Juan Ruiz, a Spanish poet known as the Archpriest of Hita, writes a panoramic work of poetry, “The Book of Good Love,” in 1330, juxtaposing fables and scandalous parodies with moving poems to the Virgin Mary.

Employing a variety of poetic meters in his ironic, sensual, sometimes delicate, sometimes coarse treatment of love, Ruiz, as an ambivalent actor in his poem, succumbs to human temptations and never quite resolves the conflict between divine love and carnal love.