Novelas Ejemplares Research Articles

Cervantes's novelas ejemplares: between history and creativity

Miguel de Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares , a collection of short stories in the tradition of Boccaccio, has a solid foundation in the history of Golden Age Spain. Joseph V Ricapito studies Cervantes's work from the point of view of onovelized historyo or ohistory novelizedo. In line with current New Historical thought, he argues that literary production is largely from life and experience, and that Cervantes was acutely aware of the problems of his day.The novelas offer us a glimpse of Cervantes's Spain and include a cataloguing of the social, political, and historical problems of the time. Ricapitc shows how Cervantes fictionalizes the problems of unpopular minorities like Gypsies and conversos (Jewish converts to Catholicism); the difficulties of social mobility in a Christian setting; the presence in society of differing and even outlandish individuals; and the oppressive role of honor, which was popularized by Lope de Vega and later formed a leitmotiv of Spanish drama. In his analysis of Cervantes's creative response to history, Ricapito relates the novelas to the works of Lope de Vega and Mateo Aleman and shows how Cervantes brings to life many literary topoi and places them in a realistic, credible framework in which the historical presence is strongly felt. In Cervantes's treatment of Spain's waning prestige in Europe, we see his vision of human behavior. His view is stern, his critique is sharp, and he is sensitive to external stimuli.

Cervantes' Exemplary Fictions: A Study of the 'Novelas ejemplares'

The Novelas ejemplares of Cervantes are among the undoubted masterpieces of Renaissance literature, yet their particular appeal, both for their author's contemporaries and for today's readers, has often been misunderstood. Thomas Hart, in his persuasive new analysis, argues for a fresh interpretation of Cervantes' intentions and the novellas' essential significance. In contrast to the traditional view that the Novelas are divided between realistic works and idealistic ones, Hart maintains that all of the novellas are meant to elicit admiratio - surprise or wonder. They are poised, he suggests, on the borderline between the notion that fiction should rest on a body of traditional beliefs and a fascination with actions that go counter to accepted norms. Cervantes offers his readers a world of wonders and in doing so prepares the way for the arbitrariness that marks much twentieth-century fiction. In analyzing the novellas most popular with modern and seventeenth-century readers, Hart places the Novelas in the context of their time, drawing on both Spanish literature and the literatures of France, Italy, and England. His book will appeal not only to Hispanists but to anyone with an interest in Renaissance literature.

La formación de personajes en tres novelas ejemplares: El licenciado Vidriera, El celoso extremeño y La fuerza de la sangre

This essay analyzes the structuring and delineation of characters in three of Cervantes’ Novelas ejemplares. Drawing on the work of Carlos Castilla del Pino, René Girard, Erving Goffman, and D. A. Gonthier, the author focuses on the importance of the relationship between the individual and society in the fabrication of these characters.

En torno a las antologías poéticas de La gitanilla y La ilustre fregona

La gitanilla and La ilustre fregona can be set apart from the other Novelas Ejemplares because of the high proportion of poetry they contain. This paper offers a parallel analysis of each poetic corpus, with special attention to the part played in each of these anthologies by such compositions as Preciosa's ‘good fortune’ and Carriazo's chacona, highly charged with erotic connotations.

Las brujas de Cervantes y la noción de comunidad femenina

The Novelas ejemplares present several autonomous communities or microcosms, one of which is the double —mainly female— world of witches in the Coloquio. While sorcery is a solitary art, witchcraft is a community practice, a cult. The community of witches has a double existence: it is a secret and geographically dispersed society which really only functions as a community when it comes together for the witches’ Sabbath. This countercommunity is distinguished by its feminine practices, beliefs, and relationships. In view of the limited relations between women in Cervantes’ novels, this focus on a female community is of extraordinary interest, showing an alternative society and eroticism, and the mystery of birth.

