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Shaping Experience: Narrative Strategies in Cervantes

Author(s): Peter N. Dunn


Reviewed work(s):
Source: MLN, Vol. 109, No. 2, Hispanic Issue (Mar., 1994), pp. 186-203
Published by: The Johns Hopkins University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/2904775 .
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ShapingExperience:Narrative
in Cervantes
Strategies
PeterN. Dunn

I
One of the most influentialbooks to appear in our time on the
historyof the novel is TheRiseoftheNovelby Ian Watt.1Watt'sbook
placed that rise in the land of Defoe and Fielding; consequently,
since 1957 hispanistshave been raisingtheirvoices, more in anger
than in sorrow. More recently,historiansof literatureas well as
novelistshave increasinglycome to agree withthe protesters.2So we
hispanistscan now look back with satisfaction,knowing that the
abducted infantgenre, the novel, has finallybeen restored to its
rightfulparent, like the heroines of La gitanillaand of La ilustre
fregona.Our storyhas a happyending,as all such storiesshould. Our
champions have returnedwiththe prize,and the prize is the bright,
shiningclich6 whichsaysthatCervantesis the fatherof the modern
novel. Afterso happy and so providentiala conclusion, it would
surelybe unmannerlynot to bask in the steadyglow of thatcliche.
Even so, some scholars,have puzzled and debated over its authenticity:is Don Quixotereallya novel?What should be the appropriate
generic description,not only of Don Quixote,but of all the various
prose worksof Cervantes?Should theybe classifiedas novel or as
romance?
1 Ian Watt, TheRise theNovel(London: Chatto and Windus, 1957).
of
The tide turned with David Grossvogel, The Limitsof theNovel, (Ithaca, NY:
Cornell UP, 1968); Robert Alter, Partial Magic The Novel as a SelfconsciousGenre
(Berkeley: California UP, 1978); Walter L. Reed, An Exemplary
Historyof theNovel
(Chicago: Chicago UP, 1981).
2

Press
MLN 109 (1994): 186-203? 1994 byThe JohnsHopkins University

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187

as
It is generallyrecognized that several of the Novelasexemplares
well as the Trabajosde Persilesy Sigismundaare composed in the
traditionof romance. So how do we explain the factthatthe "father
of the novel",who wrotethe supreme parodyof romance, persisted
in writingromances? There have been various attemptsto answer
this question during our century.In the early decades, scholars
could confidentlyassert that the so-called "idealist" stories were
composed relativelyearly,whereas the so-called "realist"ones belonged to a later,more matureperiod.3 It is not difficultto identify
the prejudices that underlie that argument,and the biographical
model that sustainsit. The Trabajosde Persilesy Sigismunda(1617)
caused the greatest embarrassment,being a full blown romance
unredeemed byparody.It has been suggestedthatCervantesbegan
the Persilesas early as the 1590s, and could not bring himselfto
abandon it,although the antiromanceof Don Quixotegivesproofof
how greatlyhisjudgment had matured.Other criticshave held that
it was the workof his decliningyears.4So thislarge, expansive and
complex workhas had the distinctionof being dismissedas a prodand also of his dotage, asjuvenilia and
uct of Cervantes'simmaturity
also as senilia. These examples show clearly that the question of
genre has been hopelessly entangled with the equally obstinate
problem of the chronologyof the worksin prose.
whichis one of
Manyyearsago I suggestedthatLa senoraCornelia,
is
the least read of the Novelasexemplares
(it usually dismissed as
and
was
neither
naive nor early.On
naive
thereforean earlypiece)
the contrary,it showsmuch of the mature,serene, and deliberately
playfulimplausibilitythat we find in the romantic comedies with
which Shakespeare graced his later years.5A little later, Ruth El
Saffarin her book NoveltoRomancetried to turnthe whole critical
traditionaround, suggestingthat a chronologyof the Novelasejemplarescould be based on Cervantes'increasingdetachmentfromthe
postulatesof documentaryrealism.6That did not workverywell, so
it was not unreasonable of Edward Riley to propose, with a fine
3 Abundant documentation can be found in Dana B. Drake, Cervantes:
A Critical
Bibliography
(Blacksburg:VirginiaPolytechnicInstitute,1968).
4 Juan BautistaAvalle-Arcesummarizesthe conjectureson datingthe Persilesin his
ed. (Madrid: Castalia, 1969), 14-16.
5 "Las Novelas
ed.J. B. Avalle-Arceand E. C. Riley
Ejemplares",in Suma cervantina,
(London: Tamesis, 1973). The essays in this collection were writtenin the late
1960's.
6 NoveltoRomanceA StudyofCervantes'
'Novelasejemplares'
(Baltimore:JohnsHopkins UP, 1974).

