Epic Epistles: Scripting the Early Modern Self in

Chivalric Romance, the Picaresque and the Conquest Relation

by

Barnaby William Clunie

A thesis submitted in conformity with the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy

Centre for Comparative Literature

University of Toronto

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1+1 Canada Epic Epistles: Scripting the Early Modern Self in Chivalric Romance, the Picaresque and the

Conquest Relation

Barnaby William Clunie

Doctor of Philosophy

Centre for Comparative Literature

University of Toronto

2007

ABSTRACT

This literary study of self looks at how representative texts of different genres enable the expression of different types of self, defined as discourse in which tensions between normative structures (political, social, and literary) are managed by a subject (either a character or author, or both) with a certain degree of creative agency. The degree to which creative agency is exploited depends, in part, on the genre selected by or imposed upon the author. In epic, for example, creative agency is largely in the service of the prevailing order, and there is a suspicion of the power of textuality to displace or replace this order. This power is tentatively realized in twelfth and thirteenth century chivalric romance.

As an amalgam of epic and romance, Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula

(c. 1508) reveals a more complex relationship to the individual self. The knight is encouraged to wander into the woods, and the violent and romantic encounters that occur there become a rite of passage into adulthood and social acceptance. Self becomes a creative process by which the individual manages his private motivations and his public duties into a workable balance.

In the Cartas de relation of Hernan Cortes (1519-1525), Cortes is both narrator and hero.

America, a wilderness of actual Others, is not a place of withdrawal and growth, but a place of

ii opportunity. Cortes manages to inscribe himself as and ideal servant and royal stand-in by creatively exploiting all the discourse at his disposal: a rhetoric of empire, kingship, and vassalage; a practice of interrogation and punishment; a process of textual mapping; and a practice of psychological policing and government. Cortes addresses an audience that is as multiple as the means he exploits to construct himself.

In Lazarillo de Tormes by Anonymous (1554), the anonymous author writes against the class of which he is a part. With deft irony, he turns the privileged reader's disgust for Lazaro and the subsistence thievery upon which he and his fellow paupers depend into disgust for a system that creates such desperation.

111 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS Many people have in some way contributed to this dissertation and the academic path of which it is just the first culmination. Obviously, there are the members of my exam and dissertation committees, both of which were overseen by Prof. Roland Le Huenen with proficiency: Prof. Jill Ross for her always careful readings, pointed and practical critiques, and incredible eye for detail; Prof. Paul Stevens for his unwavering encouragement and support; and Prof. Stephen Rupp for his always timely suggestions, both academic and procedural. Although he was never able to participate formally in either exam or defence, I must also include Prof. Josiah Blackmore for being so generous with his time, suggestions, and encouragement. Thanks must also be extended to Prof. Ricardo Sternberg and Prof. Sanda Munjic for stepping in and helping to make the defence meeting a stimulating and successful one; and, of course, to Prof. E. Michael Gerli for his probing and perceptive questions and comments during the defence. So many other professors, through their courses or simply through casual and amicable contact, have had an indirect hand in this project, that I fear even beginning to mention them. Prof. Sam Solecki, Prof. Brian Stock, Prof. Linda Hutcheon, Prof. Mary Nyquist, Dr. Jonathan Rollins, and Prof. Andreas Motsch stand out in particular. I would also thank those whose instruction I may not have valued sufficiently at the time, but whose lessons slowly made their value apparent: Prof. Reza Baraheni and Prof. Owen J. Miller. The multitude of forms and endless institutional labyrinths would have been unnavigable but for the presence and professionalism of the Comparative Literature support staff: Aphrodite Gardner and Bao Nguyen I would also acknowledge the community of my peers for creating an atmosphere in which ideas could be aired, but also (when necessary) escaped from: Vivian Ralickas, Pablo Pemeja, Leon Berdichevsky, and Sandra Bialystock; Pamela Coles for a dash of drama and endless ability to generate tangential discussion; Emilie McCabe for general good neighbourliness and invaluable suggestions and private library loans; Gur Zak for being so generous with his time and expertise during the final stages. None of this would have been possible or remotely meaningful without the support and patience of my wife, Andrea, my parents and parents-in-law, and my children, who often suffered when this unplayful, overly-demanding and emotionally unstable sibling took their father away for hours at a time.

IV TABLE OF CONTENTS

Introduction 1 The Discourse of Self and the "Discovery of the Individual" 1 Epic: Imagined Community, Textual Self 12 Textualized Self 13 (Dis)honest Words and Community 15 Cowardice As Silence: the Wood 16 Textual Dishonesty 17

Chapter 1 Stepping Outside: Managing Exilic Violence in Chivalric Romance (Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula) 25 Approaching the Question 28 A Brief Textual History 30 The Question of Readership 31 Chivalry in Context 33 Plotting against Amadis 36 Dialogic Utopia and the State Self ^_^ __ 44 The Wandering Ideal 48 Exile of Identity 52 Amadis de Gaula: "un claro y luziante espejo" 52 Textual Control and Self-Incorporation 53 Romantic Deferral: A Willing Captive 59 The Discourse of Submission: ortogarundon „...61 Romantic Consummation: The Dangers of Matrimony 62 La Insola Firme 63 Penance: The Self As Hermit and the Fantasy of Discipline _68

Chapter 2 The Conquest of Self: Court, Countryside, Capital Punishment (Hernan Cortes' Cartas de Relation) 78 Text and Historical Background 82 Foundation and Empire 84 Justice, Governance, and Qualpopoca 103 Cartagraphy '^^_ 113 Law and Order and the Frontier: Cuauhtemoc, Nature, and the Critical Consciousness 117 Text and the Technology of Self 126

Chapter 3 Narrative Community of Self in Lazarillo de Tormes 133

v Anonymity \£V Us 135

Lazaro: Individual, Exemplum, Dispropriated Voice 139 Suffering as/for the Other 147 Inscribed Community 162

Conclusion 176

Appendix A: Published editions of chivalric romance 1500-1650 183

Appendix B: Woodcut of Carlos V 184

Notes .185

Works Cited 212

VI l Introduction

The Discourse of Self and the "Discovery of the Individual" In Sources of the Self: The Making of the Modern Identity (1989), Charles Taylor notes that Heidegger, in Being and Time, "described the inescapable temporal structure of being in the world: that from a sense of what we have become, among a range of possibilities, we project our future being." For Taylor (and, it is suggested, for all of us) "life always has this degree of narrative understanding, that I understand my present action in the form of an 'and then': there was A (what I am), and then I do B (what I project to become)" (47). This narrative sense of being (of becoming through narrative, through a placing of "events" in a meaningful sequence) extends to the text that is Sources of the Self. Taylor even refers to his project as "the story I want to tell." Speaking of the localization of our sense of self (e.g. within a duality such as soul/body) and our sense of moral sources (a conception of the Good is central to Taylor's thinking), Taylor makes the case for change: It is not that these do not change in history. On the contrary, the story I want to tell is of such a change. But when a given constellation of self, moral sources, and localization is ours, that means it is the one from within which we experience and deliberate about our moral situation. It cannot but come to feel fixed and unchallengeable, whatever our knowledge of history and cultural variation may lead us to believe. (111-12, emphasis in original)

Taylor wants to tell a story, and he is justifiably unapologetic about imposing a narrative structure on an expanse of time that he feels has led him, his field of study (philosophy and political theory), and his culture (the West) to what he and they have become. The resulting narrative can only be a "master narrative," a story that potentially takes all other (at least Western) narratives under its umbrella. As a modern, Taylor mines the past for elements that can explain what "the modern identity" is: what the modern has become in relation to a past that is necessarily different. The necessity for difference is a natural consequence of the modern narrative, and is crucial to the art of "explanation," a word that etymologically suggests "flattening" (ex- 'inducing a state' of being planus 'flat'). Narrative places events into linear relation with one another, and modern conventions demand that there be some kind of action that produces change: the story must build towards a crisis, which then resolves itself to a degree pleasing to the sensibilities. The "events" that form the "founding myths" of Taylor's story are easily appreciated by a glance at the headings for Chapters 6 through 9: "Plato's Self-Mastery," "In Interiore Homine" (on Augustine), "Descartes' Disengaged Reason," and "Locke's Punctual 2 Self." To simplify Taylor's argument: Plato's tyranny of reason and the placement of the Good wholly outside the self give way to Augustine's internal contemplation as a way to reach the Good that is outside (or above) the self but that is only accessible through the self. In turn, Descartes makes this self into an autonomous self-aware object upon which Locke imposes discipline and specialization According to this master narrative, modernity is therefore a move from the external to the internal: the modern self is aware of itself as having been made, or constituted by its past, and of its potential for making itself according to a conception of the Good that is itself both inherited and made anew. This modern self is a subjective agent, agency being determined by "the fundamental question of responsibility: in personal action, in aesthetic creation, in inter-personal norms and social valuations" (D. Hall 5). The modern literary conception of self is also fundamentally interested in the relationship of consciousness and action. Virginia Woolf criticized writers such as Wells, Bennett, and Galsworthy for being "materialists," disappointing in their concern "not with the spirit but with the body," and able only to produce "coarse" and "crude" characters (104-5). Woolf praises Joyce for being able to break out of the prison of convention and to come "closer to life" (107). Auerbach uses Woolf herself as the measure of modernity: before Woolf, "inner movements preponderantly function to prepare and motivate significant exterior happenings," whereas in Woolf and her contemporaries, "exterior events have actually lost their hegemony, they serve to release and interpret inner events" (538). In To the Lighthouse, for example, "almost everything stated appears by way of reflection in the consciousness of the dramatis personae" (534). A literary dissertation is not a novel; however, it is, like Taylor's philosophical project, a kind of story, the dramatis personae of which are texts. Because my "story" is written under the auspices of a Centre for Comparative Literature, I must be highly attentive to what kind of story I produce, that is to say, I must attend to not only providing a thread that binds the chapters together, but also to the frameworks that inform my choices and my assumptions. As implied above, one important framework is Taylor's story, the story of modernity. I have framed this work as a study of Early Modern self, which by definition leads up to the modern self; early modernity thus bears some similarities with modernity, and yet enjoys some essential differences. The problems inherent in such definitions are immediately obvious. If Plato and Augustine are simultaneously the essential others to Cartesian and Lockean modernity and that modernity's precursors, how informative will a study of texts occurring temporally between Augustine and Descartes be? If my chosen texts were philosophical, then I would be merely 3 adding a level of complexity to Taylor's argument. I would, no doubt, be making the categorical shift from Augustine to Descartes less comfortable, less smooth. Another aspect of Taylor's master narrative, and an element suggested by my portrayal of this dissertation as fitting into this master narrative, however problematically, is the very idea of modernity as "progress" in relation to its past. The very label of "Early Modern" is problematic in that it makes a similar assumption as Taylor's: if the Early Modern is, as I have said, "similar" to the Modern, it is likely to replicate a sense of superiority as that held over the Early Modern by the Modern (if, that is, periods can be thought of as stand-ins for those who study them and articulate positions about them). Since stories are predominantly linear, this superiority is had at the expense of the period previous to the Early Modern: the medieval, or Middle Ages, which struggles (in the work of those dedicated to the period) with the enduring yet less explicitly used label—the "Dark Ages," between the times of the venerated sages of Antiquity and the "re-birth" of "rational" discourse on par with them in some respects, yet fuelled by the dynamism of a vernacular print economy. In "A Whisper in the Ear of Early Modernists; or, Reflections on Literary Critics Writing the 'History of the Subject'," David Aers implies that the darkness of the "Dark Ages" is to be found instead in those scholars who characterize the period as such: for Aers, scholarly ignorance of active models of subjectivity in Augustine and in various twelfth century texts is akin to disciplinary "amnesia," especially noticeable in cultural materialist and new historicist disregard of religious traditions. (A prime example of amnesia as a means of articulating a point about one's field of study is Jacob Burckhardt's conception of the Renaissance, which I discuss briefly in Chapter 2, page 103.) The assumption that medieval society was monolithic and had no conception of a "divided self rests on less than rigorous research, the gaping holes of which Aers attempts to fill by showing how writers from Augustine, to Petrarch, to Chaucer appreciated a kind of duality of self often used to define the Early Modern and Modern periods (182). Of great importance is the notion of inner and outer self, explored in great depth by Augustine, but also evident in treatments of heresy, articulated as a choice based on an individual decision to pursue a way of life which would usually challenge bonds of authority, lordship, kinship and community. [...] These choices could lead to a deep split between an outward conformity to the norms of Church and community and an inward dissent. (Aers 184, emphasis in original))

Defined as personal choice (the word stems from the Greek hairesis, 'choice'), heresy is thus presented as evidence of early agency that fits uneasily into the conception of the Middle Ages as monolithic. Even if the heretic belief were simply an alternative, minor monolith in 4 competition with the norm (if, that is, a monolith could conceivably exist in the presence of different "liths"), there is "someone" in between the monoliths who is engaged in a constant exchange of masks: a public, and a private face. Wherever there are two competing, complementary, or otherwise connected-yet-distinct beings (ideas, models, beliefs, norms), there is a third: the connection itself. Other than simply a choice that has been made, whereby one of the elements has effectively ceased to exist, this connection can take either the form of the chooser—the entity who compares the two elements or choices (mind/body, person)—or it can be understood as the choosing—the decision process itself (story/discourse, text). Every conception of the self falls into one, or a particular combination, of choice, chooser, or choosing. As Aers shows, the medieval self is often depicted as a ready-made, hierarchically determined choice in order to highlight the supposedly more modern practice of becoming a chooser (an agent responsible for his/her choices) through the act of choosing. In spite of the similarities brought about by the existence of choice and of a pan-temporal tension between the public and the private, the medieval heretic and the modern citizen do not share the same sense of self. In his rush to leap from Augustine to Descartes on his way to defining the modern self as being determined by an increasingly introspective and personal view of the Good, Taylor makes this difference far neater than it can justifiably be (except, perhaps, for the purposes of controlling the weight of an already impressive tome). Indeed, the central importance of the Good often depicts the self as an inverted heretic: articulating the Good is an integrative act whereby the self integrates himself into society rather than marginalizing himself from it. Perhaps the difference between heretic and citizen is better termed in their relationship to power: the heretic may live a dual life, conforming to the societal norm in public and living differently in his home or his head, but he is only identified as a heretic when the authorities, the defenders of the norm, decide that he is a threat to them. In this way, the voice of authority fashions itself, to paraphrase Stephen Greenblatt, against this demonic other that it has defined as a threat, and that it will eliminate in order to ensure its own survival.1 The citizen's identity, on the other hand, "is achieved at the intersection of an absolute authority and a demonic other" (Greenblatt, Self-Fashioning 76). Rather than being marginalized and disappearing into silence, the citizen serves the authorities, institutions that are not quite so absolute as they are against heretics because they depend on the citizen's service that is, to some degree, voluntary. The citizen's service thus comes at a negotiated "price": the citizen gives up a portion of his independence (that is presumably his to give away), and in exchange, the authority relinquishes 5 some of its absoluteness. In this way, the citizen's withdrawal (that time, or attitude during which he is theoretically making his independent choices) is not marginal, but liminal; that is, it occurs when the borders defining society and the self are porous, when the self explores the threshold of "normal" before returning to it as a slightly altered entity within it.2 Since it can never be fully isolated from the boundaries that define it, and because it is at the same time the product and producer of a relationship with those boundaries, the self is always liminal. Here, along with Taylor, I am likely opening myself to accusations of anachronistically imposing a concept on my subject matter. In attempting to define the Early Modern self, I have been forced to deal with previous conceptions of self. As implied by Aers and studied further below, there is considerable debate as to when interiority, and by association the individual, became a primary means of human intellectual activity. Consideration of these debates has shown me (or I have convinced myself in order to overcome confusion) that a common foundation exists underneath them. This foundation is not an assertion of universal humanity present in each individual, nor it is a wholesale rejection of particularity. Rather, the abstract idea of self, under whatever guise history and historians choose to present it (person, individual, animus...), is always a negotiation. Self is a discourse, a balancing of opposing and complementary forces, both within particular texts and between them, through time (when it respects norms of chronology) and across or beyond time (when it does not). Self is "a process, a fluidity, a tension, even, between the subjective and objective realms" (Spence 4). The nature of the relationship between person and the society of which s/he is a part is the foundation of any articulation of self. For Western culture, one source of the initial terms of this relationship is the tension between interior change and exterior change required of the Christian. From the beginnings of the Church, believers joined a community in Christ through baptism, and their continued involvement in that community required a self-analysis in order to extirpate or manage their sinfulness, depending on the extent to which the latter was determined by their natural state as one of the Fallen, and/or by their particular thoughts or actions in contravention of the divine order. As long as Christianity remained one among many sects, the community was more limited, but also more flexible. As a loose confederation of communities within the Roman Empire, linked together by Pauline letters and the works of the Church Fathers, the decision to join was still the potential believer's prerogative. In a sense, the early Christian was endowed with a sense of agency. Indeed, before Emperor Constantine's conversion and the debate over central questions of faith that resulted in the Nicene Creed, the 6 Church could tolerate, to a certain degree, highly divergent views within that community (see Rubenstein). After the union of society and the Christian community, the Church paid a high price in the loss of that balance between individual and community which had been the strength of the early Church. Religion was no longer a matter for personal decision, and the old community of love and fellowship was replaced by a quite different ideal of conformity to the norms accepted by society. (Morris 24)