Renaissance Dialogue Into Novel: Cervantes's Coloquio

In her book on Renaissance genre theory, The Resources of Kind, Rosalie Colie observes that Renaissance is rich in uncanonical (76). In Rabelais's Gargantua and Pantagruel, as in Burton's Anatomy of Melancholy, principal kinds exploited are non-poetic: they carry an early humanist preoccupation into a later age, insisting on elevating to belletristic status kinds which had slipped below the level of artistic attention. In the literature of the late Renaissance there are many examples of such elevation (82). One example that Colie might have cited is El coloquio de los perros. Cervantes's novel in dialogue form is one of the many indications that Marcel Bataillon was right in asserting that La obra de Cervantes es la de un hombre que permanece, hasta lo uitimo, fiel a ideas de su juventud, a habitos de pensamiento que la epoca de Felipe II habia recibido de la del Emperador (Erasmo y Esparia 2: 401). For a modern reader the title Coloquio de los perros is likely to recall Erasmus's Colloquia, as the momentary doubt over whether the de in the title is to be taken as subjective or objective genitive recalls his Moriae Encomium or its alternative title Laus stultitiae. The Moria, as Erasmus usually called it, is an oration on the subject of folly delivered by Folly herself; the participants in Cervantes's Coloquio are dogs and its subject-one of its many subjects-is a dog's life in a world controlled by men. The first readers of the Novelas ejemplares, however, were probably less inclined to associate Cervantes's title with Erasmus. In 1613, when the Novelas ejemplares were first published, many of Erasmus's works had been for more

To Read the Bride: Elision and Silence in Cervantes' "The Jealous Extremaduran"

elas in Spanish for, he asserts, his predecessors took their material from existing works in other languages. These two statements are significant since they constitute both a reading guide and a cautionary word. To take up the matter of the table of tricks first, it should be noted that, in its earliest meaning it refers to a sort of billiards table.2 The implications of this characterization are twofold: on the one hand, to fulfill its function, a table of tricks necessitates one or more players; on the other, according to how the game is played one may, alternatively, either win or lose. Cervantes thus engages his player/reader directly: it is the manner in which the playing/reading is conducted that determines its eventual outcome. The reader, thus inscribed in the text, should proceed carefully and resist the temptation to assimilate the novelas into earlier literary traditions, bearing in mind Cervantes' claim to originality. The reading guide and the cautionary word included in the Prologue are particularly important for the reading of El celoso extremeflo. It should be pointed out at the outset that this novela has been, and still is, among the most studied of the Novelas ejemplares.3 It is, indeed, a fascinating, habit-forming text; it plays with the reader, and it is this inscribed playfulness that begs to be decoded.

The Calculating Woman in Cervantes’La fuerza de la sangre

The Calculating Woman in Cervantes’<i>La fuerza de la sangre</i>

Spanish Literature, 1500-1700: A Bibliography of Golden Age Studies in Spanish and English, 1925-1980 (review)

258BCom, Vol. 38, No. 2 (Winter 1 986) how Juan de Horozco's career problems were due solely to his converso background. In another context the 26 questions and the witnesses' answers pertaining to Horozco's eligibility to the See of Agregento would make fascinating reading. It would be hard not to see this book as a disappointment to its potential readers. Those who are still looking for thematic studies will find instead lengthy synopses of plays supported by overly frequent footnotes and followed by a surprisingly summary conclusion. For those seeking pointers for their own further research, the bibliographic references are not always apposite to the text (cf. p. 69, notes 2 & 3) or are absent, as in the case of the provenance of documents transcribed in chapter 7. Other references are given by name of author and page number in the body of the text, a practice that can only be justified when the reader can easily trace the full reference. In this respect, they would also keenly regret the absence of any bibliography either at the end of each chapter or at the end of the book. In this collection of essays, Dr. Weiner has offered us a great deal of information which, if developed, would have been put to better purpose in separate articles. Louise Fothergill-Payne University of Calgary Moseley, William W., Glenroy Emmons, and Marilyn Emmons, comps. Spanish Literature, 1500-1700: A Bibliography of Golden Age Studies in Spanish and English, 1925-1980. Westport, CT. and London, England: Greenwood Press, 1984. $75. The present volume is intended as a research tool «for the generalist and the advanced student rather than the specialist» (p. ix) . While the first two intended users will find this bibliography helpful in beginning their background research, the specialist will also find it useful, though l'mited. The reason for including only material published or translated into English or Spanish is that these two languages will be ordinarily the languages of the intended users. Therefore, the specialist or student conversant with German, French, Italian, etc., would be well advised to continue careful perusal of the PMLA's Annual Bibliography. Moreover , the bibliography does not include material on La Celestina, work Reviews259 primarily in the area of New World interest, nor editions of works. Though space limitations are a major concern for the editors, the omission of critical and scholarly editions is surely a regrettable decision, especially in view of the fact that their introductions normally provide the generalist and student an excellent framework from which to begin their own critical work. The Bibliography is organized in the following major sections: General ; General Bibliography; Drama; Picaresque; Poetry; Prose; Romancero ; and Individual Authors and Anonymous Works. This last category comprises three-fifths of the entries. The volume concludes with an Author Index (of scholarly contributors); a Subject Index; and an Index of Individual Authors and Anonymous Works. Those familiar with W.T. McCready's Bibliografía temática de estudios sobre el teatro español antiguo will find this present bibliography a useful update. It also approximates McCready's organizational model. The section on individual authors and anonymous works is further subdivided alphabetically by critical contributor. In this manner one has ready access to what individuals have written on Spanish authors of interest. The starting date for this publication, 1925, though arbitrary, is not without significance, since it marks the publication of Americo Castro's El pensamiento de Cervantes, and what the editors consider «a new approach to the problem of the Renaissance in Spain» (p. ix). No closing date could ever be satisfactory or conclusive, and therefore we look forward to periodic updates of this reference tool. Pressed within the fiftyfive years covered here one finds much of what constitutes and defines modern Hispanism's réévaluation of the Baroque and Golden Age. Though I have not used the bibliography in a theater course, I did find it useful in a course on the Quijote and the Novelas ejemplares. But here once again the limitations of its organizational format become clear. While the cervantista could mine the almost twenty-one-hundred items with interest and profit, the student gets easily lost in the myriad...