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188

PETER N. DUNN

sense of compromise,thatthe Novelasare all more or less novel,and


all more or less romance.7
Beneath most of these debates lie several unexamined assumptionsand judgmentsofvalue. First,that'novel' can be distinguished
from'romance' by formalcriteria,and thatthe two are not merely
differentbut opposed. Second, that 'novel' is not merelydifferent
from'romance', but is superiorto it.Third,thatthissuperioritycan
be demonstratedby its place in an evolutionarysequence. Fourth,
that 'novel' is therefore modern and progressive,whereas 'romance' is archaic and regressive.The positivistbias in all of these
suppositionsis plain to see. We also findassociated withthem the
simplisticnotion that to parody,as Cervantesparodied certain romances in Don Quixote,means to reject the object of parody.8All of
these assumptionsshould be discarded. And for the presentI propose to put aside questions of genre. I believe thatthe studyof the
typologyof the narrativestructureswillprove to be more rewarding
and that, in any case, such studyshould logicallyprecede the attemptto draw generic distinctions.I shall thereforeattend to the
patternsof plot.
I could perhaps have introducedthistopic by sayingthatit deals
withCervantes'svariationson a theme. More precisely,I would like
to examine his variationson a form;but withthe understandingthat
formsimplicate themes,and ideologies as well, since formsare a
principalvehicle bywhich themes and ideologies are encoded and
articulated.The more traditionaltheyare, the more heavilysuch
formsare likelyto be encoded.
One of the pleasures of reading Cervantes'writingsis to be found
in followingthe line of the story.By this I do not mean just the
succession of events,one thingfollowinganother,but ratherthose
events seen as if moving in space, tracing a trajectory,changing
direction,dividingand followingseparate paths, ascending or descending,in gentle or abruptcourses,in lines thatmaybe director
sinuous. Aristotleand Horace both compare the structureof a
poem to a living creature with its necessarylimbs, and theyboth
employvisual imagerythatis no longer fashionablewhen speaking
7 E. C.
Riley,"Cervantes:A Question of Genre", in Mediaevaland RenaissanceStudieson Spain and Portugalin HonourofP. E. Russell,ed. F. W. Hodcroft,et al. (Oxford:
The Societyfor the Studyof Mediaeval Languages and Literatures,1981).
8 See especially:MargaretRose, Parody/Metafiction
(London: Croom Helm, 1979);
Linda Hutcheon, A TheoryofParody(London and New York: Methuen, 1985), and
the workof the GROUPAR at Queen's University,
Kingston,Ontario.

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189

of literaryworks.We eschew such analogies as being impressionistic


and naive. But in renouncing what Paul Julian Smith has called
"pictorialism"9and excluding it fromour own practice,we mustbe
carefulnot to ignore somethingwhich in past timesmayhave been
importantand even essentialto both authorsand readers.The regularitywithwhich writersrepeat Horace's exhortationto avoid putting together a monstrous aggregation of parts?1was powerfully
canonical, but itsprescriptiveforceis supportedbyexamples in the
practiceof literature,in both writingand reading,of whatwe would
have to call visualizing activity.We encounter this practice most
obviouslyin emblem literature,whichenjoyed tremendousprestige
all over Europe until it was swallowedup in the nineteenthcentury
by political cartoons and commercialadvertizing.This prestigederivedfromthejoining of visualwithverbal,textand image, general
situation and particular embodiment, aphorism with conceptualized space, enigma withphysicalrepresentation.In Cervantes'sown
writingwe find a memorable example of the writer'sawareness of
the shapeof his narrativein the commentby the dog Cipi6n thatif
Berganza continues to tell his storyas he is doing, it will come to
look like an octopus.1l
In recent decades we have not paid much attentionto the forms
of narrativestructures,preferringto note the play of rhetoric,or to
locate the narrativevoice, or the gaps, the indeterminacies,the
internalcontradictionsthatinvitedeconstruction.l2But formshave
power. A studentof Arthurianromance must still take account of
the interlacingdesign, and of the author's comparison of that design witha tapestry.Cervantesoftengivesthe impressionof letting
the narrativedevelop as it will, growingfromwithinaccording to
some hidden genetic code. I propose to discuss this element of
design in Cervantes,thisexercise of the spatial imagination,but not
froma purelyformalistperspective,and not as the practiceof craft
forcraft'ssake.
John JayAllen has writtenon "The ProvidentialWorld of Cer9 Paul Julian Smith,Writing
in theMargin:SpanishLiterature
oftheGoldenAge (Oxford:Clarendon Press, 1988).
10
Epistulaad Pisones,de artepoetica,1-5.
11
"Cipi6n.-Quiero decir que la sigas de golpe, sin que la hagas que parezca
ed. HarrySieber (Madrid:
pulpo, segun la vas afiadiendo colas." NovelasEjemplares,
Catedra, 1986), II, 319. All referencesare to thisedition.
12 For the
place of 'gaps and indeterminacies' in the process of reading, see
WolfgangIser, "The Reading Process: A Phenomenological Approach", in The ImpliedReader(Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins UP, 1974), 274-294.