For Morris, individuality was somehow "lost" until the twelfth century, when, due to several coinciding factors, the individual was "discovered." We might more accurately say, re­ discovered, re-invented, or revived. Nevertheless, to use this passivization—"the individual" was discovered—is not to imply that that "the individual" lies inert in some kind of aether waiting to be found. Clearly, this is as inaccurate as more dramatic assertions of such a concept "erupting" onto the scene by its own volition. To a certain extent, we must tolerate grammatical shortcomings and keep in mind that "the individual" exists more nebulously and organically than history and all but the most abstruse philosophy can communicate. Around the twelfth century, the individual began to take on increasing importance, at least for theologians. This was expressed in approaches to sin, penance, and confession. "In the Dark Ages the system of discipline had become strangely exterior, the punishment of an offence by a specific penance" (Morris 70): sins were contumacious acts that required conciliatory acts of penitence. The twelfth century saw an increased concern for inner repentance over external penance, culminating eventually in the Fourth Lateran council (1215) mandating yearly private confession for all faithful (Morris 71-73). This, for some, marks the beginning of modern subjective psychology: "Subjectivation, interiorisation de la vie spirituelle qui est a l'origine de 1'introspection et par la de toute psychologie moderne en Occident" (Le Goff 167). For others, the same development is read less dramatically: No period was ever busier creating structures for its piety than the twelfth century. It is the Fourth Lateran Council's prohibition of new orders in 1215 that signals the end of the twelfth-century equilibrium between self and group and the beginning of a new period in which individual experience breaks away from or undercuts, rather than issues or coincides with, community. The individualism historians usually find in the later Middle Ages, Renaissance, and Reformation is not only in continuity with the twelfth-century discovery of self; it is also, I would suggest, in certain ways in contrast with the twelfth-century equilibrium between interior and exterior, self and community. (Bynum 109, emphasis added)

Bynum's twelfth-century individual is not predominantly "inner," but is the result of a concern for the "outer man" and the structures to which he conforms: "new forms of communities, with new rules and custumals providing new self-definitions and articulating new 7 values" (85). Thus, to see the twelfth-century individual as synonymous with the modern conception of "an inner core, a self [...] unique and unlike other selves" is a misreading of what was actually a continuation of the Augustinian model: "homo interior, or seipsum, as the discovery within oneself of human nature made in the image of God—an imago Dei that is the same for all human beings" (87). Timothy Reiss makes an even stronger argument against confession, private or public, as a vehicle for exploring individuality or testifying to "an interior subjectivity." Confession was simply another structure to which people were expected to conform: First, confession was impersonal: you confessed qua fallen human, not as an independent individual (in response to a standard list of questions, the "Penitential," applicable to all). Second, confession was expressly to cast off sins drawing one from God, to remember His bounty and reset the soul in the divine order. Third, you were subjected to a priestly interlocutor's authority, his subjected to God's. The Lateran Canon 21 on confession was, fourth, part of the Council's insistent institutionalizing of Christian life, Church affairs and relations with its flock. (296, emphasis in original)

And even if another contemporary institution, the Inquisition, was interested in individual consciousness as "a potentially secret side of truth," "the dominant experience of who-ness stayed that of being in collective circles" (Reiss 296-97). The latter is, for Reiss, the "passible" nature of "selfe," the state of being "embedded in and acted on" by "divine, social, material spheres and historical community. Pre-modern "selfe".(the 'e' is employed for purposes of defamiliarization) is permeable to the influence of these spheres, unlike the more impermeable modern self, who is self-sufficient and the source of his or her own legitimacy and identity (Reiss 2-5). In this respect, for Reiss, the self does not fundamentally change from the time of Socrates and Plato to that of Descartes. Even the latter operated under the assumption of a "soul caught in its glassy or earthen prison [that] sought a path to its original divine dwelling" (Reiss 44). When the external structures that determine identity are not divine, they are public, as for the Roman thinkers, and in contrast to post-Cartesian ideas and practices: The self a Rousseau or later autobiographers depict in writing or other public medium is private in essence [...]. This self is injected into a public forum whose existence it precedes. The experience differs utterly from the person-in- community presented by Cicero or Seneca, Plutarch or Galen, Augustine or the Arab doctors, and early modern writers. [...] All were/are for a public record that was not impediment, constraint or election, but the nature of being. (50-51) 8 That tension exists in the self is undeniable; however, Reiss argues, this cannot justify attributing modern impassbility to the tensed-self. For Petrarch, for example, the self/soul is a go-between, a bridge between the divine and the imperfect, corrupted body: Human will [...] was scarred and lamed by being the actor between soul and body. [...] It will be when Descartes inverts this relation, making will perfect and reason flawed, that space is made for a different experience. Until then, imperfection of will caught between body and soul meant that as long as one was living in the world, only the effort toward the divine was possible. (Reiss 334)

For the pre-modern, the imperfect will ought to strive for a habitus based on a reasoned and/or revealed conception of the Good, as for Vives: "Only by training mind and its faculties, by habitus and resulting prohairesis, teaching the soul to right habit and rational assent, did one become truly human" (Reiss 377).3 Here, Vives would seem to coincide with Taylor: fulfilling one's humanity involves a choice (hairesis) of what is good (pro-). It is not surprising that there is some contention over the translation of prohairesis, which can be taken to mean 'will,' 'intention,' 'moral purpose,' 'choice,' or 'purposive choice' (Chamberlain). One's preference for any of these translations depends on one's willingness to attribute a greater or lesser degree of agency to this choice. Notably, however, prohairesis for Vives is the result of habitus and both are the result of training both body and mind, that is to say, of the acceptance of the authority of physical and mental regimes or structures. Aristotle, Cicero and their medieval successors theorize habitus as a means of self-consciously constructing or reconstructing the self. As in the practice of a craft, repetition implies improvement and ultimately perfection rather than the mechanical iteration of the production line. Habitus thus allows its practitioners to achieve rationally conceived goals such as knowledge and virtue that would otherwise be out of reach. (Breen 4)

This version of habitus is not the "unconscious state to which one must 'awaken'" as it becomes in the work of Bourdieu (Breen 4), who provides the following definition of habitus: The conditions associated with a particular class of conditions of existence produce habitus, systems of durable, transposable dispositions, structured structures predisposed to function as structuring structures, that is, as principles which generate and organize practices and representations that can be objectively adapted to their outcomes without presupposing a conscious aiming at ends or an express mastery of the operations necessary in order to attain them. Objectively 'regulated' and 'regular' without being in any way the product of obedience to rules, they can be collectively orchestrated without being the product of the organizing action of a conductor. (Bourdieu 53)

The sticking point for the conceptions of self examined briefly here is when the equilibrium between structure and particular practiced by the passible self becomes structure experienced and acted upon by the impassible self. Morris and Harming detect changes as early as the twelfth century, with Aers fending off detractors as amnesiacs, unwilling to appreciate the presence of complex and divided selves in an understudied time. With Bynum's more nuanced support, Reiss pushes the change into the seventeenth century, and deems earlier manifestations to be misreadings of tension to be expected when a frail and corruptible body confronts its place in a supposedly divinely ordered universe. There are other historical indicators that could be used to show when and explain why interest in particular individuals may have changed. Jacques Le Goff, for example, identifies changing attitudes towards time and the value of work as keys to understanding the medieval mentality. "Meteorological time," based on the cycle of the seasons, was that experienced by most until merchants began to require the measurement of time in order to better manage the workday, effectively laicizing monastic discipline in the name of economic efficiency (57, 76- 77). This change complements the shift over a wider timeframe from "circular" Hellenic time to "linear" time inspired by Christian apocalyptic ideas, which in turn changed the relationship to history and thus people's relationship to their past and their future (62-63). Taylor's conception of the self as a story cannot be far behind. With time being measured and sold, merchants were initially in danger of being accused of usury; "Le temps est un don de Dieu et ne peut done etre vendu" (Le Goff 78); since this would not have been feasible (merchants were becoming important supporters of the Church and the ruling classes), the value of work had to be reconsidered. This discussion could only spill over into general discussions on the Good and the role of people within society; a merchant became a particular type of individual. Wealth accumulation also makes possible social advancement, which, combined with increased learning, is key to Morris' "discovery of the individual" (36). Within circles of learning, gaps begin to open up in the twelfth century between learning by rote (usus) and learning by the application of an individual's ingenium, or powers of reasoning, exemplified for Harming in Abelard's account of his education in the Historia calamitatum (Harming 29). Ingenium could also be related to the emergence of the author as a performing self as understood by Martin Stevens in "The Performing Self in Twelfth-Century Culture." For Stevens, the twelfth century saw a rise in the "pride in authorship." "For the first time in the literature of the Middle Ages, artists either insist on making themselves known by name or on including themselves by first-person reference in their works" (198). This situation arises from the performative nature of the author-listener relationship. vernacular literature [was] essentially intended for readers but presented to 10 listeners, and their only mode of conveyance was therefore oral performance. It was inevitable under these circumstances that the writer and speaker identified himself with those he was addressing and, further, that he would in the course of time make remarks about his role as artist to his audience. (Stevens 208)

Also, in the competition for patronage, it was necessary for writers to self-advertise, and one way to do this was to appear in your own works, as exemplified by Chaucer (Stevens 211). The artist was a creator, a version of the Creator on a smaller scale, and human experience became increasingly important, particularly in the domain of cosmology (209-10). Morris reveals how, from around AD 1000 to 1200, statuary and portraits focused on representing individual characteristics, more accurately conveying the "personal appearance" of their subject rather than their "hierarchy and station" (89-90). Autobiography had not developed much since Augustine's Confessions; most autobiographical writings were contained in larger texts, and most often only relayed the facts of a particular individual's conversion. Letter collections, on the other hand, were increasingly popular due to the opportunity they provided "to the writer or his friends to present his character and opinions to the world." This was "part of a general tendency to examine, and publish, one's personal experiences" (Morris 79). While letter collections may have been mostly in Latin, the increasing use of vernacular languages also marks a shift away from tradition. For Spence, "vernacular text—and the self—become that which exists outside the court where the internal is externalized, private made public" (145). "The vernacular develops in part as a literary language of self-expression by defining itself in terms of the Latin tradition of letters in the same way that the self develops out of a mutual recognition and distancing from the body" (Spence 2). Although we must heed Reiss and Bynum and qualify both Morris and Spence's views—letters were directed to a particular community and the "public" addressed by the "private" self is not necessarily as global as today's understanding of "public"—this does not discredit the observations. Morris himself highlights the importance of letters in providing a "sense of community, based on a humane ideal of personal relations" (99), one that focused on fellowship in prayer and establishing "a commonwealth of friendship" between "men of common mind," and that was often a vital component of political and ecclesiastic movements at the time (103).

Vernacular languages develop their own structures or grammars, but these are constantly under review. Nevertheless, the recognition of vernacular languages as valid means of communication testifies to the adaptation required by all cultures over time to demographic change. Although Latin would retain its importance as the language of scholarship and governance for centuries to come, it was no longer the only option. Writers could make a choice, depending on their intended audience: the widespread community of Latinists, or the more local bodies with whom he or she shared a maternal, more intimate tongue. Technological advancements in printing and knowledge dissemination accompanied and stimulated linguistic change into the Early Modern period. Texts became more affordable and were produced in increasing numbers and more and more editions, which contributed to their accuracy and reliability (Rice and Grafton 7-8). Thanks to printing, the proliferation of maps, both schematic "T-O" maps with "moral and physical lessons" and portolan charts enabling more efficient navigation opened the world up to increasing numbers of merchants, philosophers and creative writers (27). Not only was the private realm of personal experience of increasing interest, but the world that provided that experience was also expanding. The range of choices must have been intoxicating. The range of choices available to particular individuals and the manner in which they articulate their decision between these choices are the essential ingredients of self, as well as a study of self. Just as the selves I discuss are delimited and enabled by the choices available to them, so my discussion is delimited and enabled by the choices confronting it. That there are differences between my study's self and the selves discussed by it is initially obvious: they are active subjects in their own telling, and passive subjects in mine. Nevertheless, this difference becomes increasingly difficult to isolate, even (or especially) when faced with an appraisal as succinct as Bynum's regarding the general goals of ancients, medievals, and (post)moderns: One might say, to simplify a little, that to the ancients the goal of development is the adult human being, for which one finds a model in the great works of the past; to the twelfth century the goal of development is likeness to God, built on the image of God found in "the inner man"; to the twentieth century the goal is the process itself. (87, emphasis added)

Sidestepping, for the moment, the accuracy of Bynum's simplifications of the ancient and medieval mindsets, we should focus on the pertinence of the last: "the goal is the process itself." By analyzing self, which I have defined as a process or discourse that attempts to balance conflicting forces, seeing "the goal as the process" is unavoidable. This does not mean that I am imposing my own viewpoint on my texts: they continue to "speak on their own terms" even if I am bound to understand them in my own terms. In this introduction, and in the body of the discussion, I attempt to historically justify my conclusions that are, in their very nature, current to present-day scholarship and the reality of the world that I confront. Like my subjects, I am a subject: all of us are attempting to carve out a particular niche that will serve our own goals, and the viability of my niche depends on the accuracy (within reason) of my depiction of theirs. Taylor admits to the same in framing "the story he wants to tell." While we are responsible for the shape of our own discourse, the story elements are not ours to manipulate: they exist in their own time, embedded in an ever-growing, ever complex web of discourse. In analyzing particular types of discourse in a particular period, I attempt to untangle a section of this web. Thus, with one eye on the other factors that affect the articulation of self, the main focus of this dissertation is the structure of genre. Each of the texts studied presents an example (not necessarily an exemplum) of a different genre in its historical context. Notably, the concept of genre itself is only marginally less slippery than that of self. A genre is a model, a norm that is itself a conflation or adaptation of past norms. Auerbach, as cited above, makes the psychologically driven novel representative of modernity. In this day and age, to an extent I am not equipped to quantify, the novel's primacy is challenged by film and electronic media: now able to view YouTube videos on portable video players, or read interactive electronic "novels," and because they are increasingly equipped to respond to or create their own "texts," perhaps present-day consumers/producers have a different the sense of self than their forbears. By extension, what of the genres that preceded and that have been assimilated by the novel? The present study shows how chivalric romance, cartas de relation, and the epistolary/picaresque "novel" present different possibilities for the exploration of self. Each text is governed by a prohairesis, or "purposive choice," in its articulation of a particular habitus its genre makes possible. Nevertheless, because artistic production is necessarily creative, and because each text's context is different, genre is always abstract. The artist is always a kind of heretic in regard to genre (or, is presented as such by the critic who would lump a particular text into a collective generic class); he or she accepts the norms, and to a certain extent, operates within them, yet also goes beyond them or breaks them. Sometimes these changes improve the genre; at other times, they spawn an entirely new one.

Epic: Imagined Community, Textual Self Just as self is articulated through choices, identification of choices is based on the detection of difference. Each of the texts studied here is distinct from the others, but in order to be able to articulate more clearly the choice and the execution of each, it is important to begin from some base principles. These I will glean from a few examples of the genre that managed to maintain its vitality, with some alterations, from Gilgamesh to Milton: epic. What follows is not an exhaustive study; it serves merely to prime the discussion that is to come and provide some sounding boards against which to test the statements to be made in the chapters that follow. 13 What I call the textualized self is exemplified in La Chanson de Roland with Roland's careful arrangement of his body for the benefit of Charles and the rest of the vanguard of the French forces at Roncesvalles. This tentatively raises the problem of responsible readership, tentatively since epic does not fully allow for individualized interpretation. An extreme example of this hesitation occurs in The Battle ofMaldon, in which words are direct, honest, and spear-like, and in which individualized (that is, anti-social or cowardly) expression is entirely repressed. In Roland, the traitor Ganelon is allowed some space to "misread" the Roland-text for his own ends, but is ultimately and effectively silenced by the application of right reason and just violence. Epic also suggests that text itself, rather than irresponsible readership, is responsible for dishonourable and cowardly conduct, as laid out by Plato and illustrated in El Poema de Mio Cid. In the latter, the whipping of the Cid's daughters by the Infantes reveals writing to be an activity undertaken in private (and in the Cid, actually in the woods) that is incapable of being forthright and honourable: the author does not stand closely enough behind his words to risk himself in having to defend them. Text and its oral cousin, rhetoric, are too structured to accurately reflect truth and are inclined to fraudulence. Subjectivity, in epic, is controlled in the service of the collective and right reason. While it contains subversive elements, epic is incapable, as a genre of evoking full subjectivity: the poetic structure evokes great deeds by heroes, who are ideal types rather than realistic individualized characters. Spiritual autobiography and hagiography perhaps go some distance towards subjectivity, but are restrained by their purpose: again, an image of an ideal in the service of a community. More radical subjectivity, less constrained by the collective, occurs in romance. In the latter, the author takes on an increasingly central role, an empowerment that he passes on to his characters, particularly in the case of Chretien de Troyes. Nevertheless, since self is essentially a discursive balance between the individual and the collective, the extremes of epic and romance do not allow for a complete view of the subject. Prose chivalric romance, exemplified in this study by Amadis de Gaula, strikes the necessary balance between the generic possibilities of epic and romance for the development of a genuinely Early Modern self.