Cervantes and the Mystery of Lawlessness: A Study of "El casamiento enganoso y El coloquio de los perros" (review)

Reviews261 at the circumstances that favor the formation of classes, that make possible domination and exploitation — those circumstances that in some way block the mediating effect of the Symbolic order" (p. 136). While it seems a rather poor choice of words to talk of a "morality of the Symbolic" (p. 137), Racevskis finds Foucault's achievements at their most positive in his "desire to make manifest the unlimited human potential for creating meaning" (p. 138). Consequently, he avoids "the pretentiousness of any attempt at encapsulating his thought" (p. 15). Racevskis's discourse affects modesty. When he discusses critical reactions to Foucault's work, he values them in similar terms: "To put it simply, the discourse of Foucault is devoid of the pretentiousness of Baudrillard's critique" (p. 163). Yet, this is not an accurate representation of Foucault's extremely rich prose. This prose is furthermore presented in a virtual historical vacuum. To find Foucault's discourse "positive" and "liberating," a more systematic exploration is needed of Foucault's debt, debates with the Annales school, Althusser, and Derrida, and of shifts in Lacan's own discourse. Without succumbing to any biographical fallacy, which Racevskis rightly strives to avoid, Foucault's own intellectual strategy requires more attention to the circumstances which made his project possible. University of Maine at OronoDona M. Kercher Cervantes and the Mystery ofLawlessness: A Study of "El casamiento engañosoy El coloquio de los perros, "by Alan K. Forcione; 243 pp. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1984, $35.00. With Cervantes and the Mystery of Lawlessness, Professor Forcione adds another important study to his three previous books on Cervantes and the Novelas ejemplares. As the full title of his book suggests, Forcione's intent is to analyze lawlessness as it permeates the two elusive tales that close the Novelas. What he does is, in fact, far more wide ranging. In the first chapter Forcione analyzes the techniques that Cervantes employs both to create an overwhelming vision of universal disorder and to give this vision coherence. Cervantes, Forcione writes, provides "a grammar of narrative disorder" (p. 72) achieved through a hybridization of various genres. This mixture is rendered even more complex by the superimposition of at least two narrative planes, and through seemingly irrelevant and lengthy digressions, dislocation of narrative movement, the dismemberment of coherent form, and "promises" of upcoming resolutions that result in recurrent vanishing climaxes. The second chapter probes the pivotal episode in the Coloquio, the depiction of Cañizares and the mysterious world of witches which offers "an epiphanic vision 262Philosophy and Literature of evil" (p. 61). Forcione discusses at length Cervantes's exploration of evil against the background of the orthodox Christian vision of the forces of darkness. The final chapter in the first part is devoted to demonstrating that the seemingly aimless sequence of unraveling narrative indeed has a pattern and that "to a great extent the coherence of the work lies in its pervasive amplification of its central discontinuities, in its very incoherence" (p. 101). Forcione builds upon the works of other Cervantistas (Belie, Molho, El Saffar) who have already established that El coloquio de los perros is far more coherent than previously recognized. Forcione argues that what binds the narrative together, besides a pervasive atmosphere of lawlessness and evil, is a cumulative and unsettling effect of destructiveness and disintegration which is created by a constant movement from order to disorder. There are, furthermore, reiterated visions of disease, physical infirmity, decrepitude, and death. Building upon the central image of the octopus, Cervantes depicts man everywhere as enslaved by his bestial nature. Profanations of the sacred pervade the entire work and reach their apogee during the "Cañizares orgiastic banquet at the witches' sabbath [which] takes the shape of a communion of demons and a desecration of the Lord's Supper " (p. 117). Part Two ("The Awakening at the End of the Night") examines "the positive counterweights which Coloquio does develop and which indicate that even in his darkest work Cervantes does not abandon the faith that his epic heroine Auristela affirms" (p. 134). "The awakening and the promise of a new life" (p. 127) that Forcione discovers is reduced to three events. He interprets...