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PETER N. DUNN

190

vantes' Fiction".13To talk of the concept of "providence"in fiction


is notjust to talkof how the readers' moral sense or theirdesire for
poeticjustice maybe satisfied.Ifwe read enough seventeenthcenturyfictionwe meet manycases of the supposed operation of divine
providence:shipwrecks,captivity,
multiplecoincidences,sudden reversalsof fortune,can all be explained, or explained away,witha
designiosdeDios, "the inscrutable
pious referenceto los inescrutables
designs of God". Of course, the "inscrutabledesigns of God" are
nothingbut the only too scrutabledesigns of the novelist,and they
can sometimesbe veryclumsyones. Epic and romance would be
inconceivablewithoutthisawarenessof a telos:the sense of mission
or purpose in the life of the protagonist,the presence of a guiding
hand behind apparentlychance eventsare so common thatwe can
identifythem as generic markers.In the hero's life,chance equals
cliche that
providence.This propositionis an ideological-structural
Cervantesadopts forpurposes of design, in Don Quixote,in Persilesy
Sigismunda,and elsewhere.But he has a lot of fun withit, as when
Don Quixote letsRocinante choose whichroad to follow,and whenever the knightdeclares a situationto be an adventurereservedfor
him alone. So, providence and novelisticdesign are one. Allen's
projectwas to show thatCervantescreated a meaningfuluniversein
his fiction,and mine is to examine some of the significantforms
withwhichthatfictionaluniverseis constructed.We could sum this
delcielo,
up bysayingthatwhen anycharactertestifiesto the designios
we find that the lexical doublet designioand disenodenote two aspects of the same: the plot is the economy of providence.
Let us begin withDon Quixote.In the firstfivechapters of Part
One, the protagonistsets out, then returnshome, battered.Aftera
few days, he sets out again with a companion, and returnsagain
aftera longer lapse of time.In PartTwo, he setsout once more,but
his journey takes him much fartherbefore he comes home in defeat. Three journeys out, three returns.Obviously,Cervantes has
adopted one of the oldest plot typesin recorded literature,and one
of the most persistent:the hero sets out, passes throughtrialsand
adventures,and returnshome withhis task completed. Here is an
example of whatJosephCampbell called the 'monomyth'.14 Within
thisplot is one of the basic narrativestructures:thejourney of the
hero which ends eitherwithhis return,or withhis arrivalin a new
13 In
14

Thought55 (1980), 184-95.


TheHero witha ThousandFaces (Princeton: PrincetonUP, 1949).

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191

land. If it is in a new land, thatland becomes his home and the land
of his posterity,and since that posterityincludes his audience, the
and ideologicallyequivalent to a renew home is both structurally
and Vergil'sAeneidare both highlyelaborated
turn.Homer's Odyssey
formsof thisbasic narrative,in the heroic mode. This structure,like
all such structures,can be exploited in order to transgressthe
norms that it denotes. In a nonheroic mode, the protagonistmay
returnwithno greaterprize than a knowledge of his own foolishness: such is the parable of the Prodigal Son, a veryeconomical
version, pared rightdown to the bare line of the plot. It is not
difficultto recall worksof literaturefromall periods thatare modGulliver's
elled on thisjourney pattern: TomJones,Pilgrim'sProgress,
Travels,Candide,Lolita,to name a few.In outline, thisis the prototypicallyheroic patternof narrative.A son sets out witha purpose:
to avenge his father'sdeath, or an insult,perhaps. Or a champion
setsout to retrievea precious stolen object thatsymbolizesthe identityof the community,and which will make him into a splendid
representativeof the communitywhen he returns.This same basic
structurehas characterized both epic and romance; the firstof
these,epic, linkingits narrator,itshero and itsaudience in a circle
of mutual approbation and reinforcement;the second, romance,
reflecting,originally,an aristocraticcaste's fantasiesabout itselfand
its world.15When Aristoteliantheoristsof literatureclaimed that
prose fictionmay be classifiedas a kind of epic, theysanctioned a
reading of Don Quixoteforthe tracesof both epic and romance that
are in it, and Cervantesplayswiththis ambivalence: a prettyexamof theoryand praxis.
ple of the intertextuality
Don Quixote returnsfrom his firstsally,not in victorybut in
defeat,and he realizes thathe should have had a squire. He took up
his role so hastily,and mastereditscodes so incompletelythathe has
to returnin order to begin again; thisunderscoresthe comic nature
of both the hero and his narrative.Then, if we focus on his sorry
state and set it against the narrativeparadigms,we see that he has
broughtback no prize, no magic ring or golden fleece, no secret
15 But heroes of medieval romance often
begin theirstorynot knowingwho they
are. And FredricJameson has pointed out thatmanyheroes of romance approach
their tasksnaively,unaware of what is required of them: this,too, is relevantto a
reading of Don Quijote.See his "Magical Narratives:Romance as Genre," in New
Literary
History7 (1975), 135-63.This article is valuable forits correctivecritiqueof
NorthropFrye'sidea of a "natural"world,and of the good/evil dichotomyin Frye's
A Studyof theStructure
of Romance(Cambridge:
widely read The Secular Scripture:
Harvard UP, 1976).

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PETER N. DUNN

wisdomor newsfromthe end of theworld.His journey and returnis


over in double quick time.Again, the drasticbrevityof this heroic
cycleis a comic distortionof the paradigm. But ifwe read thispart
as the firstof a sequence of three sallies, each one being of longer
duration and larger range, the non heroic mode is even more
marked, as each defeat is more severe than the one before, and
brings deeper humiliation.In the end, the protagonistdoes produce thejewel, the one thatis reservedforhim alone; his lucidity,
his desire for self knowledge.By a bitterirony,it is a prize that all
those around him reject.Moreover,he is unable to achieve itas long
as he wears the persona of Don Quixote. So we encountera double
paradox: first,the prize is reserved for the new persona, Alonso
Quijano, not for the questing Don Quijote; and yet,he could not
have attainedthatlucidityand the courage to die had he not undertaken the mad adventureof being Don Quixote. Cervanteswill not
let us resolvethisambivalence,as he relentlesslytrivializesthe heroic endeavor and demythologizesthe grand mythicstructure.When
our hero finallyreaches the shore of the Mediterranean,thatturbulent arena of jealous gods where ancient heroes were tested and
where theyproved themselves,he is merelydwarfedbythe worldof
commerce and the engines of modern war. When we look back to
the firstsally,then,we see that it signals comic absurdity,but also
somethingelse. It foreshadowsa peculiarlymodern mutationof the
hero: the protagonistof a storythat has no end, or has an end
withoutclosure,a lifethatcomes to nothing,the patheticjourney of
one who neverarrives,or of one who returns,but witha handfulof
dust.
The narrativepatternofjourney, quest, ordeals, and returnimposes a powerfulteleologyupon any fictionthat embodies it. The
ending is seen to be providential;but beyond that,it servestojustify
everythingthatleads towardsit including,of course, the beginning
fromwhichit all started.The storydoes not simplystop; it is the end
in a purposive sense, a consummation,the telosor final cause that
embraces the beginning and reintegratesit, as the hero is reintegrated,fullof splendor and rare experience into the world he had
leftbehind, and he enriches thatworldwithhis meaning.
There is a special moment in the hero's career when he and the
audience are made aware thathis personal trajectoryis inscribedin
thevasterdestinyto whichhe is subject,and whichis encoded in the
cyclicalformof the plot. That moment is the descent into the underworld,and it occupies a mathematicallycentral position in the