TEXTUALIZED SELF As has been established, self is a narrative discourse or text, composed of events placed in an order that accords, to a greater or lesser extent, with a genre. Citing Abbot Suger (c.1081- 1151), Spence situates the self "in some foreign territory of the universe which is neither lodged wholly in the muck of the earth nor completely in the purity of heaven" (52).4 The self is located 14 in a "space of agency" that is, through the Middle Ages, increasingly visual and thus increasingly textual (Spence 2, 67). Roland's death scene in La Chanson de Roland (c.l 140) offers a clear example of the self as body-text. Of greatest importance to the warriors at Roncesvalles is a bonne cangun of their deaths, one where the central characters (themselves) act according to heroic norms. Once they realize the battle is lost, the warriors recognize the need for responsible readers of their sacrifice; without such readers, their sacrifice will have been in vain. Says Turpin (assuming Roland will soon sound the horn and recall the vanguard): «Nostre Franceis i descendrunt a pied, Truverunt nos e morz e detrenchez, Leverunt nos en bieres sur sumers, Si nus plurrunt de doel e de pitet, Enfuerunt [nos] en aitres de musters; N'en mangerunt ne lu ne pore ne chien.» Roland a dit: «Sire, mult dites bien.» 11.1746-1752 This grisly projection reveals the warrior's ideal: his willingness to die is contingent on being able to leave a trace—his dead, dismembered body—capable of undergoing a proper ceremony. If pigs or dogs devour them, no one will read their bodies and re-inscribe them into a glorious cangun. This interpretation must, however be guided, no matter the righteousness of the reader. It is to this end that Roland arranges his body for death. As Jules Horrent notes, "A l'inverse de ses amis, Roland mourra dans une attitude qu'il s'est composee" (Horrent 267, emphasis added). In stanza 168, Roland takes his horn and Durendal, his sword, and climbs a hill. He wakes from a fainting spell to find an enemy attempting to steal his sword, kills the looter, and then attempts to prevent Durendal from falling into any other pagan hands by destroying it (stanza 171). Feeling that death is imminent, he arranges his body at the foot of a pine tree, lying on the indestructible Durendal and his horn to hide them from looters, and he deliberately points his face towards the enemy. Desuz un pin i est alet curant, Sur l'erbe verte s'i est culchet adenz, Desuz lui met s'espee e l'olifan Turnat sa teste vers la paiene gent; Pur 90 l'at fait que il voelt veirement Que Carles diet e trestute sa gent,

"Our French countrymen will dismount, / and they will find us dead and cut to pieces, / They will place us on biers on beasts of burden, / And they will weep for us with pain and pity, / They will bury us in church cemeteries / Neither wolves nor pigs nor dogs will devour us" / And Roland said: "Sir, you have spoken well" 15 Li gentilz quens, qu'il fut mort cunquerant. (2361-63) Through his contortions, Roland's conquering gaze will continue even after his death. Only once his body is sufficiently textualized can he allow himself to die. He does so, in an interesting twist on the ritual of vassalage, by offering his glove to God; he asks God to fight for him and extend towards him the Grace that will permit him to enter paradise.

(DIS)HONEST WORDS AND COMMUNITY Of course, Charles correctly reads the signs left by Roland (or correctly interprets Roland-become-sign), and, inspired by the tragedy and the example of the hero, proceeds to rout the Saracens and then Roland's personal enemy, the traitor Ganelon. The correctness of the interpretation testifies to the lack of distance between the author, in this case Roland, and his reader (Charles), even across the gulf of death. While incorrect interpretation is possible, it is only as a further expression of treachery. Ganelon, for example in stanza 133, dismisses the horn blast (which Charles again correctly interprets as a call for assistance): Roland is simply fooling around, Ganelon suggests, perhaps chasing something no more harmful that a rabbit. He even goes so far as to suggest that Charles is both too old and too innocently childlike to understand his nephew: "Ja estes veilz e fluriz e blancs; / Par tels paroles vus resemblez enfant" (11. 1771- 1772).1" In doing so, Ganelon betrays himself. Honourable, truly heroic characters do not mince words. Indeed, in some less complex epics, words take on a materiality that prevents their being misunderstood. Instead, it is silence, not misinterpretation, that evinces cowardice. In the Anglo-Saxon epic fragment, The Battle of Maldon (c. 991 AD), enemy words truly engender disorder, and heroic words restore it. In response to the demand for a peace payment from the Viking messenger, ByrhtnoS, the captain of the Saxons, (11. 25, 27), bristles, and throws his own speech-spear back: Byrhtnoth made a speech, he raised his shield waved his slender spear, spoke out with words, the angry and resolute one gave him answer: "Sea raider, can you hear what this army is saying? They intend to give you spears as tribute, deadly points and tried swords... (11. 42-7)

Running, he went beneath a pine, / He lay face down on the green grass. / He places his sword and horn underneath himself, / He turns his head towards the pagans: / He does this because he wants, come what may, / Charles to proclaim, along with all his men, / The noble tale in which he died conquering- ^ "Yes, you are old and your head is white; / With such words you resemble a child" 16 Every weapon at ByrhtnoS's disposal is backed up with words, which are acknowledged for their powerful, symbolic, value. The first three lines above match 'speech,' 'words,' and 'answer' with 'shield,' 'spear,' 'anger and resolution.' The last lines pun on the concept of tribute, often paid in part with weapons. Furthermore, as an extension of language, tribute is symbolic of a battle that either took place and was lost or was averted because it would have been lost, and is a mark of deference and submission; a lord cannot offer tribute without being tried in battle if he is to maintain his glorious self-unity as the head of his men. The weight of his presence and that of the army behind him, along with the force of his spear-arm and the swords of his men, speaks to the raiders. The English speak with their collective body, with ByrhtnoS as their mouthpiece, against the invasive word-spears of the Vikings.

COWARDICE AS SILENCE: THE WOOD In Maldon, all voices, even those of the Vikings, are public and collective. Those who do not speak (or who are not.given the opportunity by the author) are the cowards and traitors. Whereas the public speech occurs in the open space of the battlefield or the communal space of the mead-hall, the space of silence and cowardice is that of the wood. Before the battle, ByrhtnoS commands his troops to dismount and send their horses away, "to concentrate on brave deeds and bold thoughts" (1. 4). (Horses are not only a potential means of escape, ByrhtnoS's remaining on his horse is also a sign of his rank.)5 As the men are complying with ByrhtnoS's orders, we see Offa's young kinsman hawking: When the kinsman of Offa first realized that the earl would not tolerate cowardice, he made the much loved creature fly from his wrist, his hawk off to the wood, and he himself advanced to the battle; by his action all would know that the youth did not intend to weaken in the fight, when he grasped his weapons. (11. 5-10)

The hawk and the relationship to Offa, a key player later in the poem, and obviously one of ByrhtnoS's lieutenants, indicate this individual's class status as noble and brave; hawking was a favourite pastime for those able to afford it as it had been from Germanic times.6 On the other hand, the hawk is also associated here with a youthful pastime, a noble but less rigorous form of hunting, itself only practice for the serious business of battle. The beloved hawk is allowed to fly from his wrist to the wood, a dark, concealed place rich in prey, but also the antithesis of the open battlefield where true heroic valour is tested. 17 In the heat of the battle, Godric and his brethren (neither of whom has spoken) intensify the significance of the wood from a place of distractions to a place of cowardice; they steal a horse and flee to the woods. Offa himself (in hindsight) foresees this cowardice: [...] they did not care for battle, but they turned from the fight and sought the wood, they fled into that place of safety and saved their lives, and more men than was at all fitting, if they had called to mind the favours that he [ByrhtnoS] had done for their benefit. Thus Offa had said to him earlier in the day in the assembly, when he had held a meeting, that many there spoke bravely WIHJ wuuiu nui IHJIU uui in nine ui nccu. yn. Lyz.-z.UL)

Those who flee have not been true to their word; they have (reportedly) spoken bravely, but not acted so. Compounding the deceitfulness of the speeches at the assembly is Godric's impersonation of ByrhtnoS; intended or not, the results of the arrogant and cowardly impersonation are devastating: '[...] Us Godric has betrayed, one and all, the cowardly son of Odda: too many men believed, when he rode away on the horse, on the prancing steed, that it was our lord: because of that the army became fragmented here on the battlefield, the shield-fort smashed to pieces. Blast his action, that he should have put so many men to flight here.' (II. 237-43) If independently minded thegns are allowed to focus merely on wealth-accumulation and exclusive pastimes, "the shield-fort" crumbles, the army and the kingdom fragment. Cowardice threatens everyone's prosperity; indeed, in the years following the actual battle, peace payments to the Vikings increased exponentially (Busse and Holtei 187).

TEXTUAL DISHONESTY In contrast to the public honest orality ofMaldon and the relatively direct self- textualization of Roland lies the possibility of incorrect interpretation or simply treacherous reading, as that of Ganelon. Correct interpretation relies on the virtue of the reader, but is there an extent to which text is "responsible" for incorrect interpretation? The famous source of the idea of the dangers of text is that of Plato. For Socrates in Phaedrus, oral discourse is inextricable from the orator and can "defend itself and tailor itself to its audience. Writing, on the other hand, is dead and fixed: it corrupts and dulls the memory, and it only serves to remind us of what we already know (475-525: 275a-d). In Gorgias, between the dead word and the 18 living dialectic of the Socratic method stands rhetoric, equally maligned by Socrates for its focus on persuasion rather than on Truth (229-307). Any words that do not have someone standing behind them are thus suspect. While Plato's (and/or Socrates') opinion may have been exceptional and not necessarily in line with the general Greek attitude,7 text continued to inspire some reservations into and beyond the Middle Ages. This suspicion extends to books of chivalry, a notable example of which occurs in El Poema de Mio Cid. Shamed by their non-performance in battle and their unwillingness to defend their future father-in-law, the Cid, from a lion, the anti-heroic Infantes de Carrion resort to text. Alone in the woods with their fiancees, they whip the women, marking their bodies and transforming them into texts. "The Infantes' already proven lack of courage leads them to rely on the inherent absence of writing in order to shame the Cid from a safe distance" (Ross 9-10). Furthermore, the Afrenta encapsulates the tension running through the whole PMC between the transparent and fully present discourse which characterizes the forces of the Cid, and the Infantes' opaque, twisted, hollow discourse characteristic of a fallen world dependent on the artificial externality of writing. The typically Patristic association of speech with nature, life, spirit and presence, and of writing with artifice, death, matter and absence subtends the conflict between the opposing discursive worlds of the Cid and the Infantes. (Ross 17, emphasis added)

Nevertheless, the active heroism of the Cid does not fully escape suspicion. In regard to the Jewish moneylenders, Rrachel and Vidas, the Cid appears to tarnish himself, however circumspectly. The Cid's plan, to trick the moneylenders into loaning him funds with chests of sand as security, is carried out by a lieutenant, Andolinez. The exchange is carried out under cover of darkness, and is considered a last resort, the result of a far greater injustice (as far as the Cid and the audience are concerned): his unjust exile (for albeit unmentioned reasons). And in any case, the victims of the ruse are Jewish, and unlikely recipients of the audience's pity; like the Moors, they are "natural" victims. Under the weight of these caveats, this most humble of moments is soon overcome by the first of the Cid's many victories on the battlefield and by his "transparent and fully present" discourse from that point on. Frye enumerates three different forms of heroism: classic heroism based on forza ('force'), comic heroism (where the heroine is often active) based on froda ('cunning'), and the romantic ethos that emphasizes suffering (88). Maldon, Roland, and Mio Cid are clearly examples of classic heroism, but froda (albeit actively shunned from the first), is briefly flirted with in all three. Froda, conceptually related to ingenium, becomes, like text and rhetoric (in certain circumstances), a marker of "artificial externality" and thus obfuscated internality. Froda 19 and ingenium are attitudes of individuality; text and rhetoric are possible means of individual exploration and, unchecked by structural norms, are possible means of the dissemination of lies and dishonour in the guise of truth and virtue. In La Chanson de Roland, once Roland has died and the external enemies (the Saracens) are dealt with, the effort turns towards the internal enemy: the traitor Ganelon, who had made a deal with the Saracens that resulted in Roland's death. After the death of the hero, and, by association, feudal law, comes the need for "monarchical law" (Haidu cited in Reiss 286-87) more directly controlled by the centre and by means of rhetoric rather than simply military force. A court is assembled at Aix to try Ganelon where both the defendant and Charles choose champions who not only serve as legal advocates, but who ultimately fight each other in a contest that will determine innocence or guilt. (The transition to "monarchical law" is not yet complete). Ganelon's treachery is closely linked to his status as courtier in contrast to the warrior class represented by Roland (see Dufournet)—a comment on the opinion of the author and perhaps audience, but also an acknowledgement of the rise in importance of a non- militarized, courtly and word-wielding counsellor, in contrast to the chivalric sword-wielding class honoured here (perhaps in nostalgic resistance to this class' displacement). Of particular note is the narrator's opinion of Pinabel, Ganelon's champion: "Ben set parler e dreite raison rendre / Vassals est bons por ses armes defendre" (11. 3784-85). Of course, his military prowess

o is mentioned, but more significant is that he can speak well and render right reason. The destruction of one order and its re-construction or replacement with a new order signals or "indexes" a change in the political subject (Reiss 287, cites Haidu).9 This change cannot be completed from within feudal epic, the essential characteristic of which is to "fix" history, "lay it bare," and assimilate it into the metanarrative of Church history that, for the moment, is unwilling to come to terms with particularity in the subject (Le Goff 56).10 As long as the writer remains a rhetorician who practices right reason in the service of the prevailing order, the latter remains secure. Developments in literary practice in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, building on the exaltation of the individual by Christianity, lead to the emergence of the author (Zink). The latter does not completely undermine traditional order, for he emerges out of norms such as genre and language; however, these are put into practice in increasingly creative ways. That this figure emerges and is not suddenly "discovered" is clear. The suspicion of text and language generally (through irresponsible application of rhetoric) as capable of undermining order shows that the creative spirit existed and was powerful enough to be crudely avoided (as in Maldon) and rigorously derided (as in El Cid). The historical factors given above 20 provide some idea as to why and how this creative spirit would have been allowed a freer reign, but I will allow Reiss and Morris to continue the discussion elsewhere as to exactly when it happened. On the level of character, Harming sees the chivalric romance (e.g. those of Chretien de Troyes) as providing "a literary form in which to work out the implications of individuality" (Hanning 3), understood as a amalgam of personal, inward experience isolated from the outside world: In the romance genre generally, man is defined in terms of becoming, not being; that is, what he is is a function of what time brings him. The sequence of events whereby protagonists are separated from and then returned to their "normal" world, or grow from helpless children to capable adults, shows them (and us) what they can do and presents them as the sum total of their experiences, as more than they were when they started, even though in the physical sense they remain the same person.[...] Larger temporal frames of reference than the biographical—the rise and fall of nations, the control of all human history by divine providence, the division of the world into a specific number of ages—are not determining facts in romance; what matters instead is the time it takes a man to return home from the war, or to pass from untested youth to seasoned adulthood. (Hanning 139)

The flashbacks and prophecies of Beowulf, for Hanning, are attempts to link the poem within a tradition, which gives it meaning. Without the context, the action is meaningless. In contrast, the romance is self-contained and requires no reference to the "outside" world (Hanning 141-45). Roland, for its part, is too fragmented and repetitive, "too jerkily climactic to represent reality as seen within the continuum of an identity—a personal experience held together and unified by memory, desire, and biological integrity" (146). The adventure undergone by the character is analogous, a "Lacanian mirror," to that of the author: "What romance adventure was for the hero—a mirror in and through whose reflection his / was defined—the romance itself was, as a literary activity, for the author" (Zink 33). Romance began as the translation of Latin sources, more or less faithfully, by a scholar, whose genius lay in his linguistic abilities. But very soon authority passed from the source to romance itself, with the writer no longer posing as competent historian and philologist but as author. Henceforth he suggested that the romance, as he constructed and wrote it, possessed a truth and meaning that were not only independent of the historical truth of the facts reported but became more evident as those facts admitted to uncertainty and fictitiousness, since romance was then free to give them meaningful expression. (Zink 62). 21 For Zink, the "text as the point of view of consciousness" defines both "literary subjectivity" and literature, which exists only the moment a text seeks to present itself neither as information about the world, laying claims to general and objective truth, nor as an expression of metaphysical or sacred truth but rather designates itself as the product of a particular consciousness, hesitating between arbitrary individual subjectivity and the constraints of language's forms. (4, emphasis added)

What should be clear from the preceding discussion is that the individual is not "born," "discovered," or even "invented"; instead, it emerges hesitantly from and along with an equally hesitant history. As Le Goff points out, "the trajectory of life—like that of history—is more a series of overlaps and misalignments (chevauchements) than of direct successions" (26).n This dissertation will reveal how the self (individual subjectivities of the characters and authors) interacts with the "constraints of language's forms," one of which is genre.

