One of the most widely-read and translated Spanish works in sixteenth-century Europe was Fernando de Rojas' Celestina, a 1499 novel in dialogue about a couple that faces heartbreak and tragedy after being united by the titular brothel madam. In 'Celestina' and the Ends of Desire, E. Michael Gerli illustrates how this work straddles the medieval and the modern in its exploration of changing categories of human desire - from the European courtly love tradition to the interpretation of want as an insatiable, destructive force.

Gerli's analysis draws on a wide...