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193

and the Aeneid.This visitto the dead is


narrativeof both the Odyssey
where the hero learns notjust about his personal destiny,but about
in the transcendentscheme that the
his place, his instrumentality
to
frame.
It
is
there
thatthe hero sees himselfin the
epic attempts
timelessperspectiveof his culture and his race, and drawsthe psychic charge thathe needs in order to bear thatknowledge.Aeneas
in Hades consultsthe shade of his fatherAnchisesin order to have
the futurerevealed. He learns that the lost generations that perished in Troy will be redeemed in the new empire he is going to
found on the soil of Italy.The lost cityof Troywillbe reborn in the
everlastingempire;fromthe Trojan holocaust willspring,like a new
phoenix, the Pax Romana.
In Don Quixotethereare twomoments,one in each part,when the
protagonistis withdrawnfrom all contact with other people. The
second of these,when he descends into the Cave of Montesinos,is
the one that most obviouslyrecalls the epic paradigm. An earlier
virtuoso performance,in which he inventsthe storyof a knight
plunginginto the lake of boilingpitch (DQI, 50), is a reminderthat
chivalric romances also contain marvellous adventures under
ground. But whatdistinguishesthe visionin the cave is the knight's
encounter with the heroes of old, as Odysseus and Aeneas had
conversedwiththe shades of theircomrades in arms.16Now, here
are Durandarte,Montesinos,and otherworthiesfromthe world of
chivalricfantasywaitingin theirunderworldfora liberatorto come
and release them 'in the fulnessof time.' The mythburied in the
romance allows Cervantes to play with the prophetic mode. Don
Quixote's selfproclaimed missionfromthe outsetis to be a savior,a
liberator.But in chapter 22 of PartTwo he descends and resurfaces
emptyhanded. We maydetecta sarcasticparallel withchapter22 of
the PartOne, wherehe performedhis one and onlysuccessfulact of
liberation:freeingthe convictedcriminals.So, settingour knight's
performance within the traditional pattern of a heroic career
framesa critique.
The descent of the ancient epic hero into Hades takeshim to the
core of the cosmos, beyond time,to the worldas idea and purpose.
It is also ajourney to the centerof the selfwhichwillbe called upon
to embodythe idea and the purpose when he returnsto theworldof
16 A
powerfulversionof thisheroic storyoccurs in the Gospel of Nicodemus and
other apocryphalChristianwritingsthattell of Christ'sdescent into Hell, where he
freed the Hebrew prophets and patriarchs,a storythat remained part of Christian
lore as the "harrowingof Hell."

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194

PETER N..DUNN

action. The descent is thereforea nodal point in the epic structure,


where timeand eternity,the linear and the cyclicalintersect,where
the self can contemplateits destiny.In brief,it is where the epic's
ideological baggage is moststronglyencoded in the structure.Now,
ifwe situatethe descent into the Cave of Montesinos in that same
pattern,we findno opening out into eternityand purpose, but the
veryopposite; a complex and absurd image of unreality,a frozen
temporalityand frustratedpurpose, thatformthe perfectemblem
for Don Quijote's mythicuniverse.Cervantes' powerfullyencoded
narrativetypologyhas serveda double purpose: it offersyetanother
ground on which to critique his protagonist,of course, but as we
accept this offerwe are compelled to question our conventional
identificationof the heroic enterprisewiththatverytypology.
I would like now to shiftour attentionto another powerfulsubtext in Don Quijote,also of ancient lineage, namely the mythof
origin. Quite early in Part One (in 1.11, to be precise) our hero
delivershis speech on the Age of Gold, the Graeco-Romancounterpart of the Garden of Eden. It is the same myththatboth troubles
and amuses the spectatorof Shakespeare's As You Like It and The
Don Quijote's monologue expresses his desire to link the
Tempest.
of
practice chivalrywitha mythof originand primordialinnocence.
Its egalitarianrhetoricserveshim as the moral basis for heroic action, the impulse to knighthood.It also is the keyto the secondary
narrativesthat take shape around him. It is the mirage that draws
Gris6stomoand Marcela towardstragicselfdestruction,in the irreconcilable claims of absolute freedomand absolute passion. What is
usuallyoverlookedis itsrelevancenot onlyto the protagonistand to
the pastoral episode it leads to, but to all the secondarynarratives
that form themselvesin the presence of the hero: Cardenio and
Luscinda, Fernando and Dorotea, as well as El curiosoimpertinente.
These are all stories of beautifulyoung people who, at the start,
appear to have everything:theyhave wealth,standingin the community,respect,as well as youth,beauty,and love. And yettheyall
So the decline
move into varyingdegrees of mishap and frustration.
fromoriginal perfectiondescribed in Don Quixote's declamation
upon the Age of Gold and his lament for our Age of Iron is the
paradigm for all the various fictiveworlds that are to come in this
book. At the same time,as Cardenio and Dorotea narratetheirlives
theymake their experience intelligibleto themselvesand to their
listenersby emplottingit in the mode of romance.