Within the bounds of this dissertation, epic is the essential Other, and more than because of its "pre-modernity." For my purposes, epic is the zero-sum genre, the "primordial form" that precedes the objectification of the self.12 The characterization of epic is, due to its brevity and function within the scope of this dissertation, my hack: the indentation chipped into the "ice" that gives me a foothold from which to launch the other "rocks" towards home.13 As explained in the chapters to follow, Montalwo' s Amadis de Gaula (c. 1508) and Cortes' Cartas de relation (1519-1525) explore a possible path of transmission from the anti-self of epic to the self as anti-self of Lazarillo. Full of pitched battles of right versus wrong, Amadis struggles to achieve a similar clarity between the elements of epic and romance at the text's core. A corollary struggle is waged on the level of the self, afflicted by crippling introversion at one turn, and empowered to act definitively on the side of justice on the other. Neither side wins out; instead, a balance is reached. Epic episodes are endlessly interspersed with digression, just as every moral certitude is counterbalanced by profound self-doubt. Likewise, the self comes to fruition not merely as something caught between extremes, but the very action of balancing itself through them. In Amadis, the self is both intensely private and public; it is a publicly performed image, and the profound reflection, creation, and rehearsal that precedes and proceeds from each performance. The items used to represent characters (crowns, swords, pens, and books) incorporate themselves to the character: Amadis is his sword, Oriana her pen, Lisuarte his diadem. Nevertheless, Amadis remains a third person account by an author with a moralizing mission he is not inclined to conceal. The self-as-performance thesis, were it to end with this analysis, would have to contend with the accusation that it is being composed from the outside: Amadis is a model self because he is designed as a model by an external narrator, Montalvo. If my idea of self-as-performance is to become better established, it must ground itself in an actual account by a particular self that performs itself into being. This self is Cortes, who not only relates himself into being, but also the empire of which he aspires to be a central part. The more artistically creative self-discipline of Amadis is replaced by a rhetorically creative self-discipline in the Cartas. The rhetoric of self borrows from legal, historical, and literary models to forge a place for itself out of the "unknown." The self is a hybrid of inherited models and the novelty of context: the models provide the parameters; and the context, in the process of becoming known through the filter of the models, becomes the uniqueness or individuality. The First Carta presents a collective voice in order to compensate for the fact that the legitimacy of the mission has been undermined by Cortes' rejection of Diego Velazquez, the Governor of Cuba who authorized the voyage in the first place. Essential to the mission as reconceived by Cortes is the founding of Veracruz: a group of ships of exploration transforms itself into a city in an attempt to integrate itself (and its leader) into a relationship with the Crown that is unmediated by more established, and relatively landed gentry. On the shores of Mexico, Cortes and his deputies play into the political situation of Spain during the transition from the death of Isabella (1508) and the ascension of Carlos to the throne (1519). Mostly hidalgos without estates, the conquistadors demand institutional rights and reward for services rendered, in order to resist the "traditional rights" of the first wave of opportunists who control the islands. In the Second Carta Cortes gives material weight to his account by inflicting damage on the bodies of the king's enemies: he re-enacts the presence of the sovereign by marking and eliminating the bodies of traitors. The latter have been discursively shaped in a discourse of vassalage that adds a personal, social, human-human level to the institutional models (that is to say, those who have been discursively shaped into traitors). The creation of personal relationships is paralleled by a relationship with the land, through maps. Once again, the self in relation to geographic space is a hybrid between abstract universals and individual, contextual experience. The textual map produced by the letters reproduces and attempts to negotiate this hybridity. 23 In the Fifth Carta, punishment, though still as ultimately physical as that practiced in the Second Carta, adopts a psychological dimension. While psychologically policing enemies rather than simply making actual or juridical war on them, Cortes struggles to maintain his centrality to Spanish success in the New World. In spite of his best efforts, the institutional forces with which he must negotiate consume him. Cortes' awareness that he is being consumed, along with his attempts to control the extent and nature of that consumption, underscores the importance of readership that runs throughout this dissertation. In the Cartas, every statement, thought, and piece of information is aware of multiple audiences: not only are the words directed towards the "character" represented (Mexica, Spaniard, or self), they are also re-ordered and related for the imagined audience with the sovereign, and for the wider reading public. The relationship between the reading public and the self is more complex in Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). Along with many medieval texts, Lazarillo is anonymous, but to an entirely different effect. Rather than being a text of the social order, it is a letter from the social order to itself. Highly self-critical and ironic, the battlefield of Lazarillo is not the public, violent, and tragic space of an epic struggle, but the semi-private space of the letter. The letter is, formally, a private one from a servant to his master's master in which he describes the sufferings of his life; fundamentally, however, this letter is also public: it is a published, printed, and marketed attempt to expose a deeper personal complexity than that available (textually at least) to previous authors. The author of Lazarillo has deliberately obfuscated himself in order to empower his main character to further undermine the authority upon which the author, and his entire social group, rests its spiritual, moral, and economic power. Whereas nature and wilderness are treated in the other texts are unstable places that either enable self-realization by providing adventure (an outlet of violence) removed from society, or resist textualization entirely, the domestic darkness that has been the servitude of Lazaro is explored as if it were the panacea to a corrupt and waning social order. My interpretation of the texts discussed here depends heavily on the reading audience of. each text. Amadis' address of soldiers and regional leaders is injected with a measure of Humanist learning, and is concerned with the survival of empire in the face of threats from the Ottomans and inter-European competition that are compounded by internal threats linked to questions of religious orthodoxy and cultural/ethnic diversity. Cortes is perhaps initially interested in appealing to a popular authority at the same time as a regal one, and the banning of his letters testifies to their potential for populist influence, at least in the eyes of more 24 conservative forces in government. Lazarillo'% readership takes on a further level of readership: it is directed back towards the authorial self and the culture he represents. All of these texts are also aware of posterity; they direct their discourse towards the future, and to the preservation of themselves as memory to that future. They are concerned with the "and then," the fundamental source of Taylor's conception of self. The stories they want to tell appear surprisingly modern, yet serve to remind us that the fundamental means by which we and our predecessors come to understand our place in the world—narratively articulated change—is based not only on a structurally inherited way of articulating the Good {habitus and prohairesis), but also on some form of heresy: a leap of faith across the gulf of amnesia. 25

Chapter 1 Stepping Outside: Managing Exilic Violence in Chivalric Romance (Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula)

Amadis de Gaula borrows elements from both epic and chivalric romance and forges from them a self that is heroically active, self-contemplative, and in the service of the interests of an expanding imperial state. The hero is merged with the bureaucrat and the saint to produce a new type. In attempting to replace its mass of subjects with a more active citizenry, the state14 is increasingly invasive at the level of the individual: it seeks to expand not only territorially (historically, we are on the verge of a new Age of Empire), but into the realm of general individual discipline. Literature responds to these state demands by sidelining the hothead of medieval epic, and by bringing forth the textual manager: a functionary trained by extended periods of exile to submit himself to abstractions—lady and lord—as he rehearses the patriotism that will become so important to the stability of "civilization" as we homelandishly conceive of it today.15 In a sense, the contemplative scholar-monk has adopted a more secular focus for his energies. In Amadis, the epic of empire is subsumed by (what will become) the novel of citizenship. Subject, citizen, and individual connote different elements of the self as I conceive it. The subject is naturally and absolutely subordinated to an established hierarchy; he is always the subject of, and subjected to control by a chieftain/king/emperor by virtue of the latter's title, a fixed and unchanging legal status not open to alteration through discourse. The citizen, on the other hand, is an active participant in government; legal status of governors (rather than rulers) is a component of a discursive legal framework that is open to change through participation. Historical reality undermines the cleanliness and historical arrogance of these definitions without removing their utility. In the end, contextualization reveals that medieval subjects were active in determining the nature of their place in the hierarchy. As Ernst Kantarowicz has shown, the status of kingship was hardly a fixed category, and was open to legalistic interpretation that jurists struggled to define. (See the discussion in relation to the absent presence of the king as it relates to the attempts of Cortes to establish kingship in a foreign land, below, page 94.) The individual is an abstraction of the single person, contained in a particular body and perhaps the owner of a single and identifiable spirit or soul. The first two terms, subject and citizen, are essentially political or social categories; they describe the nature of activity and the presence of 26 power. "Individual," on the other hand, is more psychological and/or spiritual. As we will see, self is a product: the creative output that stems from the conflict between the individual and his particular subject/citizen situation. Within the transition to individual citizens and away from rigid literary categories used to represent self in relation to society, there is a change in attitude towards text and language. In epic, words are authoritarian: they impose a structure on the world that is at the same time the expression of a communal desire and the creation of a communal desire (Quint), much like advertising attempts to create demand by tapping into existing desires and reshaping them. In romance, words take on a more dialogic function: the rigid teleology of epic is resisted by wandering characters and digressive narration as the text strives to entertain the reader rather than educate or inspire him to cultural solidarity.16 By employing narrative delay, scenes of exile, and endless wandering, and by its increased popularity,17 romance heralds the increased importance of internal individual life in its relations with the superstructure. By focusing on individual action and perception, romance privileges individual experience of superstructure over character action within an immutable superstructure. Moving outwards from the text, the reader takes on a more active role in determining the narrative superstructure, with parallels to increased reader participation in sixteenth century theology, and to citizen participation in politics: the reader is the worshipper/preacher, is the citizen who engages his society through its legal structures and his own narrative. The appearance of documents within chivalric romance articulates the effect of this change: an intensified exilic condition that will be essential to the modern attitude towards the art of representation. In contrast to Roland's graphic use of his own body to convey his pain, determination, and service, chivalric stories are increasingly transmitted over distance, which stimulates (i.e. lengthens) the plot and affects interpretation. Misunderstanding is more likely when a text is not explicit enough or when an authoritative interpreter is not on hand. Fixing the problems created by gaps in the text demands yet more text, which produces more gaps. The cyclical nature of this demand is reproduced in the style of the chivalric genre, which to the modern sensibility seems endless repetition on a single theme. Alternatively viewed, repetition allows the reader and the character to understand the shifting nature of his existence in an ever- expanding universe. What begins, for literary history, as a loose collection of orally transmitted tales, becomes meaningful in the hands of Chretien de Troyes.18 In the later Vulgate Grail Cycle, intricate and complex matter sustains its meaningfulness through a "poetics of interlace" that produces 27 An awe-inspiring, but strangely satisfying sense of a vast design, of a continuous and constantly unfolding panorama stretching as far into the past as into the future—such are the things that hold the reader spell-bound as he progresses through these interwoven 'branches' and themes. At the root of it all lies a highly developed sense of linear growth, an understanding of the great aesthetic possibilities of digression and recurrence, and the feeling of continuity and movement maintained throughout the vicissitudes of individual adventures. (Vinaver 92-3)

The anxiety of exile is produced and alleviated by a sense of the great order of things, whether spiritual or temporal, of which one is a part. The order-exile tension is experienced, on different levels, by knights, historical subjects, and citizens. It is also experienced by readers, who rely on the poet either to give models of particular meaning to the great order through (fictionalized) anecdotal evidence, and/or to tailor the great disorder until it obtains "progress," linearity, "continuity and movement"; once invested with models, readers are equipped to find their own place in the order/disorder of life. From the margins, the knight engages a similar process of poetic ordering; like any reader, he is an author as well. By sending back reports of his exploits to the court, the knight affirms that he is progressing, growing, and will be capable of contributing to the kingdom in terms of its physical growth and its prestige. In doing his part—conquests on a minor, individual scale of rogue knights and evil monsters—he acknowledges his partness, his integration with the whole to which he submits through his apartness, his physical absence. The knight represents himself in his tales and accounts of himself, and thereby acquiesces to being a representative and to serving what is essentially a representation—the nascent state. There is nothing trivial or superficial about this process; these are not mere representations in any sense. Rather, representation is how community and self interact, and, since neither exists without the other, representation is, for all intents and purposes, community and self. This chapter explores how introspection in the Early Modern literary chivalric knight reflects a shift in the operation of self, from an externalized, functional ideal espoused in earlier epics to a more "modern" ideal that promotes the self as self-manager. Of course, there is nothing new about introspection or self-management. Augustine's Confessions are an intricate exploration of both, and the issue both predates and survives romance in a variety of areas of discourse, most notably in theology and philosophy. We do not find as much evidence of introspection in popular literature. For Auerbach, Homer's phenomena appear "fully externalized," whereas legend "runs far too smoothly." On the other end of the spectrum, the modern novel retreats into the consciousness of the character.1 Introspection is not a modern 28 invention; however, through its literature, modernity promotes introspection as central to itself. It does this through literary introspection, particularly in the privileged genre of the novel, fuelled by increased European rates of literacy and by increased participation in a literary market. The popularity of a more introspective genre is an indication that introspection is more popular, and more practiced, to the extent that literature reflects and shapes the context in which it is produced. This is the least controversial of the assumptions I make here. More controversial is the assumption that engagement with script actually produces introspection of a particular type that is not possible without script.20 Approaching the Question Before embarking on an examination of the ways Amadis supports this assumption, I need to describe how it has taken shape in my own thinking. Prior to beginning my training in literary scholarship, I was simply a reader. Reading was a way of accessing other worlds, new ideas, and experiences I would have been unable to access independently. The centrality of reading to my life has been reinforced by literary scholarship, and has now extended itself to an idea of the centrality of reading to life in general, an assumption upon which my future professional development depends. This assumption is fuelled by a development in another sphere: marriage and children have encouraged me to re-establish contact with my religious tradition, Anglican Christianity, along with the latter's continued displacement of papal and priestly authority with textual engagement. "Read your Bible," I am told with great regularity, "believe what it tells you, and follow through." Auerbach has revealed why this is such a difficult, and yet such a potentially rewarding endeavour. When reading the Bible, we are to fit our own life into its world, feel ourselves to be elements in its structure of universal history. This becomes increasingly difficult the further our historical environment is removed from that of the Biblical books; and if these nevertheless maintain their claim to absolute authority, it is inevitable that they themselves be adapted through interpretative transformation. This was for a long time comparatively easy; as late as the European Middle Ages it was possible to represent Biblical events as ordinary phenomena of contemporary life, the methods of interpretation themselves forming the basis for such a treatment. But when, through too great a change in the environment and through the awakening of a critical consciousness, this becomes impossible, the Biblical claim to absolute authority is jeopardized; the method of interpretation is scorned and rejected, the Biblical stories become ancient legends, and the doctrine they had contained, now dissevered from them, becomes a disembodied image. (15-16)

As a historical document, not only one that claims for itself historical truth, but also one that was produced and edited at different historical periods, the Bible's lessons become disembodied. 29 Christ himself promotes his own historicity and deliberately inspires a kind of disembodiment: he emphasizes his connection to the past by conforming with prophecy and to the future by making his own prophecies; and his practice of prayer, selfless giving, and ultimate disregard for the bodily life (at least in the traditional interpretation) promotes disembodiment in his followers. As a result, there is a profound tension between the historicity of the Bible as a series of key events one must have faith in, and the experiential outgrowth of transcendental religious practice in which the only event that matters is my present surrender, and, depending on the completeness of this surrender, my future salvation. These tensions of competing disembodiments are dealt with by further disembodiment: recourse to art, symbolism, theology, ritual, song, etc. Yet, they are never dealt with in the sense of "worked out," or "worked through" in any definitive way; instead, they are worked over and over, sometimes gaining mass (i.e. knowledge, volume), and sometimes stripping it away. It is as if we are compensating for disembodiment by accumulating further disembodiment (texts, paintings...) into a new body, as if the feeling of alienation could be eliminated if alienation itself could become a new home, only to periodically realize the futility of our addiction.21 The parallel of this type of religious experience to literary study should by now be obvious. Literary scholarship is caught in a poststructuralist spiral of its own making. Some despair of this, but the majority have come to revel in it. Authority has been replaced by subtlety. Scholars can no longer assert a truth. Instead, they must provide a balance, and conclude every paper incompletely; they must veer away from a conclusion (con-/claudere, a "complete closure"), and towards something resembling its complete opposite. Judged simply, and cynically, by its product, scholarship has become a great costly enterprise whose goal is to say nothing in the greatest possible number of words. And yet, the process continues. It has become praxis: an activity that justifies itself not by its direct outcome, which is either endlessly deferred or constantly "problematized," but by its spin-offs. Because it directly engages alienation, it promotes critical thinking about structures we might otherwise accept as "natural" or "just the way they are" that are instead highly damaging to certain groups and therefore that restrict humanity's potential. Scholarship can, then, lead to justice. On a more personal level, it can also teach us how to change our routines (in which we may feel trapped) into practices that we control for our betterment. Hopefully, a look at the literary practice of representing knightly practice will reiterate the importance of practice: a refocus on process rather than product, on being rather than becoming. 30 In spite of my indulgent self-justification, there is something intrinsically modern in Amadis de Gaula independent of its current reader's modernity. Amadis' modernity is contingent on its early modernity, on its being a product of and for its times, as well as on its contribution to the development of modernity's core genre, the novel. Amadis survives in the collective consciousness less by virtue of its commercial success and its ability to spawn more sequels than James Bond than by its key role in drying out the mind of Alonso Quijano, the petty Manchegan noble and protagonist of Don Quijote. During the Inquisition of the library (1.6), Amadis is identified as the first book of chivalry to be printed in Spain, and thus the origin and beginning of all subsequent books of the genre. The priest thus wishes to burn it "como a dogmatizador de una secta tan mala," but the barber argues for its exoneration: "tambien he oido decir que es el mejor de todos los libros que de este genero se han compuesto; y asi, como a unico en su arte, se debe perdonar. The sequel to Amadis, the Sergas de Esplandidn, is not so lucky, and is the first to be condemned to the flames. Even if we were capable of reducing it to a straightforward statement, we must take great care to avoid relying too greatly on Cervantes' opinion as representative of sixteenth century Spanish readership; we must not be as hasty as Alonso Quijano's neighbours. As the sequel, Esplandidn completes the project as envisioned by its author (Sainz 8). Without an eye on its most legitimate heir, our appreciation of the place of Amadis in the literary tradition will be found wanting. Esplandidn highlights the extent of Montalvo's intervention in the inherited Amadis story, an intervention which either supports the judgement of the text's uniqueness that saves it from the flames, or which underscores the text's dependence on and departure from the chivalric tradition in the interests of Renaissance taste and market share. Before getting into the text itself, we must first appreciate its place in Renaissance culture—the concern of the next two sections of this chapter. A Brief Textual History Garci Rodriguez de Montalvo (c. 1450/4-1504), regidor (alderman) of Medina del Campo, wrote the prologue to his compilation of Amadis de Gaula soon after end of Moorish rule in Granada in 1492, to which he makes a specific reference (Prologo 220),22 and to which the great deeds of chivalry in the text he presents are to be compared. The text is explicitly called a "correction" of "corrupt and dissolute" (corruptos y viciosos) previous texts by lesser