La gitanilla

La gitanilla is the first of the twelve Novelas ejemplares. This article fathoms some of the reasons that might have decided Cervantes to give it the place of honor in such an extraordinary collection of short stories.

Narrative ‘errors’ inRinconete y Cortadillo

Narrative ‘errors’ in<i>Rinconete y Cortadillo</i>

Cervantes' Rinconete y Cortadillo and the Imposition of Form: Part of the Story

CERVANTES' RINCONETE Y CORTADILLO AND THE IMPOSITION OF FORM: PART OF THE STORY by Edward H. Friedman* In Don Quijote and the Novelas ejemplares, Cervantes accentuates the distinction between art and nature, causing the reader to make himself aware of literary conventions. So-called reality becomes a backdrop and a basis for comparison. In the Quijote, prologues and chapter divisions, the competence of the narrator (and behind him the author), fictional time ("real" and psychological ), ordering of events, and other aspects of the art of writing a novel—seen as playing off of each other complexly and infinitely —unite the process of artistic creation with the creation itself. The Novelas ejemplares may be seen as variations on the theme of tension between internal and external points of reference. Rinconete y Cortadillo, for example, explores a historical milieu and the intratextual realm of the picaresque novel, but its essence lies in neither extreme. Rinconete y Cortadillo is not Cervantes' attempt to create picaresque fiction, but rather a work which presents and then nullifies picaresque and idealistic conventions in order to define a new form of fiction. The critic may impose a form on the work, but there is always a part of the structure which resists form, which seems to defy classification. The literary text serves a multiperspectivist cause, and the diversity of viewpoints offers an equilibrium of sorts. Ultimately, however, the critical response must reflect not only the rules of order which the author imposes upon himself, but the inventive violation of these rules. Literature is an imaginative representation of man, the universe , and man's relationship with man and the universe. The creator of literature may represent the universe as unified or chaotic , and formal and linguistic elements of the literary work may correspond to this unity or chaos. Literature is a paradoxical art by virtue of an implicit indirectness, detachment and dissimilarity from that which it describes. Literature provides a model for viewing existence, a model which is at least one step removed from reality and yet which endeavors to make a statement about reality through conventions particular to verbal communication. Whether one describes a literary work in terms of an open or closed structure , whether his view is that of literature as containing the key to existence, as part of a process, as self-perpetuating, or as selfdestructive , the individual work forms some type of analogue which is both imitative and original. The analogue may be an •EDWARD FRIEDMAN is an associate professor of Spanish at Arizona State University . His research areas include Golden Age narrative and the comedia. ROCKY MOUNTAIN REVIEW205 Edward H. Friedman attempt to approximate reality (a direct analogue) or an attempt at antithesis (a reverse or ironic analogue). Imitation is, then, always incomplete, always a point of departure only. Literature's tendency to use itself as a mediating factor allows for increased flexibility on the part of the author and the theorist. Literature provides a narrative voice, a narrative stance, and a narrative concept which, much like historiography, works at ordering events or establishing a pattern of disorder. The historian is free to create a system; the writer of fiction is free to create a world. Pedro Salinas' treatment of Luis de Góngora in Reality and the Poet in Spanish Poetry elaborates the uniqueness and the autonomy of the creator of literature: the attempt to reproduce reality must necessarily fall short of that which exists in reality, so one must work to surpass reality on his home ground, by creating a complete analogue with the resources at his disposal. In Salinas' terms, "Telling and describing what one sees is not poetry. What must be done to convert it into poetry? Raise it, intensify its characteristics to an extreme degree, elevate it above its natural forms and extract from the latter all their esthetic content by means of the imagination and fantasy. Reality must be transformed, transmuted into another kind of poetic reality, material, sonorous, plastic, but not idealized; the artist must operate on it with the magic power of word, metaphor , image."1 Cervantes' artistic production stems from the same type of confidence in the literary endeavor, in authorial power. The goal...