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II
Everythingthat I have designated as the pattern of romance-a
journey, trialsendured, rewardattained,restorationof original order, or attainmentof new integration-all of this can be found
elsewherein the worksof Cervantes.It most obviouslydescribesthe
but it is also susceptibleof the most intriguground plan of Persiles,
ing and unexpected variations.It is easilyidentifiedin such stories
where the high born youngman
as La gitanillaand La ilustrefregona,
in
order
to prove himselfworthyof the
abases
himself
voluntarily
humble girl who is eventuallydiscovered to be his social equal. In
these cases, where desire is put to various tests and purified,the
journey is a descent into a lower social or moral world of disorder
and temptation.The gypsysocietyof La gitanillais, fromthisstandpoint, a demonic subworld,made alluringby reason of its perverse
freedoms; an amorphous world, one in which there is ceaseless
movementwithno point of arrival,no terminus,and throughwhich
the hero mustpass unsullied,surrenderinghis aristocraticpersonal
name for the generic one of Andres (andros,'man') Caballero. He
emergesfromthislower region of trialand temptationbearing the
prize,the pricelessPreciosa, and is finallyrestoredto his familyand
to his distinguishedname.17
offerssome interestingvariations
The novella El celosoextremeno
and innovationson thispattern,whichis easilymissed.The journey
motifis still present,but it appears in two parts. First,the young
Carrizales leaves the home of his noble parents and squanders his
inheritance,"como un otro Pr6digo", as the narratorsays.Next, he
goes to the Indies to repair his fortune,which he does with such
success that he returnsto Seville loaded withgold ingots. On the
passage out, we are told that he suffereda change of heart and
resolvedto become a new man. Here Cervantesemploysthe potential of the journey to plot a change in the self as well as to mark
is full
stagesin the pursuitof externalgoals. But thistransformation
of irony; the hidalgo has gone from extreme to extreme, from
to nouveauriche,a change which is not a deep transforspend-thrift
mation at all. He is immenselyrich in barren metal but no richerin
spiritand character.When Carrizalesreturnsto Spain he findsthat,
unlike the Prodigal Son, he has no survivingfriendsor relatives.His
17 For a similar
reading,see RobertterHorst, "Une Saison en Enfer:La gitanilla",
in Cervantes
5 (1985), 87-127.

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PETER N. DUNN

returnleads to no recognition and no reintegration.Instead, he


attemptsliterallyto build a new life, which is given form in the
house, the dream palace and monument to follythat encloses the
restof the narrative.
This extraordinaryhouse, closed to everydirection except upwards to the sky,and the marriageof the old man to a child wife
whom he hopes to keep fromknowledge of the world, inevitably
incitesan ingeniousyounglayaboutto finda wayto break in, forthe
hell of it,and to attemptto seduce the youngwife.The greaterpart
of the novelaconsistsof the preparationsfor Carrizales's marriage
(this,in good bourgeois fashion,is undertakenin order to secure a
future for his wealth), the constructionof the house, and the
scheming of the young seducer. All this is a matterof a mere few
months,whereas thejourneys and the half centuryof life thatprecede it are summarizedin a fewbriefparagraphsat the beginning.It
is easy to overlookthe structuralrelevance of the fewparagraphsof
that
because of our fascinationwitheverything
personal prehistory,
follows,the comic details of the household, the tragicfollyof the
old man's defiance of nature,and Loaysa's plans to penetrate this
quasi nunnery,in whichold Carrizalesand the eunuch doorkeeper
are the only permittedevidences of the male gender. As experienced readers, we may well be holding our breath as we contemplate the taskCervanteshas set himself,whichis nothingless than to
retellthatancient chestnut,the farceof the old man and the young
girl (exemplifiedin Chaucer's "MarriageofJanuaryand May"), to
dare to acknowledgeits tragicpotential,and to dare to humanize it
against the force and the grain of the bawdyfabliau traditionfrom
which he liftedit.
And yetthose introductory
paragraphs,schematicas theyare, are
essential-the more schematicthe more necessary.They are effective preciselybecause theyreduce Carrizales's life to a significant
outline in the formof the questjourney of romance, but thwarting
our expectation thathe will achieve ripeness,or anythingvaluable,
in the fulnessof time.The noble treeof romance is here witheredto
a dry twig.So Cervantes's reversalof the normal proportionsbetweenjourney and arrival,his substitutionof connivance, disruption,and tragicpathos forjoy and integrationat the end, are appropriate for a life of monumentalbanalitythatwould not have been
worthrecording,except insofaras it is an affrontto our desire for
balance and moderation. When the debauched spendthriftwas
siezed bythe desire to be rebornfromhis mortajade esparto(II, 100),