* "[It should be burnt] as the dogmatist of a terrible sect." ^ "1 have also heard it said that it is the best of all the books composed in this genre; and so, as it is artistically unique, it ought to be pardoned." 31 authors; it includes a translated/copied (trasladado) and emended (enmendado) fourth chapter, and is meant to be complemented by the Sergas de Esplandidn, a "found text" obviously original to Montalvo.23 Among the most significant emendations are several intrusions by the narrator explaining the moral significance of the passage just read, or the one to come. In order to supply Esplandidn with enough plot material, the suicide, parricide and regicide of so-called primitive Amadis (the story in circulation since at least the fourteenth century) is reduced; this allows Esplandidn to be more profitably compared with his father in his own eponymous volume (Place, "Fictional" 527, Avalle-Arce "Amadis" 10). The earliest extant edition of Amadis was published in 1508 in Zaragoza, and there is debate over how many editions preceded it (Cacho Blecua 207). Both Amadis and Esplandidn appear to have been in the works for quite a while before this, possibly as early as 1474 in a shorter version (Place, "Montalvo's" 193-4). The numerous editions produced during the sixteenth century and the seemingly endless production of sequels of which the inquisitors of Don Quijote's library complain testify to the immense popularity of the text in a climate where prose fiction, along with other "devotional, moralizing, and historical works" were the most popular of the day (Whinnom 191). The Question of Readership If I am to make the case that Amadis and chivalric romance in general had some kind of effect on the Spanish state, or at least that they reflect Spanish cultural and political reality, it is necessary to weigh into the debate surrounding the make up of the texts' readership. We might assume, along with Harry Sieber, that only the literate portion of the population (approximately twenty percent) with the accompanying means to purchase a luxury item (a moderately-priced volume ran the 1984 equivalent of US$ 240, or three days of manual labour) would have access to these texts ("Romance" 213-4). However, once again, Cervantes' presence looms large to skew the debate. The example of the illiterate innkeeper who owns manuscripts that are then read aloud by literate guests adds grist for the mill of those who would see texts as shared communal experiences, and exposure to literature at this time as lying on the frontier between the oral and the written. The Canon of Toledo seems to support the communal nature of text in his injunction against the books of chivalry as being consumed by the "vain masses" (desvanecido vulgo), and he abandons his own efforts to write one to avoid being praised by many idiots rather than ridiculed by a few wise men (1.48: 484).24 One interpretation of vulgo assumes this to mean chivalric romance was enjoyed by everyone from the Emperor to the fieldworker, including New 32 World adventurers and notables such as Teresa de Avila and Loyola (Eisenberg, "Problema" 5), a perception that persists for some (Whinnom 194). As Daniel Eisenberg indicates, however, the Canon's rant does not support the view that the illiterate were responsible for the success of these books, but rather that the main readership of these books was literate, but relatively uneducated, vulgo meaning incompletely indoctrinated by Humanist or Scholastic pedagogy (Eisenberg, "Who Read"). This kind of attack had little effect on the enjoyment of chivalric romance; critics' readers tended to be likeminded critics, rather than the vulgo they disdained. What did bring about a decline in the production of chivalric romance in the 1550's was a "general rise in literary standards, due in greatest measure to contacts with Italy, [which] gave rise not only to the poetry of Garcilaso, but to the pastoral novel" (Eisenberg, "Sixteenth" 47).25 There is also, for Eisenberg, a connection between the decline of popularity of chivalric texts and great events, such as Carlos V's 1555 abdication and the Armada debacle of 1588; the first removed one of the genre's most avid and influential supporters, while the second limited the available pool of sedentary nobles, whose reading inclination was limited in wartime (Eisenberg, "Sixteenth" 47). Sieber rejects the link between "great events" and readership as a "naive and misleading" overestimation of these events as watershed moments at the time (213). He suggests as an alternative explanation of romance's rise to a growing readership among an expanding pool of university graduates, who added to "the traditional elite [...] a growing pool of legal professionals, urbanized legal professionals." There was also an expansion in the number of local presses, and an explosion of urbanization, both of which brought more readers in contact with more texts. Sieber links the decline in popularity to a change of interests: armies were less inclined to use cavalry (making strictly chivalric fiction less relevant); "the need to supply shelter and sustenance, employment and justice" were of more immediate concern in a time of agricultural and general social crisis; and readers increasingly wanted their reading to complement their reality (Sieber 213-15). Each explanation reflects its critic's assumptions about why people read the romances. Eisenberg's explanation conforms to a view of these texts' "escape value": "real life" and the experienced literary life are disconnected. On the other hand, Sieber's imagined readers demand texts that are in some way relevant to their lives. As usual, the truth lies somewhere between extremes: despite being a proponent of the escapism assumption, even Eisenberg supports the view that these texts did indeed have a link to real life, however idealized. 33 [Chivalric texts] presented to their Spanish audience a world which was familiar in its basic values even though different in details. For this reason it was a reassuring world, one free of the moral and political confusion characteristic of early modern Spain (and of most other times as well). Black is black and white is white [...] The books, while entertaining to the spirit, were relaxing to the intellect, as one would expect from a type of literature which was essentially escape or pleasure reading. ("Typical" 74, emphasis added)

As "idealized versions of Spain itself," these texts are connected to Spanish reality, insofar as reality is not merely verifiable facts or realistic situations, but also perceptions, attitudes, and representations of both. The texts are representative of a set of values held by its writers and their readership. By masking the complications of "real" life, the texts force us to consider the relationship between the ideals and the complications, the absence of which enables the ideals. A complete understanding of these texts must appreciate the complex reality out of which they came. The seeming timelessness of the ideals of these texts, their apparent eschewal of their own context, demands an even greater effort at contextualization.26 An important component of the texts' context is readership, the perception of which informs a tentative statement of their purpose. If they are read by/meant for the feudal nobility at a time when this group is being displaced by the centralisation and bureaucratisation of the state, they are nostalgic views of lost cultural identity and power.27 If they are instead intended for the expanding class of literate functionaries, they are attempts either to govern behaviour based on accepted norms; or, they highlight the importance of hard work and spiritual purity at a time where birth does not guarantee success. Even when we examine a straightforward description of the knight's basic character traits, the target of the apparent prescription is uncertain: "the knight's faith was the simple faith of the soldier, an uncritical acceptance of the correctness of Catholicism and the necessity of helping it, with arms, to vanquish infidels" (Eisenberg, "Sixteenth" 44). Is this an ideal of the future, or of the past? Does it wish to produce such simple uncritical soldiers and enable grand projects like crusades, or is it a statement of the lack of simple soldiers, or their critical and unmanageable attitudes? Is it an expression of pessimism surrounding the author's and his contemporaries' loss of innocence and their waning ability to follow grand projects with such faith? Or, is it a means of currying favour with those who would use faith in grand projects as a way of enlarging their personal fiefdom?

Chivalry in Context Part of the difficulty in answering these questions lies in assumptions about the chivalry- society relationship. Understanding chivalry's relationship to Early Modern culture is a means 34 of understanding any attempt at mimetically preserving, representing, or prescribing that cultural practice's ideology. Classically condemned by Huizinga for being out of step with the "harsh realities" of life at the time, chivalry would seem to suffer the same fate as the romance that exploits it for material. Maurice Keen resists this characterisation, and insists that chivalry responded to the needs of its society, and thus remained relevant, even if it did not describe them "realistically" (which we ought not to demand of texts for them to be relevant in any case). Indeed, the accusations levelled against chivalric practice from at least the twelfth century— effeteness, wastefulness, corruption, unjust violence—are the same problems to which chivalric codes and chivalric literature respond (Keen 233-36). The chivalric code is an ideology that emerges in response to a set of needs. For Haidu, the characterization of warriors from the chanson de geste to the medieval chivalric romance is in response to institutional needs, namely those of the Church, which was the source of the writers of such works. Haidu finds a corollary to this literary effort in the Peace and Truce of God movement in the eleventh century, through which Church leaders sought to constrain random violence and channel it more consistently towards its own ends. The resulting statutes limited the use of violence on certain days, and codified who could fight whom and in what manner; however, the movement was not designed to eliminate violence. The Church was too reliant on the patronage of the powerful to condemn violence too stringently; the wealth they depended on was, ultimately, extracted through the very same acts of violence. On the other hand, uncontrolled violence was not in the Church's interest; not only did a fearful/moribund flock reduce the Church's ability to attend to its pastoral duties, such a state threatened general economic stability, and, as a result, the Church's income. For Haidu, even though the chivalric code emerged from an ecclesial source, its true justification was economic. Keen, on the other hand, rejects the idea of a Christian source for chivalry. Instead, it is a secular development adopted and adapted by the Church, not invented by it: "Chivalry essentially was the secular code of honour of a martially oriented aristocracy" (252). Chivalry for Keen is a means of ensuring stability by valorising those responsible for a community's defence; it is not a code to restrain knights or a means of collecting revenues. Landowners were expected to provide military support to their regional lord, a very expensive proposition since this made them responsible for equipping themselves with horses, armour, and a support staff. The satisfaction of a job well done and a share of the spoils of a successful campaign were not enough to compensate the warrior for his initial investment and risk. Thus, "it was well worth the while both of the prince and of society to encourage and foster social self-esteem of the 35 nobility of which style was the outward and visible symbol" (Keen 226). In exchange for taking on the role society demanded of them, warriors demanded to be represented as knights, to be given a style that properly acknowledged their contribution, a form worthy of the content. This not only justified the expense and risk of war, but also served to ensure a continued supply of aspiring knights willing to undergo the rigours of training that would make them effective combatants. Martial effectiveness could be gained through basic training and complemented with tournaments; however, the latter often involved great risk to potential allies, who could not only be deprived of valuable horses and other equipment, but could also suffer injuries that would remove them from future active duty. Tournaments began as violent free-for-alls, extended battles among competitors over wide areas of countryside with very few limitations. Just as chivalry demanded a code, tournaments eventually became regulated affairs—the sporting event most modern readers are familiar with—with blunted weapons and strict rules to limit injury while still awarding honour and prestige to victors (Keen 85-92). Since hardened, self-sustaining warriors were more highly prized by princes, and through the holding of tournaments across Europe, errantry became an essential part of knighthood. The needs of service demanded individualistic errantry; individual errantry in turn demanded and received recognition from those powers that required service and offered openings for it. (Keen 227)

The search for prestige and prizes thus had many young men, relatively unemployed and wealthy, wandering from place to place. It is in this way that the demand for self-supplied, flexible, and experienced warriors produced the problems associated with mercenary armies that would plague Early Modern society; intermittently idle boys with weapons and training required payment, which often came at the expense of the local population (Keen 230). In this way, we can see how the attempt to normalise violence justifies violence and can potentially lead to a situation requiring further control. Of course, the problem occurs at the same time as the scale of service is increased. The medieval fighting force relied on the effectiveness of its cavalry, and thus on the individuals capable of supplying effective horses, weapons, and warriors. Technological advances began to reduce the importance of the cavalry as the emphasis slowly shifted to platoons of infantry and their artillery, not to mention advances in naval warfare. The increased ranks of a modern army and the expense of its equipment inhibit a small group of individuals from supplying its needs. In response, ideological concerns pitted the corporate state against the personal glory intrinsic to chivalric warfare (Barber 379-80). What emerges is a more complex and far-reaching organisation—the modern bureaucracy, foundation of the modern state. Tournaments deprived of their martial utility become downgraded and transformed into sport (Fallows) in which the horseman is increasingly sidelined,2 and the knight's honours are transferred to the officer-gentleman of the modern army (Keen 240).

Plotting against Amadis The transition from medieval to Early Modern society exacerbates an opposition that will become fundamental to modernity: the discourse that justifies and motivates individual activity confronts another discourse seeking to promote corporate identity. Among the many areas in which the resulting tension is expressed, chivalric literature is particularly important; due to its popularity, it provides access to a more widespread mindset than formal theological and political discourse, while at the same time containing elements of the latter. As we have already briefly seen, the criticism surrounding chivalric romance is a testament to these texts having a profound influence on the culture, however negative. The value judgements of this literature, and comparisons between it and other forms (e.g. epic) speak to the tension occurring on the national level just as the nation is being formed. As conceived by Ernest Renan, a nation is the "fusion of [...] component populations" accompanied by communal forgetfulness, the active promotion of "historical error" that eliminates difference by eliminating the language of difference from discourse: "the essence of a nation is that all individuals have many things in common, and also that they have forgotten many things" (10-11). Anything that is a threat to unity is a threat to the nation, and this includes anything that suggests discontinuity in the account the nation writes (or has written) for itself. In the cultural climate of the Renaissance, where intertextuality across the "dark medieval divide" is de rigueur, this obsession with unity reaches fever pitch. The sense that intertextuality could easily produce a state of relativism (as it does today) needed to be counterbalanced by assumptions of the authority of texts, expressed by the untenable neo-orthodoxy of Erasmus. Whereas Augustine employed "carnal" text as a launching pad towards transcendence, for Erasmus, Christ became incarnate "in the very letter of Scripture" (Vance, Mervelous 329). The reader (in this case, the theologian) saw with "his heart's eye [...] the true image of the mind of him who authors all things" (Boyle 83-84). What the nation desires is a text with similar authority, a text able to transfer the image of the nation onto the heart of the individuals it would subsume. 37 Whereas, for the faithful, the Bible enjoys a certain amount of extrinsic authority, the secular nation-text must adopt, assume, or create intrinsic authority via its form and content. The epic, through its narrative choices, affirms the power assumptions of the nation, and in the process becomes powerful. The fascist states of the early twentieth century used narrative to exploit (and even exacerbate or create) a sense of chaos and to offer themselves as solutions to that chaos. Likewise, Milton and his contemporaries exploited the Virgilian epic, the story of an empire imposing/creating peace after an extended period of chaos and corruption, to promote their own ideal order: Epic draws an equation between power and narrative: a power able to end the indeterminacy of war and to emerge victorious, showing that the struggle had all along been leading up to its victory and thus imposing on it a narrative teleology—the teleology that epic identifies with the very idea of narrative. Power, moreover, is defined by its capacity to maintain itself across time, and it therefore requires narrative in order to represent itself: in this sense, narrative, like ideology, is itself empowering. The epic victors both project their present power prophetically into the future and trace its legitimating origins back into the past. [...T]he ability to construct narratives that join beginnings purposefully to ends is already the sign and dispensation of power. (Quint 27)

Ariosto's Orlando furioso (1516) became, for power-oriented writers of epic (e.g. Tasso, Milton, Ercilla), synonymous for how not to write an epic. Patricia Parker encapsulates the essential points of contention for Ariosto's contemporaries, who based their contempt on Aristotle's Poetics: its title [Orlando furioso] was misleading in a poem that dealt with at least as much with Ruggiero as with Orlando; its language did not meet the standards set by Bembo; its narration, far from being Aristotle's "single action," was frequently interrupted by digressive episodes; its indulgence, finally, in the fabulous material of the romanzi disqualified it from the true epic dignity of the Iliad and the Aeneid, both founded upon serious historical events. (Parker 17)29

In short, this "digressive romance," was an "aberration from the higher path of epic" (Parker 17). Out of such critiques, James Nohrnberg formulates a Manichean characterization of both genres: M The epic hero is shadowed by the divine (e.g. the meddling gods of the Iliad) whereas the romance hero is shadowed by the daemonic (e.g. sorcerers and seers). II The epic is a contest between two leaders, and is thus more political, whereas the romance is often a contest between two "magics," and is thus more entertaining. H "Simplified and sustained," epic's purpose is glorification, whereas "complicated and digressive," romance is less purposefully meant for entertainment (Nohrnberg 9-11). 38 This last distinction is the most important to my discussion. In supposed disdain of "the higher path of epic" (Caplan 81), romance produces characters that wander, with important consequences: "the very vagabondage of its avatars implies a kind of release from the traumatic experience of a mass translation of rootedness or domain" (Nohrnberg 6). This rootlessness is replicated in the very form of the text. The desire for authority is expressed by a shift towards the consolidation of disparate texts, at least as early as Chretien de Troyes. Chretien's texts are, like Montalvo's, an amalgam of earlier and disparate stories and texts. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, writers began to produce "carefully thought-out narrative sequences"; they found "missing links [...] and a vast architectural design" emerged (Vinaver 51). This is all part of a constantly growing tendency towards coalescence. An increasingly large number of hitherto independent narrative themes adhered to each other so as to form larger and more fully co-ordinated sequences. (55)

For those prescribing a literature of brevitas, of simple and transparent clarity and organic unity, the elements of chivalric romance are not "fitted in" to their narrative containers with sufficient rigour. Instead, the chivalric romance is polyphonic, acentric, incapable of being "embraced in a single view," and, to the modern eye as described by C. S. Lewis, "planless" (Vinaver 70-73). To call the chivalric romances planless is going too far, for clearly there is a method to their madness (note Vinaver's conception of a "poetics of interlace," cited above, page 27); however, there is a change in the quality of the plan, in the direction of the plot. For example, Malory's Le Morte d'Arthur (1485), in response to a changing society, not only "brings more coherence to disparate tales" in a single volume, but also transforms errant knights into soldiers of Roman wars. This practical view of knighthood reflects the realities of courtly life in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, where great j ousters and exponents of chivalry were likewise the king's right-hand men in the field. (Barber 353)

Montalvo makes similar changes when editing Amadis, for which some critics have accused him of plotting against his main character. Richard Andrews objects to the "demeaning" of Amadis when the latter must fight the Amazon Queen, whereas Esplandian dispatches an Emperor {Esplandian ch. 166), and to the preference expressed for the disloyal Florestan over Amadis and for Briolanja over Oriana {Esplandian ch. 99) (Andrews 20). He bemoans Montalvo's "mistreatment" of his "adopted" character, Amadis, in preference for the one of his own creation as a "violation" of the "principles of a work" (21). The invention of a patently 39 "false" episode to enable Montalvo's continuation—a disguised Amadis loses a challenge to his son in a traditional (and futile) bridge defence scene—is akin to murder: Montalvo has devised this false episode to illustrate the contrast between the worldly and the transcendental knights, the topic with which the episode begins. To that end he sacrifices Amadis and violates the integrity of the work. (Andrews 19)

Of course, the point of Montalvo's reworking is not entirely religious transcendence; rather it is an altered form of service: the errant knight, who once collected experience and honour at tournaments, is being replaced by a soldier fighting for God, king and country against the infidel: A lo largo de toda la obra [Esplandian] el concepto de la nueva caballeria al servicio de Dios y en contra de los infieles se abre paso y es precisada cada vez mas por boca de Esplandian, hasta constituir [...] toda una critica a la caballeria tradicional. (Amezcua 320)