Cervantes' "Rinconete y Cortadillo" and the Imposition of Form: Part of the Story

In Don Quijote and the Novelas ejemplares, Cervantes accentuates the distinction between art and nature, causing the reader to make himself aware of literary conventions. So-called reality becomes a backdrop and a basis for comparison. In the Quijote, prologues and chapter divisions, the competence of the narrator (and behind him the author), fictional time (real and psychological), ordering of events, and other aspects of the art of writing a novel-seen as playing off of each other complexly and infinitely-unite the process of artistic creation with the creation itself. The Novelas ejemplares may be seen as variations on the theme of tension between internal and external points of reference. Rinconete y Cortadillo, for example, explores a historical milieu and the intratextual realm of the picaresque novel, but its essence lies in neither extreme. Rinconete y Cortadillo is not Cervantes' attempt to create picaresque fiction, but rather a work which presents and then nullifies picaresque and idealistic conventions in order to define a new form of fiction. The critic may impose a form on the work, but there is always a part of the structure which resists form, which seems to defy classification. The literary text serves a multiperspectivist cause, and the diversity of viewpoints offers an equilibrium of sorts. Ultimately, however, the critical response must reflect not only the rules of order which the author imposes upon himself, but the inventive violation of these rules. Literature is an imaginative representation of man, the universe, and man's relationship with man and the universe. The creator of literature may represent the universe as unified or chaotic, and formal and linguistic elements of the literary work may correspond to this unity or chaos. Literature is a paradoxical art by virtue of an implicit indirectness, detachment and dissimilarity from that which it describes. Literature provides a model for viewing existence, a model which is at least one step removed from reality and yet which endeavors to make a statement about reality through conventions particular to verbal communication. Whether one describes a literary work in terms of an open or closed structure, whether his view is that of literature as containing the key to existence, as part of a process, as self-perpetuating, or as selfdestructive, the individual work forms some type of analogue which is both imitative and original. The analogue may be an

María de Zayas y Sotomayor and her "novela cortesana:" a re-evaluation

The short story, or novela cortesana,1 had a wide and rapid diffusion after the initial impetus of the publication of the Novelas ejemplares of Cervantes in 1613. Yet the splendour of the Golden-Ag...

La gitanilla: a tale of high romance

<i>La gitanilla</i>: a tale of high romance

Novel to Romance: A Study of Cervantes's "Novelas Ejemplares"

Novel to Romance: A Study of Cervantes's "Novelas Ejemplares"

A Suggested Automated Branch Program for Foreign Languages

called Historia de Argel. I had never heard of it, had I? It told of Cervantes' dealings with an emissary of the Spanish inquisition. And he would have things to say about Cervantes' marriage to that poor woman in Esquivias on whom he had played such nasty tricks. Spaniards did not like to touch upon these matters. Aquilino smiled when asked whether he enjoyed muck-raking. He was of the opinion that the great writers should be placed on the dissecting table . . . The book in question, No cavalo de pau comn Sancho Panga, appeared a few days later. It showed clearly that Aquilino was not animated by any mean desire to diminish great men. It was a long essay, picturing Cervantes as an unhappy, excommunicated rebel, shadowed by the Inquisition. Aquilino wrote it from a full and grateful heart, after having translated the Novelas ejemplares and the Quijote into racy Portu-

El casamiento engañoso y el coloquio de los perros

The wide variety of story in the Novelas ejemplares suggests that Cervantes was experimenting in the techniques of story-telling and this notion is supported by the many attempts which critics have made to classify these novels. It seems to me that in the Casamiento enganoso y coloquio de los perros Cervantes was experimenting with telling a tale according to rhetorical prescriptions well known to any schoolboy who had undergone a formal training in grammar. Many writers have pointed out the banality of the Casamiento enganoso, and they were right to do so. Both in plot and moral teaching ′′it is commonplace, and the cliches of the biter bit are rubbed home so clumsily as to be an insult to the reader intelligence. But if the story is looked upon as the inductio to the Coloquio erision is replaced by amazement.

EL CASAMIENTO ENGAÑOSO Y EL COLOQUIO DE LOS PERROS

The wide variety of story in the Novelas ejemplares suggests that Cervantes was experimenting in the techniques of story-telling and this notion is supported by the many attempts which critics have made to classify these novels. It seems to me that in the Casamiento engañoso y coloquio de los perros Cervantes was experimenting with telling a tale according to rhetorical prescriptions well known to any schoolboy who had undergone a formal training in grammar. Many writers have pointed out the banality of the Casamiento engañoso, and they were right to do so. Both in plot and moral teaching ′′it is commonplace, and the clichés of the biter bit are rubbed home so clumsily as to be an insult to the reader intelligence. But if the story is looked upon as the inductio to the Coloquio erision is replaced by amazement.