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he merely flipped, and became an equally hard-drivengetter of


wealth.
Carrizales's house is not a home thathas awaited the returnof a
hero. Indeed, it is not a home, havingbeen designed to eliminate
traffic
withthe worldbeyond itswalls.It does not look out towardsa
community,but up, as if througha shaftsunk into the earth.Windows have been blocked. To Carrizales,who deposits therehis gold
and his child bride,it is an earthlyparadise: to the girl'sparentsit is
a tomb (II, 104). This house now resemblesHades: dark, timeless,
sterile,the place where old Pluto hoards treasure and keeps his
captivebride. Loaysa makes his wayinto itwithguile,withsong,with
perjuredpromises,as a false Orpheus who comes not to retrievehis
own bride,but to soil another's,or as a thievingHermes. This novela
has more allusions to classical mythologythan any of the others
(to Hades, to Vulcan/Mars/Venus, to Argus,to lo) and so to illguarded treasuresand misplaced trust,and theyall confirmthe net
of fatal self delusion that Carrizales has cast around himself.The
allusions are scattered,fragmentary,
ironic, as the structureof the
heroicjourney is also broken, disjointed,wrenched out of proportion in thisstory.This is one of the most remarkableof Cervantes's
stories for its daring, in counterpointingthe world of myth,the
stereotypesof comedy,everydayreality,and a sensibilitytowardsthe
it maybe compared
human claims of the characters.For risk-taking
to Velazquez's paintingof the Fable ofArachne,betterknownas Las
hilanderas.
Here Cervantes
y Cortadillo.
Equally notable in itswayis Rinconete
in
an
with
his
example of that interpicaresque antecedents,
plays
so much of the
characterizes
that
and
transgenericplay
generic
be
read
as an ironic
literatureof thisperiod: Lazarillode Tormes
may
counter statementto the romances of chivalry;GuzmdndeAlfarache
is patterned on the widelypraised Byzantineromances. Both Lazarilloand Guzmdnrehearse the circularitythatwe have remarked
on, the circularitythat compels us to reviewthe beginning as we
of a moment of
reach the end, to see the end as a transfiguration
no
such structural
to
have
Cortadillo
Rinconete
y
appears
origin.18
to an almost
ended
and
it
is
and
uneventful
coordinates,
open
scandalous degree. However, if we look more closely we find the
18 The variable
intergenericcharacteristicsof picaresque writingare treated at
History(Ithaca: Cornell UP,
length in my SpanishPicaresqueFiction:A New Literary
1993).

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PETER N. DUNN

same essential elements of narrativepattern,although those elements are truncated, and the proportions are radically altered.
Once again, the mythicdescent is disguised in the everydayreality
of a great and populous city.The two boyswho, fromthisperspective,maybe viewedas a singleprotagonist,have both lefthome, and
theirlifeis unmistakablya road. Arrivingin Seville,the boysare led
into the underworld,fromwhichwe do not see thememerge. Here
again is our mastertropeof thejourney and the road, withinitiation
into knowledgein the netherregion. And Cervantesplaysa double
intertextualgame of closure/non closure: he refusesto close the
structuralloop at the same timeas he mimicsthe ambiguous closure
of his picaresque antecedents.And once again we note how oftenin
his writingthe reduction of mastertropes and mythsto fragments
and allusions is made to signifyuncentered existences, crippled
sensibilities,lack of selfawareness,or other significantlack.
Thus far,all our examples have seemed to confirmthe observation thatCervantesemployedthe patternsof epic or romance structureand the formsof mythwithdeliberate sophistication,not automatically,and not just because they were privileged as historic,
transliterary
givens.He makes us read themratheras normativefictions,as metaphorsfororder. As signifierstheyare capable of modulation and modification,interferenceand fragmentation.Normativefictionsand structuresare alwaysripe forparody and irony.
Finally,in the most astonishingof all the shorterworks,El casawe can observethe experience
miento
enganosoy Coloquiode losperros,
of the charactersand the experience of readingbeing shaped bythe
most elaborate and the most elusive of narrativeconfigurations.
we
Here, at the conclusion of the collectionof the Novelasejemplares,
man's
have to process the most dubious information(one
highly
suspect account of his fraudulentmarriage,followedby two dogs'
convincingaccount of the human world). Whom would we rather
believe,a man or a dog? Then we puzzle overwhichis the container
and which the contained. The temporalityof thiscompound narrativeis artfullydisrupted.As readers, our engagementwitha textis
necessarilya linear process determinedbyour existencein time,but
here we are compelled to confrontthe text'sblatanttransgressions
of linearity,time aftertime.
This final piece in the collection goes far beyond anythingCervantes had attemptedbefore. The Coloquiorepresentsthe experience of narratingin the dialogic relationbetweenthe twodogs,who
are more thanjust tellerand listener;theyare the narratingselfand

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the internalcritic,the narratorfacingthe implied reader,who barks


