Sounds of Fury: The Aural Poetics of the Voice and Imperial Violence in Cervantes’ Mediterranean

Abstract

Focusing on his ‘Epístola a Mateo Vázquez’, this article studies how Cervantes captured through multiple poetic resources the soundscape of Mediterranean captivity and war. The epistle establishes a series of sonic archetypes that appear with striking persistence in the author’s later literary output, which signals not only the potential presence of trauma but also a nascent critique of heavy artillery. By privileging the auditory, this analysis demonstrates how Cervantes’ lyric voice summons the sonic resonances of fury as both martial and poetic power, compelling readers to contemplate the trans-Mediterranean violence that the Lepanto veteran and captive writer experienced firsthand.