not only gave the humanist writers of the fifteenth century a model to imitate, but also contributed to a shift in how western European culture perceived authorship as an individual endeavor, a notion that persists to this day.”
Great work, Dr. Savo!