For the crusading general, this traditional chivalry, in its literary form, is decadent, self- serving, and useless. The defence of a bridge crossing or a crossroads to prove one's valour or the intensity of one's love, or to perform a penance, bestows only sterile valour (esteril valentia) (Amezcua 326), superficial and decadent love, and unworthy penance. In Esplandian, and, since Esplandian is the culmination of the work that has gone into Amadis, Montalvo advocates a knighthood more in line with humanist values: the importance of education; the exercise of free and educated will in the service of higher goals; and a practical utilitarianism to replace the heroic romantic emphasis on inspiration, predestination, self-aggrandizement, and the zero-sum game of honour (323). Along a similar vein, romantic love, and in particular secret love of the type that produces Amadis, is condemned, along with matrimony generally, which is associated with decadence (326-27). ° It is noticeable, however, that once he submits to Oriana (in an interesting twist of sexual conquest), Amadis is no longer as powerful, no longer the flower of chivalry. For Place, the rejection of romantic love is a preparation of the conquistador, "an empire builder, who scorns knight-errantry for glory or for love. In brief, a premature conquistador with his face to the east" (527). The answer to the "sterile valour" of "traditional" chivalric literature is complete castration and the adoption of a chivalry more in line with monkish knightly orders. Because this advocacy misrepresents chivalry's actual social currency—orders such as the Templars were too exclusive and rigorous to affect chivalry in general (Keen 50)—the, Amadis project (i.e. the combination of both texts) is prescriptive rather than descriptive. 40 Juxtaposed with its sequel, Amadis de Gaula contains much of the anti-chivalric sentiment expressed by the spoilsports of Don Quijote such as the Canon. In founding the "terrible sect" of long novels of chivalry, Montalvo was reacting to the "imagination desmesurada" of the corrupt traditional texts in need of correction and purification (Amezcua 321). Indeed, it is only in combination with Esplandidn that Amadis can be understood, for they share a moral direction, in spite of the rejection of Amadis (and therefore, by association, Amadis) in the Esplandidn: To allege that Florestan is a finer and braver knight than Amadis, and that Briolanja is more beautiful than Oriana is to give the lie to everything that has gone before—in a word, to obliterate a work of art, the Amadis, without furthering any legitimate moral purpose and does not follow the requirement of the retraction, or palinode. (Place "Montalvo's Outrageous Recantation" 195)

As the title of Place's article suggests, this rejection is simply "outrageous," and can only be explained by two possibilities. First, Montalvo may have been reacting to accusations of unorthodoxy in his use of witchcraft (e.g. the use of Urganda to further the plot with magical weapons, prophecy, and enchantment). Alternatively, the "recantation" was only inserted "in a fit of disgust at the whole fantastic fabric of the work"; given time to calm down and go over his text, Montalvo would have removed or softened this outburst had death not intervened (196-98). In either case, a detrimental opinion of one part does not negate the fundamental continuity between the two works. Amadis, at least twice the length of the sequel,31 is not merely an extended introduction to Esplandidn. The surpassing of predecessors is natural to the genre (and often used by writers of epic as well), and also conforms to Montalvo's ideological convictions: There is no contesting that Montalvo sought to generate support for the messianic spirit of the Catholic Monarchs by providing, in the person of Esplandidn, a Active model of spiritual crusade and triumph that superseded the conventional chivalric behaviour exemplified by Amadis. Yet, in juxtaposing the worldly values of his age with an aspiring idealism that rose far above them, Montalvo demonstrates a remarkable fidelity to the poetic strategies embodied in the cyclic Arthurian traditions. (Caplan 88)

The prologue to Amadis compares the Spanish victory in Granada to the deeds of noble knights at the same time as it rejects the corruption of the texts from which the story has been borrowed. The corrections are extensions of the editorial process that hopes to make the texts, and the deeds therein, morally exemplary: en los cuales cinco libros como quiera que hasta aqui mas por patranas que por cronicas eran tenidos, son con las tales enmiendas acompanados de tales 41 enxemplos y doctrinas, que con justa causa se podran comparar a los livianos y febles saleros de corcho, que con tiras de oro y de plata son encarcelados y guarnescidos, porque assi los cavalleros mancebos como los mas ancianos hallen en ellos lo que a cada uno conviene. (225)

Montalvo admits the texts are not factual chronicles, and that they have been perceived as "tall tales" (patranas); however, through his emendations, he is creating something neither factual nor patently false: through the correction and the addition of instructive asides {enxemplos y doctrinas), Montalvo provides adornment, both moral and artistic. Without his editorial intervention, the texts remain humble (livianos y febles) cork salt shakers (saleros de corcho); but with his additions, they become adorned with utility, a part of which each reader will take away according to his need. The adornment, the very form of the text, is essential, for it is accessible to readers of any age (albeit only cavalleros). Clearly, Montalvo feels the pull of the nation-building epic imperative; this is the force behind his corrections and his attempt to consolidate, as his predecessors had done, a disparate group of tales into one grand and instructive tome; and, it is the reason he must make a volume of patranas relevant to the national crusade against the infidel and all other elements that threaten the integrity of Spain. The epic imperative forces at least one other concession: unlike Ariosto, Montalvo produces texts that are true to their titles, texts that actually tell the whole life story, from birth onwards, of their titular character. Nevertheless, the form of the romance is not for a minute abandoned. The language is excessive, enchanters ply their trade, prophets prophesy, giants run amok, and the narration is endlessly digressive. As discussed above, not everyone appreciates the deliberate nature of this choice. Siding with the Humanist critics of the period, Barber calls Amadis, among other things, "an overloaded cart of words, the wheels of whose plot creak along under the burden" (365). Its popularity is a major factor in its lack of quality; with its endless sequels, all truly chivalric ideals are stripped away, and chivalry itself becomes "the people's plaything" (366). Eisenberg's estimation that the text is representative of the escapism of the genre due to its moral and intellectual simplicity continues in this anti-popular vein. Eisenberg assumes that sixteenth century readers "were not interested in personality development, internal problems of the characters, or very much beyond the conflicts, loves, and prophecies found in the book." They were in it for the action (Eisenberg, "Birth" 31-33).

[The discussion following this citation supplants a translation.] 42 The "plot against Amadis" thus parallels the plot against popular fiction. The latter is merely commercial, merely for pleasure, simplicity for the simple minded. But, as we have seen, epic is no less action based, no less superficial, and no more inclined to offer the reader personality development and a view of characters' internal problems. A defender of epic cannot even attack Montalvo for his moral didacticism, since an epic is nothing if not ideological. Perhaps Montalvo's critics would have had him strip his text of all the chivalric elements and include only the moralistic discourse; but then, whom would he have reached? We have reached the impasse of entertainment and instruction, so well lampooned by Don Quijote as the concern of a self-appointed elite. A purely moral treatise by Montalvo may not have survived, and would have certainly had less impact on literary history. For Montalvo, the moralistic insertions are textual improvements that are not intended to supplant the chivalric material; indeed, the two complement each other. Montalvo's didactic insertions are, as Caplan notes, akin to adding God to the already complex web of characters (89); so, at least on the level of plot and character, Amadis is far from simple. Essential to the romance is a sense of continuation, of connection to the past and the future; it does not limit itself to the teleology of epic (i.e. an often nostalgic view of a holistic past, neatly contained within the epic text). The critique of hmzdis-Amadis in the Esplandidn is less outrageous if we consider Amadis as a movement rather than as a monument. Just as, internally, the chivalric romance digresses until the inkwell dries up, it exuberantly sows its wild oats and arranges for a successor to pick up the pen. A trope of the genre thus becomes one of bettering one's predecessors; just as every knightly protagonist is the best that ever lived, and as every ladylove is capable of launching an exponentially greater number of ships, the author of a sequel must improve on those responsible for laying down his characters' ancestors. This is simply honest, if haughty, intertextuality. Of course, the very notion of sequel is itself problematic, especially if we consider the number of Rocky or Friday the 13th movies; however, a text's openness to producing a sequel is part of romance's "pseudo-historicity," as described by Eisenberg. The convention of the found text that Montalvo exploits is merely part of the de-emphasis of romance's fictionality through an appeal to historicity (Eisenberg, "Pseudo-Historicity" 119). Being based on a document rather than the author's fancy, the text takes on the aura of an "eyewitness account" to counterbalance the fantasy and improbability of its account (122). Also, an integral part of historicity is the arbitrariness of its beginning and its end (128), both of which may be justified according to certain "important" events, the magic of round numbers, but which, in the end, are 43 justifications of the author's feeling about where it might be "natural" to begin or convenient to leave off. This arbitrariness naturally allows for a sequel: since history is never finished, the story can always pick up where another has left off; or, the story can, if it is compelling, be picked up where another author has left off. Cervantes' indignation at the false second part of "his" Don Quijote thankfully produced an entirely different novel, which he struggled to end once and for all by killing off Alonso Quijano. Cervantes' reaction was due to a sense of property: his authority, which he ironically spent a great amount of effort denying by being the step-father of his work and filtering it through a Moorish narrator, was threatened. Another frequent reaction to the sequel is accompanied by the repugnance at the blatant and uncritical use of formulae; we suspect that novel writers, film makers, and sitcom producers leave themselves room in order to make another quick buck should their initial product sell. Today, it is difficult to separate the business of art from art itself, and it is interesting that we should still insist on trying. When a film or a book ends and leaves you wanting more, this may mean you are being manipulated, but you are likely being manipulated willingly. The work has given you something, an experience that you would like to relive. It is not an aberration to see the same film or read the same book more than once; each time, the reader-viewer gets something else out of it. Why, then, is it so terrible to have more of the same, the same compelling characters in different compelling situations, producing an altogether familiar yet somehow different experience? What is the essential difference between a work that produces a rich post-consumption conversation for its open-ended complexity, and a work that produces another work due to its open-ended simplicity? The judgement that complexity is superior to simplicity accompanies the faulty assumption that it is order (the heavy didactic hand of the author) that makes for simplicity, and disorder (the withdrawal of the author) that produces complexity; controlled characters and plots are caricatures, liberated characters and plots that are unrestrained by the authorial ego are more "artistic." This overlooks the fact that the "orderedness" of a work is a matter of degree, and that the absence of an author is no less a construction that the caricatures of supposedly present authors. True richness occurs in the paradoxes of ordered confusion and disordered simplicity. The connection one feels with textured characters can and should continue beyond the immediate experience of the work; it is a sign of a "good" work. This continuation is only possible against a backdrop of order, of formula, even when it is being countered and challenged. Both the work and the conversation afterwards are based on an order, a received convention, and the meaning one extracts from the 44 work depends on the appreciation of those orders, and the challenges occurring to both of them even as they are being exploited. Chivalric romance gave its consumers an experience for which they were clearly willing to pay handsomely. This experience might have reaffirmed their own beliefs, produced a sense of national pride, provided a moment of escape from a less than orderly or fantastic existence, given a moral lesson, or even excited a sense of credulity and desiccated the cerebrum. Regardless of its effect, both its success as a consumer good and its moralism play important roles. Its content and its form are one, and they combine to give us a window on the way in which experience is articulated and processed—on the way in which the self exists. Dialogic Utopia and the State Self Amadis de Gaula is an idealized experience. The court of Lisuarte, around which most of the action occurs portrays a "fictitious golden age of nation and faith" (Caplan 106-7). The court is chivalric perfection, a place where the secular and the sacred act in harmony. This either criticizes the lack of harmony in the court of the day, or, as the prologue claims, honours the advances already made towards such harmony. More than critique and/or praise, the work presents an idealized experience: by constantly threatening the Utopia (by having characters leave and return, fall and rise relative to the ideal) Utopia is experienced as a force that drives behaviour towards perfection rather than an ultimately demoralizing critique of the lack of static perfection in a dynamic world. This challenges the traditional interpretation of Utopia, but is actually more in line with the dialogic complexity of the Utopian genre's first representative, Thomas More's Utopia. Traditionally studied for the characteristics of the ideal society it depicts, Utopia is the contemplation of a process that envisions an ideal form of service. Embedded in the "Dialogue of Counsel" between the characters Hythloday and More, Utopia itself is a backdrop that serves to highlight the possibilities and limitations of an institutionally driven state.33 The text depicts the actual More's struggle over whether he should enter the service of Henry VIII; it weighs the possible contribution of such service against the sacrifice required in the area of contemplation and study. Utopia is set up by a benign dictator, Utopus, who puts in place institutions and infrastructure (including the geography of the island itself), and who subsequently retreats into history in order to allow the institutions to function according to their perfection. Along with the ideal of perfectibility through institutional management comes the educated individual's justification for entering the management of society through institutions. The Dialogue of 45 Counsel compels us to see the Utopian not as a fixed and unachievable ideal, but rather as a process whereby the individual mechanises his public behaviour in the service of the improvement of his society. The individual does not remove his humanity, no matter how inhumane and oppressive Utopia itself may appear; he merely removes his personal ambitions from the equation by internalizing them, making them part of a private life capable of absorbing and managing its own idiosyncrasies so that they do not affect his public persona. To this effect, Thomas More built himself a chapel-den in a separate small building behind his house, and he tested himself by wearing a hair shirt. Montalvo's chivalric world provides another model for the management of the individual. Just as the chivalric code itself represented a means of rewarding those who would defend state interests, there is an acknowledgement of the weakness of the individual, of his pride's need for attention. Given too much sway, pride can sink an entire enterprise An important difference between Utopia and Lisuarte's court is the presence of an individual at the centre; Lisuarte continues to be personally involved, whereas there is no personal representative or physical continuation of Utopus either in the form of a governor or of a king. The danger of having a human rather than a system in charge is made clear in the events leading to climax of book 1. A donzella (damsel) arrives at the court to make a request, which contravenes the knightly standards of granting such requests (see page 61, below) in that he accepts to fulfil the request without knowing what it is. The donzella achieves this by appealing to his personal insecurity: Sefior —dixo ella—, bien semejais rey en el cuerpo, mas no se si lo sereis en el coracon. —Donzella —dixo el—, esto vedes agora, y cuando en lo otro me provardres, saberlo eis. (1.29)

Soon afterwards, Lisuarte grants another request in exchange for the crown and mantle proffered by an unknown knight. The latter describes the crown as made only for the most honourable of kings, and that it will actually increase the honour of its wearer. The mantle has a similar effect on the fidelity of its female wearer and the firmness of her marriage. The granting of both of these requests reveals Lisuarte's desire to prove himself both a knight and a king who not only promotes, but also exemplifies knighthood. As a knight, he wishes to reveal the trueness of his heart, and as a king, the worthiness of his head; he mixes his kingship

"'Sir,' she said, 'in body you rightly resemble a king, but I do not know if you are so in your heart.' 'Donzella,' he said, 'the former you see before you now, and as for the latter, when you try me out, you will know it.'" (All translations mine, unless otherwise indicated.) 46 metaphors—the heart of courage/centrality and the head of right reason—in order to assume as much kingship as possible. By granting the requests, the King displays a momentary lapse of kingliness. After the crown and mantle are "misplaced" (1.31: 534), and when the knight comes to reclaim them, Lisuarte is forced to give up his daughter, Oriana. The outlandishness of the request does not figure into his calculations. His word (i.e. his honour and that of the realm) is more important than his family. In giving Oriana over, he claims to be serving the general good (i.e. the stability of the realm), as a king ought to do: mas conviene la perdida de mi fija que falta de mi palabra; porque lo uno dana a pocos y lo otro al general, donde redondaria mayor peligro, porque las gentes no seyendo seguras de la verdad de sus senores, muy mal entre ellos el verdadero amor se podria conservar; pues donde este no ay, no puede aver cosa que mucha pro tenga. (1.34: 559)*

The granting of the first request to the donzella proves even more disastrous, and results in Lisuarte's imprisonment, as part of a scheme by Arcalaus to kill him, marry Oriana, the heiress, to an ally, and thereby control the kingdom. The King's error is twofold. First, he believes he must also be an active knight errant; he overlooks his importance as the locus of knightly activity in order to gain independently and individually the honour he ought to assume via the company and service of the knights that surround him. Second, he desires the crown (the value of which, as with a knight, is contained in a narrative) to increase his symbolic centrality. He not only undermines his symbolic function by wishing to be more active and less ambiguous, but he also covets the symbolic trappings of power, mistaking them for power itself. In a moment of weakness, infected with pride, the King undergoes a crisis of self, which he hopes to overcome by using the security of bold knightly action (revealing his courage and willingness to risk his life) and by using pre-packaged narratives (those of the mantle and crown). This crisis drives the end of the main plot of book 1, as it allows Amadis to consummate his relationship with Oriana after rescuing her, and allows Galaor to save the King and reconsolidate the Utopian courtly space. The crisis is solved by recourse to the true knights of the realm, Galaor and Amadis, and proves to be a test of their own service. The threat, however, requires underlining, which

"It is better to lose my daughter than default on my word, because the first harms few and the second many, which would be more dangerous, because, if the people were not secure in the truthfulness/sincerity of their masters, it would be very difficult to maintain true love between them; since where this [love] is lacking, there can be nothing else of much advantage." 47 Montalvo provides through a distinct consiliaria section (also different because it is set off from the text, as opposed to integrated into a paragraph of diegetic action): Tomad enxemplo, codiciosos, aquellos que por Dios los grandes senorios son dados en governacion, que no solamente no tener en la memoria de le dar gracias por vos aver puesto en alteza tan crecida; mas contra sus mandamientos, perdiendo el temor a El devido, no seyendo contentos con aquellos estados que vos dio, y de vuestros antecessores vos quedaron, con muertes, con fuegos y robos los agenos de los que en la ley de la verdad son, quereis usurpar y tomar, fuyendo y apartando los vuestros pensamientos de bolver vuestras sanas y codicias contra los infieles, donde todo muy bien empleado seria... (641-42)

In spite of the great dangers suffered by the victorious knight on the road to becoming a great lord or king, it is emphasized that the victory is not truly his. He is an extension of his ancestors, and expression of the will of God, to whom he owes thanks and fear if his pride is to be kept in check. Legitimacy depends on the simultaneous refusal of the laurel and the acceptance of the responsibility it represents. Any residual viciousness that would normally find expression in attacks on one's superiors and one's neighbours ought to be redirected further afield, beyond the reaches of the boundaries of the community that this textual civilization endeavours to contain. The humiliation and service practiced in the wood beyond the castle gates must now be directed against a new Other, envisioned as lying in wait beyond the horizon and produced out of the active saming of those within view. The literary-mythical Saracen and the Moorish neighbour of recent memory are transmogrified into the Turk in order to conform with sixteenth-century needs in the face of the Ottoman threat to Spanish interests in the Mediterranean and European security on the Continent. This transmogrification is at the same time a consequence of Christendom's unification and its cause, both of which are made possible by the deliberate self-negation of the knight—Christian soldier. To stabilize the system, and as a reward for their selflessness, those not in a position of absolute rule are given a renewed importance in the new order. Paradoxically, once denied, the self is made central; the basic training of exile allows the state to rebuild its frontline representatives in its own image, as image builders or counsellors. Y vosotros los menores, aquellos a quien la fortuna tanto poder y lugar dio, que seyendo puestos en sus consejos para los guiar, assi como el timon a la gran nave

"Take heed, ye proud ones, to whom God has given the governance of great estates and yet who fail to remember to give Him thanks for putting you in ascendance. [Take heed,] ye who, against His commandments and losing all the fear of Him that is His due, [and ye who], not being content with what He has given to you and with what your ancestors have left you, murder, molest and rob those who rule legitimately. You usurp and steal, pushing from your mind the thought of redirecting your pride and viciousness against the infidel, [a foe against whom your energies] would be much better employed 48 guia y govierna, consejadlos fielmente; amadlos, pues que en ello servis a Dios, servis a todo lo general. (642)

Whereas the rulers themselves are to be selfless, their servants are raised up to the status of guides and even governors of the structure of which they form a part. The transition from knightly violence on the margins to courtly love and faithful service within the city requires that the honour once obtained by violent means be available through courtly means. The lance arm is asked to grip the rudder: the energy of marginal violence on the outskirts is placed behind/underneath the governing structure, the cart before the horse, as personal acts of violence are transformed into the public performance of courtly language. As a result, an interdependent hierarchy is established: the sovereign looks beyond his borders in an attempt to secure peace and prosperity within his borders; the knight is brought into the fold and given responsibility and honours in exchange for containing his violence and transforming it into discourse; and a culture of service takes over on every level (for the sovereign, too, is a servant) wherein the integrity of the community/castle/city assumes priority over individual success.