back at him. This is familiarground. So is the problematicrelation
between the Casamientoand the Coloquio,which busy anthologists
like to tear apart. In passing I will mentionjust one paradox thatis
seeminglytoo big to have been noticed: withinthe world constituted by the text,one story(Casamiento)is enunciated orally,and the
other (Coloquio) is a writtentext. Here is the paradox: the orally
delivered storyof the marriageis highlyliteraryin its style,tightly
and ends epigrammatically,
organized around internalsymmetries,
for
a
Petrarch
wittyrecognition of poetic justice (Che chi
citing
di
diletto
farfrode,/Non si de' lamentars'altril'inganna). The
prende
could
be
foran exemplum designed specificallyto contaken
story
firmthe Petrarchanepigram.The oralstoryis an exemplarydemonstrationof the literaryart of the novella. The Coloquio'swritten
text,
on the other hand, transcribesa conversationwhich,although it is
directed by the familiartrope of life as journey, escapes fromthe
speaker's controlat everyturn.What do these oppositions,or these
complementarities,mean? This spoken textfull of literaryartifice,
thiswrittentext that has all the vagaries and indirectionsof direct
speech? In part,theyurge us to be aware of our role as readers and
listenersbeguiled by stories,but I am not satisfiedthat this is a
complete answer.Consider thatreader in the text,the Licenciado
Peralta, who concludes his reading of that rambling dialogue, by
declaring,"Yo alcanzo el artificiodel Coloquioy la invenci6n,y basta." The matteris furthercomplicated by the fact that we are not
merelyreading the Coloquio;we are reading the Licenciado Peralta
reading the Coloquio.
The more we read thiscomplex work,the more we come to realize that such questions as these are merelythe surfacemanifestations of much deeper ones: the reader's commitmentto the act of
reading, the truthvalue of fictions,the problems of origin, the
problemsof desire at the heart of the quest, at the core of the role,
and in the act of reading.I can onlytouch on a fewof the issues that
this marvellousstoryforces us to confront,beginning with somethingas apparentlyclear as the wayit starts.This is not so easy.We
begin at the beginningof the text,of course, but the plot has many
beginnings.
Salia del Hospitalde la Resurrecci6n,
que estaen Valladolid,fuerade la
su espadade baculoypor
Puertadel Campo,un soldadoque,porservirle
la flaquezade sus piernasy amarillezde su rostro,mostrababien claro

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PETER N. DUNN

que, aunque no era el tiempo muycaluroso, debia de haber sudado en


veinte dias todo el humor que quiza granje6 en una hora.
This soldier is clearly not soldiering; his wounds were inflicted by

his shakycondition
syphilis,and his "pinitos"and "traspies"reaffirm
and our expectationof an amorous adventureto be related.An old
friend sees him and greets him, barely recognizing him in his
changed condition.They have not metfora long time.Here, within
a fewlines of the start,are twothreadsforthe reader to pursue,two
tracesof earlierevents:a friendship,and an amorous misadventure.
Neither of them correspondswiththe beginningof any of the narrated events,and we are leftin suspense as to where theybegin.
Observe how many times we have to begin reading. First,at the
opening wordsof the text;next,as we observea friendshipmakinga
new start;then at the beginningof the alferez's
storyof his Casamiento;then the discussion of the two men; then the storyof the dogs;
afterwhich we eagerly await the verdict of the skeptical reader,
Peralta, on the storyhe and we have been reading.
If we disentangle the temporal sequence that Cervanteshas so
cunninglyravelled up, we discoverthathe begins his tellingalmost
at the end of the sequence, as two friendsare united and express
mutual astonishment.And it is not untilwe reach the finalwordsof
the whole,in whichtheyagree not to discussfurtherthe question of
the truthof the Coloquio,but to go out togetherto "recrearlos ojos
del cuerpo, pues ya he recreado los ojos del entendimiento"-not
until then do we perceive thatthe renewal of friendship,thisinsignificantevent,has been the real climax, the recognitionscene of
and the reading
the untoldstory.What the tellingof the Casamiento
of the Coloquiodo is reconstitutean eventas the characters'experience. The reader who at firstsimplyobservestwomen embracingat
the gate of the city,comes to understandit fromwithin,as a recognition,a recognition.Between thisbeginning and the closure, stories are told,incorporatedas flashbacks;but these flashbacksdo not
relate to the main narrativeas flashbacksusually do; theyexplain
nothing,theyreveal no hidden cause, provide no complementary
angle of vision. Instead of explaining,or creatingsuspense in the
principal narrative,they displace it, and even efface it from the
attentionof the reader. Here is one of many ways in which Cervantes challenges the reader's expectations concerning structure,
temporalsequence, and causality.It is also his wayof problematizing the reader's desire forstories.

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and the Coloquioare bounded and definedby


Both the Casamiento
formalbeginningsthatare plainlymarked.The dialogue of Cipi6n
and Berganza is repeatedlyconstitutedbya successionof new beginnings on the level of the storyand on thatof the discourse. There
are other originsthatare occluded or obscure, and desires fororigin thatare fueled by demonic storiesand become obsessivefantasies. Most prominentamong these is the dog Berganza's belief in
the story,told him by the witchCafiizares,that he is a changeling,
havingoriginallybeen a human child. In the emptypropheticverses
utteredby the witchto his 'mother',
Volveranen su formaverdadera
cuandovierencon prestadiligencia
derribarlos soberbioslevantados
y alzara los humildesabatidos
con manopoderosapara hacerlo
thereis promiseof a personal apocalypse,a finalreturnto an original shape bymeans ofwhichthe end willreinstatethe beginning.In
thatpromiseof a returnand reincorporationinto the site of origin
of romance. It is a bewitchingformof
Cervantesshowsus the Ur-form
for the mother. So the dog's
us
to
our
desire
narrative,binding
his beginning and thus
end
that
will
confirm
desire
for
an
illusory
make sense of his existence becomes obsessive. He representsour
wishto returnin fictionto a beginningthatneverwas. His desire is
mediated by a witch,a representativeof the devil, so it must be
understoodas a selfdestructiveillusion.It also revealsa compulsive
patternfromwhich there is no escape: the search for the ending
thatjustifiesthe beginningand therebyconfersdirection,structure,
and significanceupon the middle, this middle in which we are
foreverwanderingwithouta compass. It is by means of such strategies and patternsof illusion thatwe read and tell stories,including
those of our own lives.So, as we end, we have come around again to
the beginning.
In the wordsof a philosopher of history,the late Louis Mink,the
past "can be made intelligibleonly as the subject of the storieswe
tell."19The same may be said of the place of storytelling in our
individuallives;Peter Brooks tied a recent book to the observation
thatwe largelydefine and constructour sense of self throughour
19Louis O. Mink,HistoricalUnderstanding,
ed. Brian Fay,et al. (Ithaca: Cornell UP,
1987), 202.

