Mediation and Love: A Study of the Medieval Go-Between in Key Romance and Near-Eastern Texts

This study offers a typology of the go-between across key texts from antiquity and several medieval literary traditions, analyzing the role of the third party in the poetics of love.
The work provides the indispensable context for the study of the significant transformations undergone by the go-between. Legal and scientific sources are taken into account alongside Latin, French, and English literary works and literature of the medieval Islamic period for the critique of differences and intertextual links which inform the conception of the go-between. The case of the Medieval Spanish go-between is given a special attention due to the figure's complex relationship with diverse traditions.
The range covered in the work provides a comprehensive view of the figure's trajectory and representation in each text.

Leyla Rouhi, Ph.D. (1995) in Romance Languages, Harvard University, is Assistant Professor of Spanish at Williams College. She has published on La Celestina and on Islamic influences on medieval Spanish literature.