Mateo Aleman's diagnosis of humanity: Medical discourse in 'Guzman de Alfarache'

My dissertation examines how medical language provided Aleman with an extraordinary linguistic tool that made the emergence of the modern novel possible. Mateo Aleman disclosed to subsequent generations of writers, and in particular to Cervantes, the possibilities of novelistic medical discourse in the area of psychology, politics, and even religion. Through recourse to the medico-philosophical tradition of Juan Luis Vives and Huarte de San Juan, Aleman fictionalizes the intricate relationship between the soul and the body, consolidating, before the creation of don Quijote, the mental illness of a literary character as the driving force of the modern novel, and offering by extension a medical allegory of a sick society. Medical language and pathological imagery are carefully woven throughout the novel, showcasing the author's medical expertise but also serving as a preeminent vehicle for stylistic experimentation, characteriological profiling and social commentary on Spanish life under the Inquisition. In an age where medicine was the center not only of the natural sciences but of the humanities as well, Mateo Aleman has to be recognized as the first Spanish novelist fully engaged in this phenomenon. Close attention to medical discourse enables me to give a new interpretation of Guzman de Alfarache and the novelistic tradition it ushered.