Editor’s Note

Abstract

7 Editor’s Note Bruce R. Burningham W e have now fully entered the season of Cervantine commemorations , a season that initially began in 2005 with the 400th anniversary of the publication of part one of Don Quixote. Now, well into 2013, we take note of the fourth centennial of the publication of the Novelas ejemplares. Two years from now, in 2015, we will commemorate the 400th anniversary of the publication of the second part of Don Quixote. (Which is not to mention—at least not outside this particular set of parentheses—next year’s recognition of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda’s 1614 publication of his own preemptive and unauthorized “second part.”) Soon it will be 2016, the year we mark the fourth centennial of Cervantes’s passing, which will be followed in 2017 by the 400th anniversary of the posthumous appearance of Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. In celebration of the 400th anniversary of the Novelas ejemplares, we begin this Spring 2013 issue with two articles on the topic. Brian Brewer examines “El celoso extremeño” and argues that Cervantes’s representation of Carrizales, whose jealousy, he says, corresponds to early modern notions of commercial ethics, transcends that of the traditional “jealous husband” in order to create a more nuanced character study involving an economic discourse that links jealousy and avarice. Eduardo Olid Guerrero, for his part, examines “La española inglesa” and upacks the various ways in which Cervantes’s representation of Queen Elizabeth I reflects ongoing early modern social and political debates about Machiavelli’s Prince. Following these two articles on the Novelas ejemplares, we offer two essays involving the representation of Islam—and, in particular, the concept of taqiyya (the permissible dissimulation of Christianity by a devout Muslim)—in Cervantes’s work. Robert Stone focuses his attention on 8 Cervantes Bruce R. Burningham Don Quixote itself and argues that the novel’s Morisco episodes should be read as a subtle form of literary taqiyya. Charles Patterson, meanwhile , focuses on Los tratos de Argel and argues that the play’s romance between Aurelio and Zahara is inspired by the Genesis story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife, but only after this Biblical motif has been inflected through a series of Morisco legends. Continuing the theme of early modern Christian-Muslim geoplitical relations, Aaron Kahn revisits La conquista de Jerusalén por Godofre de Bullón (which, readers will remember, was also examined in the Fall 2012 issue by Moisés Castillo) and provides further arguments in favor of ascribing authorship of this anonymous play to Cervantes. The Spring 2013 issue’s collection of essays rounds out with two articles on government and the Panza family. Montserrat Pérez Toribio examines Teresa Panza’s administration of her household during Sancho’s absence and argues that Teresa’s theories of government are ultimately both Machiavellian and Tacitean. Ana Fernández Cebrián and Víctor Pueyo, for their part, examine the philosophical and political function of Don Quixote, and particularly its representation of Sancho, during the time of Primo de Rivera’s early twentieth-century dictatorship. Finally, we offer two book reviews. Paul Michael Johnson reviews Georgina Dopico Black and Francisco Layna Ranz’s monumental collection of essays USA Cervantes: 39 cervantistas en Estados Unidos, while Michael J. McGrath reviews Anthony J. Cascardi’s Cervantes, Literature, and the Discourse of Politics. Many thanks, as always, to our peer reviewers and Associate Editors for their invaluable contribution to the journal. And thanks again to my editorial assistants, Kelsey Kuzniewski and Esteban Touma, for all their hard work in helping me produce this issue. BRB ...