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RESEARCH PRODUCT

El mito de Icario en la General estoria de Alfonso X

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This article studies the myth of Icarus as it is translated in the first part of Alfonso X's General estoria. Its analysis highlights aspects that are usually found in the mythographical episodes of the Alfonsine estoria, particularly linked with its possible sources and its internal characteristics. The latter ones are defined by the anonymity of the quote and an evident moral intention. Regarding the sources, if it is known that the mythography gets to the Alfonsine text through two paths, the gloss in the manuscripts and a mythographical work, the exact source or sources used by Alfonsine historians are still unidentified. I have begun searching where the elements that are found in no preserved sources might come from; this leads to a second problem that appears more difficult to solve: what is the work referred to as the Libro de las generaciones de los dioses gentiles, that gives an author to a great number of mythographical fragments? Thanks to the study of the mythographical episodes of the General estoria, of which the story about Icarus constitutes a paradigmatic example, there is a vast field opened to research. The interest of these matters exceeds the study of the 13th century literature and covers also the one of the following centuries, since it preserves so many mythographical fragments, and even complete works.