>Date: Wed, 04 May 2005 16:59:14 -0500
>From: John Slater <[log in to unmask]>
>Subject: Coloquio Cervantes
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>To: "A. Robert Lauer" <[log in to unmask]>
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>
>Dear Robert, Kurt, and Contributors to the Coloquio Cervantes,
>
>I’ve greatly enjoyed the discussion thus far.  I would like to communicate my
>thanks to you all.
>
>In reading over the replies to the third and fourth asuntos críticos, I 
>thought
>of Francisco Valles de Covarrubias, protomédico to Philip II.  For Valles,
>theories of ocular physiology could be reduced to a central debate: “O bien el
>cuerpo que se ve nos envía por sí mismo algo que se introduce en la facultad
>visiva que reside en nosotros, o bien espera a que alguna fuerza sensitiva
>llegue desde nosotros” (Controversiae 48v-49f).  Accordingly, I think we might
>divide our interpretative strategies into two camps: one that focuses on the
>action of perception, the source of allegorical and psychological readings of
>the episodes; and the other that deals with the nature of the perceived 
>object,
>the quid sit of a windmill, a giant, sheep, and so on.  It strikes me that 
>these
>two interpretative strategies are not incompatible.
>
>For those interested specifically in giants, Valles’ Sacra Philosophia 
>offers an
>interesting embriological explanation of how they might be conceived by humans
>in his discussion of the building of the Tower of Babel.
>
>My thanks again to all the contributors and especially to Robert and Kurt.
>
>Sincerely,
>John Slater
>
>--
>John Slater
>Visiting Assistant Professor
>Indiana University
>Department of Spanish & Portuguese
>1020 E. Kirkwood
>Bloomington, IN 47405-7103
>(812) 855-5552