The Wandering Ideal While the state is constituted by the extension of a sovereign vision and the incorporation of individual knightly violence, an essential component of the individual remains the time he spends on the margins prior to incorporation. In this way, political life uses discourse to redeploy spiritual exile to its own needs. Spiritual exile has been fundamental to the Judeo-Christian tradition since the time of the expulsion from Eden, only the first instance of those "who transgress in their bodily desires the commandments of God, are punished, and then, like Adam and Eve in exile, awaken" (Sennett 1994 370-71). For early Christians like Mathetes, the Christian lived in a permanent state of exile, at home everywhere, but also nowhere: They dwell in their own countries, but only as sojourners; they bear their share in all things as citizens, and they endure all hardships as strangers. Every foreign country is a fatherland to them, and every fatherland is foreign. (Mathetes 5.5)

The literature of Antiquity uses travel (a temporary form of exile) as an important plot- driver and central allegory, which hagiography adopts in order to provide the faithful with examples of the ideal life as one in which the believer is expected to overcome difficulty in order to obtain divine grace (Eisner & Rubies 12, 20). More generally, pilgrimage becomes an

"[As for] you, the lesser [nobles], [as regards] those to whom fortune has granted great power and estate, upon finding yourselves in a position of counsel, govern and guide them as the rudder guides a great ship; counsel them faithfully; love them, since in serving them you serve God, and the general good." 49 important means of expressing one's faith, and pilgrimage sites in Europe spring up in response to the masses of people wishing to engage in the practice and the dangers of travelling to the existing sites in the Muslim-dominated Near East; saints and relics wefe needed, as were accompanying stories to fill these with meaning (17). In the absence of actual sites, journeys into the wilderness could also be considered pilgrimages (19). For Eisner and Rubies, Don Quijote marks the end of any physical bias to pilgrimage (i.e. the end of the literal voyage), and the inauguration of a literary voyage able to replicate this new "modern" sense of disenchantment (45). In the romantic mind, "to travel becomes the very condition of modern consciousness" (Sontag); consequently, in order to fit into modern life, "travel writing is a literature of disappointment" (Eisner and Rubies 5). In this way, travel becomes a more permanent state of exile like that expressed in Mathetes; however, the modern sense gives exile a more individualistic hue by shunting to one side the possibility of an ultimate Home upon which Mathetes would have relied. In modern literary theory, the novel in general, rather than just the travel account, expresses modern existence as homelessness; for Bakhtin, the novel reproduces language's "inherent centrifugal tendency to diversify and fragment" in the face of the centripetal tendency of institutional forces represented by epic (Neubauer 272). Centrifugal, fragmentary language is thought to represent a more basic, natural, human state of being in the world. Centripetal language (represented for Neubauer by the late Lukacs' view of Heimat) becomes the "subversion" or even perversion of this natural state; Heimat is a reality constructed by and for those who cannot handle the extreme freedom of heteroglossia, who are ill-equipped to handle individuality, and who therefore seek safe haven in corporate structure. This view betrays a hierarchy of self: pure self—individual and capable of seeing through the illusions imposed and maintained by society—is placed above social self, a veneer that is at best temporary, and at worst becomes a means of avoiding or overlooking Truth in the name of expediency and comfort.

I suggest a more balanced, "realistic" view of self: one of vacillation and movement rather than conceptual purity. Moments of insight or access to external Truth are bracketed by periods of refuge during which we get things done. The philosopher emerges into the light more often than the working stiff and the literary critic, but all of us eventually return to the corporate blindness of the Heimat. This begs several questions on the nature of our relationship with our monological community. Do we return to the Heimat instinctually, or is the subversion of heteroglossia done deliberately, as part of a conspiracy? Are moments of flight (fugus) from the 50 centre {centrum) grounded by a subversive tendency towards the centre, or by a deliberate seeking (from peto 'to seek') of the centre? Is heteroglot freedom a basic natural state, or one that must be distilled from the monoglot flotsam through an application of the will? Can freedom/Truth only be accessed through moments of psychological and/or physical exile? Is community the opposite of individuality, or its appositel Through its exploration of exile, Amadis reveals the self to be a pursuit of balance that exploits the extremes of exile and Heimat to forge for itself a more liveable "place" that, as it turns out, is more accurately viewed as process. The seemingly endless cycle of exile and integration experiences of chivalric romance reveals how this process works in a surprisingly modern and psychologically necessary way. In that they engage in a process of continuity and discontinuity, the adventures of Amadis exemplify the way in which humans interpret their own lives: An adventure is certainly part of our existence, directly contiguous with other parts which precede and follow it; at the same time, however, in its deeper meaning, it occurs outside the usual continuity of this life. [...] While it falls outside the context of life, it falls, with this same movement, as it were, back into that context again [...]; it is a foreign body in our existence which is yet somehow connected with the center. (Simmel 188)

The adventure is a distinct part of the whole of life, an experiential narrative, a distinct chapter in the otherwise unwieldy Book of Life. The adventure's tight frame—a beginning, an end, and even significance—allows for a sense of "higher unity, a super-life" (192). The performed "constellation of adventure" can also serve to control individual vagaries; it can, for example, serve as the antidote to personal pride, and is required of the adventurer who hopes to survive within the community. Like its outcome—social reintegration—the knight's exile is artificial (in the sense of "constructed" that need not be demeaned by an association with "fake" or "false"). Likewise, the line drawn between integration and exile is arbitrary, a means of grasping their organic relationship. Exile allows the self to set distinct boundaries around itself, to define itself and exist as distinct from society, only to be reincorporated into the larger boundaries of the community. The episodic, pseudo-historiographic nature of chivalric romance promotes a view of textual self-construction as process. It resists teleological climax and promotes instead a continuous and dialogical narrative wave that is more romantic (romance­ like, digressive) than epic.37 When the substantive process of identity creation loses its dialogical continuity, when things become fixed, when the constellation of adventure is fixed on a chart, old age has set in: 51 In general, only youth knows this predominance of the process of life over its substance; whereas in old age, when the process begins to slow up and coagulate, substance becomes crucial; it then proceeds or perseveres in a certain timeless manner, indifferent to the tempo and passion of its being experienced. The old person usually lives either in a wholly centralized fashion, peripheral interests having fallen off and being unconnected with his essential life and its inner necessity; or his center atrophies, and existence runs its course only in isolated petty details, accenting mere externals and accidentals. (Simmel 198, emphasis in original)

This is as true for cultural periods as for individuals and especially critics, and explains in large part the general denigration of chivalric romance by the promoters of epic. This also helps to explain Foucault's depiction of the Classical period in The Order of Things, the scientific existentialism of which produces a new age of relativism.38 In this light, the modern and postmodern are rebirths or rejuvenations, and testify to the renewed ability to engage in process for the sake of process: it becomes possible to see life's substance in the artifice of its performance; one is no longer required to search for an imagined, fixed, and essential substance through the flotsam of the "superficiality" of performance. Now, performance is substance. In Amadis de Gaula, this performance can be broken down into several-types of exile, some of which are indeed precursors to integration, while others are ever-present threats to integration. In the following section, each type will be addressed in turn. There is, however, a certain overlap between them, as this typology is meant only as an organizing principle to the discussion. H Exile of romantic deferral: the knight as lover yearns for the absent or inaccessible lady. This often produces the adventure as a means for the knight of proving his worthiness. He must make a name for himself by performing great deeds, which often serve the state, or more specifically, the father of the beloved, who is a ruler. H Exile of romantic consummation. Here, the knight's union with his lady prolongs his exile from social integration and betrays the misogyny of these texts whereby idealised women promote righteousness, but actual (physical, sexual, emotional) women threaten to corrupt and distract the knight and undermine the general order. M Exile of penance: this highly personal exile is, in Amadis, a sub-exile to that of romantic deferral, but merits its own section because it is also a model for religious transcendence. It is the culmination of exile as preparation for reintegration, but carries religious overtones. 52 If Exile of identity. The knight either must seek out his identity through trial, which is the narrative foundation of Amadis, and is the template by which all knights accrue value. Deeds are transmitted to the court through other knights vanquished in battle, or via eyewitnesses. The delay in the action and its representation links this type of exile to the exile of romantic deferral, but since the narration is mostly public (there is often a parallel or contradictory contact with the beloved), the exile of identity is more linked to the political and social reality. Exile of Identity Because it is foundational to the text, and because in examining this aspect of the text I will be able to give a firmer footing in the text for the uninitiated, I will begin with the exile of identity.

AMADiS DE GAULA: "UN CLARO Y LUZIANTE ESPEJO" In Montalvo's Amadis de Gaula, the hero is born pre-wedlock, hidden from both families and sent adrift on a raft with only a given name and his father's sword and ring. El Donzel del Mar, as he is called by the noble Scottish family that finds him, is raised in Scotland before setting out to pursue knightly adventures. In the course of these adventures, he ends up at the court of King Perion, who is eventually revealed to be Amadis' father. The joy of the recognition scene is amplified by the evident qualities of the long lost son. He amazes with his beauty, virtue, and the effectiveness and nobility of his exploits, and the didactic narrator describes him as "un claro y luziante espejo" of his progenitors (1.10: 328). In spite of the engineered nature of the observation (the similarity is only noted after the Donzel del Mar's true identity has been revealed), this makes a case for nobility as a bred, rather than a nurtured quality. In contrast, the text as a whole clearly promotes actions that are becoming nobility as nobility's most vital component. Just as Amadis reflects his lineage in appearance and substance, Amadis reflects a desire for a well-behaved court that in turn reflects the nobility at its centre. In fact, the foundness of the character Amadis is itself mirrored by the foundness of Amadis, the text by Montalvo. Unlike the text, however, which is in need of an editor due to "corruption" by past editors, Amadis requires less active grooming. Of course, he is found by a noble enough family, and given the education and access to horses and arms befitting his future

"a clear and shining mirror" career, but these merely complement his natural abilities. At every meeting, his great beauty betrays his noble lineage. True to the vision of a noble class seeking to perpetuate its position in society, nobility is portrayed as something gained by nature. Nevertheless, under threat from changes in society through which merit is of increasing importance in relation to birthright, this class must also justify its role; it must prove that its position at the top of the pyramid is in accordance with its abilities. This self-justifying urge continues a process begun in the twelfth century, when invading hordes were less of a threat and no longer required sticking to the refuge of the medieval fortress. As a result, its "social isolation" having ended, "the feudal nobility becomes aware of itself as a universal class, with a newly elaborated and codified ideology" (Jameson 161). In order to strengthen its hold on society, the feudal ideology involves a reworking of "the positional notion of evil" that transforms the confrontation with evil into a struggle within the nobility itself. Instead of a true struggle with otherness, the knightly contest is between rough equals, one labelled "good," the other, because it is unknown, "evil." The victory is a given: no matter who wins the contest, the class as a whole wins by reaffirming its dominance. In Amadis, there is a shift away from this kind of ideological approach, which essentially denies the role of individual agency in determining behaviour. The example used by Jameson is Chretien's Erec andEnide (1042), in which external magical forces are the more active agents of evil. The knight of medieval romance represents a struggle greater than himself. In Amadis, evil is less magical and more intrinsic to the characters themselves. Most significantly, the good knight hides his identity, which he gradually assumes along with the goodness of which he must prove himself worthy. Evil is no longer an otherworldly force acting through man. The contest between knights is still representative of a greater conflict, but rather than representing a class struggle, it represents an internal struggle, most significantly against pride. The individual is no longer a simple vessel of magical, godly or class struggle, but a deliberate actor as well as the main battlefield in the contest between good and evil. He has become, rather than a pawn of the gods of Greek epic, a god unto himself, with a stake in the world and the means to alter the state of affairs through text.

TEXTUAL CONTROL AND SELF-INCORPORATION The knight controls the world through a further textualization of himself, the model of which is Roland's use of his body as text, as discussed in the introduction Roland's deliberately textual death scene reminds us that chivalry is not only about deeds, but also requires a management by the knight of how those deeds are related. It is not sufficient for one to gain renown, one must be known of before being introduced (reflecting two meanings of 'conocer', both 'to know' and 'to meet'). An ideal illustration occurs with the introduction of Florestan, Amadis' half-brother, who violently resists all requests of him to reveal his name, "for by the name, one knows the man."39 He tells Galaor, his brother: por dicho me tenia de no ser en essa parte conoscido hasta que mis obras les dieran testimonio como en alguna cosa parescieran a las vuestras, o morir en la demanda (1.22: 475).*

The resistance to revealing his name is not absolute; it must be revealed over time in order for the knight to claim what is his due. However, too rushed an acceptance of acclaim threatens to stoke the flames of pride, the true evil for this text. Any accusation of pride levelled at Roland is nullified by his sacrifice: the text of his deeds is written with/on his corpse. In contrast, the knight of Amadis is more intent on living: the ideal has become more realistic, and likely more effective to its audience by not calling for nobles to prove themselves through sacrifice; rather, they are called on to manage their pride. They can prove mastery over their pride by not accepting their "due" with too much relish, by acknowledging their fundamental unworthiness before accepting the mantle of their responsibility. They must refuse the laurel three times before accepting it. The process by which Amadis comes into his name illustrates the ideal deferral of reward. Shortly after Perion knights him (the father does not yet recognize the son), Amadis (still as El Donzel del Mar) leaves Oriana and King Languines' residence (1.4: 277). For his first adventure, he comes upon an adulteress attempting to kill her husband, wounded in the process of killing her lover (279). When El Donzel del Mar questions her, she enlists three other knights to fight on her behalf against El Donzel, whom she accuses of having attacked her husband himself. Once the enlistees are defeated, they ask El Donzel to forgive them their oversight (their loss reveals the injustice of their cause). He agrees, on one condition: que llevareis este cavallero herido [y] a su muger con el a casa del rey Languines, y direis cuanto della acontescio, y que la embia un cavallero novel que oy salio de la villa donde el es, y que mande hazer lo que por bien tuviere. (1.4: 281-82)'

"1 had given my word not to be known in those parts until my deeds could show themselves to be comparable to yours, or else die in the attempt." * "[On condition] that you take this wounded knight and his lady to the house of King Languines, and that you describe what has occurred on her account, and that she is sent by a new knight who just today left that King's residence, and that the King do with her as he sees fit." 55 Using a lance given to him by a mysterious woman (Urganda), who prophesies that the weapon will be used to "liberate the house from which he first came," Amadis fulfils the prophecy by saving King Perion from a vicious attack. Perion asks him to remove his helmet. Initially, he refuses, but the donzella in his company removes it "contra su voluntad" (1.5: 289). Since an unarmed donzella would find it difficult to overpower such a champion, this is a gesture of humility within a larger gesture of self-promotion; he does will it, just with as little pride and zeal as possible. Next, Amadis saves a dishonoured woman from Galpano, who, we are told, has a history of such offences (1.6: 296-97). The rescued donzella offers to take Galpano's severed head as part of a message on her saviour's behalf: —Cavallero, yo levare la cabeca deste que me deshonro, y darla he a quien el mandado lievo de vuestra parte.

—No la leveis—dixo el—, que vos sera enojo; mas levad el yelmo en lugar della.