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fictions,withinthe constraintsof a transindividualsymbolicorder.20


Contraryto whatthe convictGines de Pasamonte tellsDon Quixote
(DQI.22), a storyis not assuredplenitude of meaningjust because it
spans the birthand the death of its subject. A life contains many
stories,many meanings. We understand ourselves,if we are fortunate enough ever to do so, throughrepeated acts of demystification
and deconstructionthat we practice upon the fantasies and the
narrativesinto whichwe have braided our experience. We call such
acts by various names: confession,purgation,analysis.They all attemptto recoverand reconstitutethe buried narrative,the subtext
that underlies the fictionswithwhich we have beguiled ourselves.
The friendshipof Campuzano and Peralta is both the frameand
the core of this extraordinarynarrative,though Cervantesgives us
the merestglimpseof it,at a momentof renewal.This act of renewal
does take place on a road, but it is a road thatstartsand ends at no
place that is on the map, either real or fictional.The beginning is
hidden fromus and so, of course, is the end. But it is a companionable road, a road withoutpretensions to heroic elevation, or to
It takesus fromthe Hospital outside the citygate
craggysingularity.
to a house withinthe city,where a meal is shared. Finally,afterthe
conversationsand the reading,it leads out once more, to the pleasant walk in the open where the twomen take a viewof the cityand
itsrivermargin.Cityand river,inner and outer:we note the opposing pairs, and read them how we will, as society and nature, as
structureand flow,as design and turbulence,as we let them resonate and penetrate our understandingof the doubleness of this
fictionas much as we are able. Inevitablytheybond with all the
other obstinate and eternallyproblematic pairs that start up as
we read: nature/artifice,reality/dream,fiction/truth,presence/
absence, experience/knowledge. But before theygo out, the two
friendseat togetherunder one roof, then theyworship together,
and one of them lays out his shamefulexperience and his strange
fantasiesbefore the other.And the twofriends,of course, are none
other than armasand letras;no longer rhetoricalantagoniststhirsting forglory,as in the world of Don Quixote, but weary,skeptical,
and open to each other's presence. Dichotomies finallymeet in an
embrace, and that embrace ratherthan the images of the world's
20 Peter Brooks,
Readingfor thePlot Design and Intentionin Narrative(New York:
Knopf, 1984), xiv.

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evil (pace Forcione) may be what needs to be read back into the
Novelas.21
The road, I repeat, is a companionable one. In the varied worlds
of Cervantes,solitarinessis found to be the most dangerous condition,solipsismthe worstsin, as the source of destructivefantasies.22
Friendshipis the wayof escape fromsolipsismand despair. If one
friendcan suspend his skepticism,his irritabledisbelief,so faras to
read the otherfriend'sfantasiesof talkingdogs, and then conclude
"No volvamos mas a esa disputa", "let us go outside, and see" (II,
359), perhaps that dog's despairingview of the world may not be
entirelytrue.23
Wesleyan
University

21 See his Cervantes


and theMystery
ofLawlessness(Princeton UP, 1984).
eloquentlystressedthe sociabilityof the "mesa de trucos"
of the Prologue to the Novelasas well as the scenes of shared reading and underNovels"
in Cervantes's"Exemplary
standingin his fictionalcommunities:"Afterword,"
ed. Michael Nerlich and Nicholas Spadaccini (Minand theAdventureof Writing,
neapolis: Prisma Institute[Hispanic Issues, 6], 1990), pp. 331-52.
23 This
paper originatedas the CervantesLecture, givenat Fordham Universityin
April, 1989, and has been rewrittenfor other audiences in the United States, the
United Kingdom,and Poland. The presentversionis not and cannot be definitive.If
it succeeds in demonstratingthat even in his most unromantic works Cervantes
never renounced romance as a structuralparadigm, it should also provoke the
suspicion thathe exploited the processes and recycledthe devices thattypifiedthat
paradigm more extensivelythan we have realized, and not only in the service of
and Rinconete
y
parody or irony.As we observed in the cases of El celosoextremeno
Cortadillo,
fragmentationand truncationof a paradigm also have significance.At the
same time, we need to stress the fact that he uses other narrativestrategies,or
either indepenmodelling types,based on other traditionalmodes of story-telling,
dentlyof or in complex combinationswiththe patternsof romance. The suggestion
made manyyears ago by Walter Pabst that one could read the Novelasin termsof
fairytale and folk tale found littlefavorand has never reallybeen explored. Nevertheless,thereare specifictraitsin the typologyof the folktale thatilluminatethose
verynovelasthat have proved least attractiveto modern readers. Various framing
devices also await examination. Finally,I am aware that the concept "experience"
to defineit as
requiresdiscussion.For the purposes of thispaper, it maybe sufficient
thatrealitywhichtakesshape in the existencesof Cervantes'sfictionalcharacters.Its
literaryrepresentationis dependent on notions of verisimilitudeand historicalcontext that are beyond the scope of an article. A book which I am preparing with
YvonneJehenson will deal with this question as part of a fuller investigationof
Cervantes'snarrativestrategies.
22 Alban K. Forcione has

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