Heroic Forms: Cervantes and the Literature of War by Stephen Rupp

Abstract

Reviewed by: Heroic Forms: Cervantes and the Literature of War by Stephen Rupp Eduardo Olid Guerrero Rupp, Stephen. Heroic Forms: Cervantes and the Literature of War. Toronto: Toronto UP, 2014. Pp. 251. ISBN 978-1-4426-4912-5 Stephen Rupp informs us that Heroic Forms: Cervantes and the Literature of War centers on Cervantes’s “presentation of warfare and soldiers’ lives in a range of literary genres, both the canonical kinds explicated in Renaissance literary theory and such non-official forms as romance and picaresque fiction” (xi). In general, Rupp’s readings of Cervantes’s works demonstrate a keen eye for generic motifs, classical, Renaissance, and even contemporary intertextualities. Even though there is no rationale for the specific selection of texts and scenes, each of them is discussed at length; most often with special attention given to their relationship with the literary genres with which they have been traditionally associated. Most scholars now accept and assume Cervantes’s manipulation of a multiplicity of literary genres. Rupp challenges and also confirms this perception in relation to war and heroism, and expands his analysis to other literary influences, theories, and interpretations. He manages an interesting theoretical framework, quoting classical thinkers and contemporary theorists, and incorporating them without forcing the interpretation. However, for a book published in 2014, there is a lack of updated sources available (2009–12) on the topic. Perhaps due to the excessive focus on the position of Cervantes’s works within contemporary theory of literary genres, recent bibliography and Spanish scholarship on the topic of early modern war is not well represented (e.g., Estudios sobre cultura, guerra y política en la corona de Castilla: Siglos XIV–XVII by Fernando Castillo Cáceres, or La violencia en el mundo hispánico en el Siglo de Oro by Juan Manuel Escudero y Victoriano Roncero). Furthermore, in this monograph Rupp’s previous work comparing English and Spanish theatre, and his study on Calderón de la Barca and the anti-Machiavellian tradition, would have been useful to complete [End Page 352] his criticism. Machiavelli’s influence seems almost unavoidable not only with Il Principe, but even more with Dell’arte della guerra (1521), for it was a well-known treaty at the time (with an earlier Spanish version by Diego Salazar titled Tratado de re militari in 1536). The first chapter, titled “Warriors: Epic and Tragedy” dedicated to La Numancia, is his best. Rupp stresses that his main focus is to study how this play “combines the patterns of epic and tragedy to examine the challenges of heroic conduct in siege warfare and the instability of the rewards of fame and glory that classical epic offers to its exemplary warriors” (27). His conclusion on how this play looks for an epic catharsis in its Spanish audience by contrasting the practicality of military strategy is very convincing. Still, it would have been interesting to establish parallelism with two well-known samples: Lope de Vega’s El asalto de Mastrique (1579), and Calderón de la Barca’s El sitio de Breda (1640). Chapter 2, “Defenders: Pastoral and Satire,” examines three episodes in Don Quixote. The first one is the trip that the knight and his squire make to El Toboso looking for Dulcinea (DQ II). For Rupp, it is a good sample of Don Quixote’s concern with his legacy and his idea of reaching fame through military deeds. In the second selection that explores the attack on the sheep flocks transformed into two armies by Don Quixote, Rupp sees it as an intrusion of epic violence into pastoral peace (DQ I). Here is Rupp’s only mention of the comedian type of the miles gloriosus that arguably deserved its own subchapter in Heroic Forms. Rupp’s study of Don Quixote’s description of the two armies, with references to Ariosto’s Orlando furioso is very rewarding and insightful. The chapter ends exploring the adventure of the braying regidores and their mocking neighbors (DQ II). Once more, Rupp shows a fine eye for critical analysis when he centers his argument on the concept of casus belli, referring to Francisco de Vitoria’s On the Law of War (1539), to conclude...