Abstract

The paper focuses on the use of proper names in the fifteenth-century anonymous Catalan novel "Curial e Güelfa", the identity of whose author has recently been questioned with new hypotheses. More specifically, the paper analyses some functions of the proper names in the direct speeches of the novel. The presence or absence of courtesy epithets together with the proper names are readable as guides for understanding each character's approach to her/his interlocutor (the use of the mere proper name, for instance, often recurs in expressions of anger or contempt). The narrator sometimes displays deliberately the strategy of "retardatio nominis", according to which a new character is not called by name by her/his interlocutor until the name is 'unveiled' by the narrator himself. The use of proper names in the 'duel' and 'love scenes' is also discussed.