El gobierno del cuerpo: Baltasar del Alcázar y los reímenes sanitarios del Renacimiento

Identified as a carnavalesque space for the subversion of social codes and for the projection of personal anxieties, Baltasar del Alcazar's (1530-1606) joyous poetry is built at the margins of authorized medical discourses. Colloquial in verse and tone, the poem Cena jocosa contests corrective and disciplinarian advice contained in its contemporary health guides, proposing a carefree enjoyment of the table. This happens at a time in the history of medicine when dietary choices were endowed with a profound ethical sense, and also at a time in the history of the Spanish empire when the bodily government announced models for state administration and patterns for rhetorical assimilation. This article explores the poem Cena jocosa in light of the hygienic discourse of health guides and, by extension, the late medieval regimina principorum and classical symposiac literature, the two poetical traditions that nourished Renaissance health guides.