La donzella lo ortorgo, y mando a su escudero que lo tomase, y luego salieron [...] (1.6:298)*

Also, by exploiting the "ortorgar un don" device, she extracts his name (Donzel del Mar) from him (299). This cycle of events is repeated in chapter 7, and the narrative of adventure is gradually publicized. On the third day since El Donzel's departure from Languines, news begins to arrive of him in the form of the three knights accompanying the adulteress (1.7: 300-01). After her story is told, she is burned for her crimes. The only information available to them regarding El Donzel (although it is not explicitly repeated in the report scene) is that he is a new knight who had left the castle three days prior. Next, comes the story of the rescue of Perion through a squire, who offers more information: —Sefior—dixo el escudero—, el es muy nino, y tan fermoso que es maravilla de lo ver, y vile fazer tanto en armas en poca hora, que si ha ventura de bevir, sera el mejor cavallero del mundo. (1.7: 301)+

"La donzella de la lanca le dixo: / —Sefior, tomad esta lanca, y digoos que ante de tercero dia hares con ella tales golpes, por que librareis la casa onde primero salistes" (1.5: 282). ^ '"Sir knight, 1 will take the head of he who has dishonoured me, and deliver it to whomever you wish on your behalf.' 'Do not take it,' he said, 'as it would be unseemly. Take in its stead the helmet.' The damsel agreed, and told her page to retrieve it, and they departed." * "'Sire,' said the page, 'he is very young, and so handsome that it is a marvel to see him, and I saw him do such incredible feats of arms in such little time, that [I am sure], should he live, he will be the greatest knight the world has ever seen.'" 56 Next, we hear from another donzella and a squire in her company about Urganda's gift of the lance: Amadis is revealed as the object and agent of prophecy; he is part of events that are important enough for the supernatural to get involved, even if the extent of the magic employed merely ensures the progression of the narrative and the interest of the audience. Amadis' self-management reaches a peak in the Dardan episode, which draws together his love interest, public service, and textualized self. To set up Dardan as the example of self- righteous pride, he is introduced when he insults Amadis, who arrives at his castle one evening: —Assi paresce—dixo el [el, Dardan] del muro—que sois estrafio, que dexais de andar de dia y andais de noche, mas creo que los fazeis por no aver razon de os combatir, que agora no fallareis sino los diablos. (1.13: 358)

Ruffled by Dardan's supercilious verbal attack, Amadis then travels closer to Lisuarte's castle, meeting up with two ladies who update the knight on Dardan's situation: at the behest of his lover, and on her behalf, he has put in an illegitimate claim to her stepmother's fortune. This affords Amadis the opportunity not only to avenge Dardan's insult, but also to perform in a just cause in front of Oriana, an intention he declares in confidence to the two ladies. He continues to conceal his name, even while defending his travel companions from being dishonoured by two knights they meet in the woods (1.13: 362-65). In preparation for his battle with Dardan, Amadis expresses the intention to arrive at Vindilisora, Lisuarte's residence, as an unknown: —Amigas, yo no quiero ser de ninguno conoscido, y hasta que venga el cavallero a la batalla quedare aqui en algun lugar encubierto. (366)^

The lady to be defended (Dardan's lover's stepmother) then passes on her own way to Vindilisora. Amadis extracts her story, and offers to defend her cause; however, when she arrives at the field where the case is to be decided, she denies having anyone to defend her cause, which allows for a grand and anonymous entrance by the hero. In accordance with custom, Dardan waits, armed in the field for the battle to be forfeited in his lady's favour (369). Amadis then prepares to join the battle, but not before giving instructions that reveal his continued intention to remain hidden, in spite of one of the reasons for fighting being the chance to perform in front of Oriana, his beloved:

'"It seems,' said Dardan from atop the wall, 'that you are indeed strange for spurning travel by day in order to do so by night, and I believe you behave thus so as to avoid having to fight. At such an hour, all you will find are demons.'" * "Dear ladies, I do not wish to be recognized by anyone, and until the knight comes to the battle, I will stay here, hidden." 57 El cavalgo y tomando sus armas dixo a Gandalin y a la donzella que se fuessen por otra parte, y que si el a su honra de la batalla se partiesse, que se fuessen a los tendejones, que alii acudiria el, y luego salio de la floresta todo armado y encima de un cavallo bianco, y el se iva hazia donde era Dardan aderecando sus armas. (369)*

During the battle (370-374), Amadis dominates the fight until he is distracted: he hears Oriana's voice from the windows looking out onto the field (373). Dardan attempts to take advantage of this momentary weakness, but is soon bested, after which his lady rejects him. For this, he beheads her, and then in grief falls on his own sword. Just before the unravelling of this lovers' tragedy, Amadis surreptitiously departs, feeling shame for his momentary lapse during the battle (374). After Dardan and his lady are buried, some at the court suspect Amadis to be the unknown arm of justice in the case (1.14: 376-77). Meanwhile, Amadis plans his entry into the court, sending Gandalin off to speak to La Donzella de Denamarcha and find what she would have him do. Gandalin also privately reports to Oriana, and they plan a meeting in an orchard (380). The meeting with Oriana precedes the entry into the court, to which Amadis only agrees when the defended lady is told to fetch him under pain of imprisonment. He agrees under one condition: that the King not ask him anything he is unwilling to answer or to do, to which the King is compelled to agree (1.15: 389). At every turn, Amadis tries to protect his public identity, or at least, to delay knowledge of it. His identity is not hidden for long, since Oriana and Mabilia reveal him as the son of Perion (390). What remains is the question of his future service. Lisuarte desires to have him at his court, but due to the pact he has agreed to, he is now unable to ask. Queen Brisena, however, has agreed to no such pact, and plans to ask him to enter her service, instead of Lisuarte's. At Amadis' audience with her, she tells him: —Cavallero, el Rey mi senor quisiera mucho que quedaredes con el y no lo ha podido alcancar; agora quiero ver que tanta mas parte tienen las mugeres en los cavalleros que los hombres, y ruegovos yo que seais mi cavallero y de mi hija y de todas estas que aqui veis; en esto fareis mesura y quitarnos eis de afrenta con el Rey en le demandar para nuestras cosas ninguri cavallero, que teniendo a vos todos los suyos escusar podremos.

"He mounted, and, taking up his arms, told Gandalin and the damsel to go by another route, and that if the honour of battle be delivered him, that they should make their way to the tents, where he would join them. Then, he left the wood, completely armed and mounted upon a white horse, and went to where Dardan, armed and ready, was waiting." 58 Y llegaron todas a gelo rogar, y Oriana le fizo sefia con el rostro que lo ortogasse; la Reina le dixo:

—Pues cavallero, ^quien fareis en esto de nuestro ruego?

—Senora—dixo el—, ^quien faria al sino vuestro mandado, que sois la mejor reina del mundo demas destas senoras todas?; yo senora, quedo por vuestro ruego y de vuestra hija, y despues de todas las otras; mas digovos que no sere de otro sino vuestro. Y si al Rey en algo sirviere, sera como vuestro y no como suyo. (1.15:392)*

By this tenuous and meticulously controlled route, Amadis comes into the service of Lisuarte's court. By resisting identification as the hero of his own exploits, he expresses great humility and places greater emphasis on the acts themselves, as if to put a premium on action over position. As a further way of avoiding direct service, Amadis manipulates his story in order to serve Oriana secretly; publicly, he serves the next best person, her mother, and the king's consort. His humility serves the court well, and is at least as important as his feats of arms, for it ensures that he struggles for the right (or what he believes the right to be) rather than himself. Amadis becomes the model for knightly behaviour by focussing primarily on his lady, rather than the glory to be had through his exploits. Were he to manage to carry through, undistracted by love, there is a danger of pride, which, in Dardan's case, has led to highly destructive behaviour. Dardan's misfortune exemplifies a distinct kind of adventure, the erotic episode, that involves both "conquering force and unextortable concession," which Simmel acknowledges, focuses solely on the masculine (195).40 Both victory and fate are neatly balanced in a way the state finds advantageous: In the proudest, most self-assured event in this sphere lies something which we must accept with humility. When the force which owes its success to itself and gives all conquest of love some note of victory and triumph is then combined with the other note of favor or fate, the constellation of the adventure is, as it were, performed. (196)

'"Sir knight, the King very much desires you to stay here in his service, but has been unable to manage this. Now, I want to see what advantage a lady would have over a man in gaining such service, and 1 implore you to be my knight, and my daughter's, and the knight of all the ladies you see here. Do us this courtesy, and you will relieve us from inconveniencing the King should we require the services of a knight, for by having you, we will have no need to trouble any of his.' And they pleaded with him, and Oriana assented with a facial gesture. Then, the Queen spoke: 'So, sir knight, how will you respond to our request?' 'My lady,' he said, 'who could but obey you, who are the greatest queen in the world, and also all of these ladies? I remain, therefore, in your service and in that of your daughter, and after that, in the service of all the rest. But I tell you that I will be the knight of none other than yourself. And if I should be in a position to serve the King in some way, it will be as your knight, and not as his.'" 59 For all his standing and prowess, Dardan is unable to police himself; he is proud to the point of insolence, and, led by his passions, he defends unjust causes. His relationship to his lady betrays the danger he poses to the community: his conquest of her and a secure social position, once it falters, provokes destruction of both lovers, which carried into the realm of public service would destroy the kingdom. The relationship is defeated by its antithesis: that of Amadis and Oriana. Amadis is in a constant state of humility in relation to his lady, and he constantly defers accepting the conquests he is due. By accepting only to become Brisena's knight (publicly), Amadis exemplifies the conflation in chivalric culture of the lady and the king. Brisena becomes the middle ground, the communal true north between the private passion for Oriana, and the public service due Lisuarte. Amadis' subjection to Brisena is the performed compromise between his internal and external duties, and the culmination of his textual self- management. The Dardan episode shows how, in chivalric romance, self-management is mirrored by the narrator's own control over events. The text is a web, a tapestry, and its many threads must be kept taut to keep the entire enterprise from unravelling. The suspense engendered by the delay of recognition is vital to the text itself. Like the knight, the text must be kept alive and active for as long as possible if the ultimate message is to get through to the audience. The process must be repeated constantly to show that life itself is a process that must be managed, and constantly policed. This policing, however, is not done by magic intervention, and the reader, meant to identify with the knight rather than worship him, does not come to expect a knight to come and save him. Instead, the identification with the protagonists makes the reader a knight, capable of great damage, but responsible to a higher calling and to the stability and honour of the realm.

Romantic Deferral: A Willing Captive A model of self-policing occurs in chapter 8. Before he has been identified and recognized by his family, and as soon as some of his first battle wounds have healed, Amadis heads into a wood. The wood is the antithesis to the social structure of the court, and is thus essential to the individual adventure. No longer the marginalized space of Maldon or the space of shameful text-production of El Cid, the wood has been promoted to a liminal space.41 It is the site of a temporary "suspension of royal power and royal prerogatives, and of the individual's duty to his liege" (Fuchs 69) that allows the individual not only to test his mettle, but also to explore his interior space. 60 Spring has transformed the dark wood into a more pastoral and romantic setting. Birds singing and flowers blooming send the hero into romantic reminiscence/dreaming, during which he says, out loud: —Ay cativo Donzel del Mar, sin linaje y sin bien, ^como fueste tan osado de meter tu coracon y tu amor en poder de aquella que vale mas que las otras todas de bondad y fermosura y de linaje? jO cativo!, por cualquier destas tres cosas no devia ser osado el mejor cavallero del mundo de la amar, que mas es ella fermosa que el mejor cavallero en armas, y mas vale la su bondad que la riqueza del mayor hombre del mundo, y yo cativo que no se qui en so, que vivo con trabajo de tal locura que morire amando sin jelo osar dezir. (306)

Here, Amadis reiterates the trope of the captive and unworthy lover with the use of diverse pronominal self-reference and tense usage. He addresses himself in the third person using his pre-recognition name {Donzel del Mar). Then, he questions himself with the second person preterit (fuiste, tu). Next, he shifts back to the third person, this time with the imperfect (debia). And lastly, he uses the first person to question himself in the present tense, followed by the first person in the simple future to resign himself to his fate, to die without daring to tell his beloved how he feels. Yo cativo que no se quien so: Amadis is an unrequited lover who does not know who he is, and his lovesickness is likely to continue considering his beloved is a king's daughter and he is very unlikely to be of sufficient rank and wealth to merit her hand. The impasse in both romance and self-identity finds expression across tenses and person; Amadis is in a self- exploring mode where he simultaneously objectifies and subjectifies himself, searches for his voice, his space, his time. There is an opportunity here for a development of a pure or radical internality, an individuality impossible in earlier epics. The modern reader can be forgiven for seeing the result as the author's refusal to follow through. Once Amadis finds out who he is, he becomes a full, external caricature once again. In line with the dialogic approach to life promoted by chivalric romance, the captivity of the lover is one extreme of the full life: a balance between self and service represented by Amadis' commitment to serve Brisena, examined above. Because it is spoken rather than represented as

* "Oh captive Donzel del Mar, without lineage and without property, how were you so impertinent as to put your heart and your love in the power of she who is worth more than the others in goodness and beauty and lineage? Oh, captive! By neither of these three things should even the best knight in the world be so impertinent as to love her, that she is more beautiful than the best knight is [in the practice of] arms, and her goodness is greater than the riches of the greatest man in the world, and I a captive and I do not know who I am, I who live troubled by such madness, I who will die loving her without daring to tell her." being thought via monologue or free indirect discourse, this captivity is no less a performance than the textual management leading up to the Dardan episode. Through his performance, by resigning himself to a lover's captivity, the knight rehearses the obedience due to the sovereign; both lover and sovereign are absent, especially in the depths of the wood, but increasingly at the centre as well, particularly in an age of expanding national territory (Haidu 162).42 Therefore, instead of "a suspension of royal power," the wood is an extension of royal power over the marginal and the internal individual; the two realms remain connected, making the wood a liminal, rather than a marginal space. Also in contrast to Fuchs' generalization—"romance challenges the political myth-making of epic, and its tight networks of obligation and belonging" (69)—the extension of a discourse of submission even into the depths of a personal self-searching reveals the part that romance plays in appreciating the complex nature of "networks of belonging" far better than the top-down epic. Instead of making myths, the romance makes a rough mould of the citizen. The romance replicates the myths of epic, but includes an appeal to the private and internal, not only in passages such as the above, but in an increased emphasis on the personal act of reading, paralleled by an acknowledgement of the internal machinations of character and the need to manage them by providing a model of such management.

THE DISCOURSE OF SUBMISSION: ORTOGAR UN DON Central to the hero's submission to his beloved and to her temporary stand-ins (the ladies recurrently found wandering in the woods) is the performed captivity of granting a wish. This common knightly activity is depicted in Amadis with the words "otorgar un don," where otorgar is linked etymologically to the Latin auctoricare (RAE) and thus speaks directly to the issue of authority and its relationship to verbal and written media. As a formula, ortogar also rehearses a legalistic language of service that couples an increasingly bureaucratic view of service with a sense of mission and action. The granting of requests operates according to the following model: an unjustly marginalized character, often a dishonoured maiden {donzella escarnida), meets with a knight and, using the indefinite article, asks that he grant "un don", a request. Without knowing the nature of the mission, and thereby revealing his courage (he expresses confidence that nothing is beyond him), the knight agrees. The supplicant then describes the situation that the knight subsequently corrects by eventually challenging and defeating the offending party. The knight gives his word, the substance of his honour, and of his very knightly self. The resulting mission, 62 if successful, becomes one of the events, which, turned into narrative, form what is known of him and thereby what he is. The granting of unknown wishes can be dangerous, however, as the marginalized character often misrepresents the injustice done to her, a situation that forces the knight to attempt an injustice himself. If he is not careful, the knight falls into a rhetorical and legal trap. (See, for example, my discussion of Lisuarte's near downfall due to an irresponsibly granted request on page 45, above.) Occasionally, the knight closes such a loophole by including in his acceptance of the request the stipulation that it also be just. "Sea con derecho y yo vos lo otorgo," says Amadis in response to the request of his as-yet-unrecognized brother Galaor, who wishes to be knighted by him (1.11: 337). This legalistic response is never truly tested: when it is used, and the request is always con derecho and does not need to be refused.

Romantic Consummation: The Dangers of Matrimony Another, more formal form of submission that tends to trigger books instead of chapters is matrimony; the latter, however, is viewed negatively from the perspective of the knightly code. Whereas romantic deferral is good for the community because it spurs submission to the abstract and gives the knight practice in the art of self-discipline, romantic consummation has the opposite effect. Here, chivalry's misogyny is intensified by Humanistic values: women have a corrupting influence on men when idealism is replaced by actuality. When women are appreciated temporally rather than adored in the abstract, an absent monarch and a tenuous social order cannot compete. The crisis caused by the rift between Amadis and Oriana drives the first part of the second book, so clearly what is good for the state is not always good for the text (if what is good for the text is deemed to be its ability to continue, at which chivalric romance excels). After the defeat of Dardan early in book 1, the lovers are clearly destined to be together, and Amadis goes from adventure to adventure as a means of magnifying his reputation. The consummation of their relationship occurs after Amadis frees Oriana from the clutches of Arcalaus, his arch­ enemy, who intended to marry her off to a crony, get rid of Lisuarte, and thereby gain de facto control over the kingdom. As they make their way back to London, Oriana is overcome with fatigue, Gandalin is sent off for provisions, and the fun starts: 63 se puede bien dezir que en aquella verde yerva, encima de aquel manto, mas por la gracia y comedimiento de Oriana, que por la desemboltura ni osadia de Amadis, fue hecha duefia la mas hermosa donzella del mundo. (1.35: 574)

Once Lisuarte is re-enthroned, Amadis asks Oriana's leave to complete the mission promised to the (not quite as) beautiful Briolanja to restore her kingdom.43 Oriana does not stop Amadis from going, but she has a sense of the impending crisis: ella, con muchas lagrimas y cuita de su coracon, como que adevinava la desaventura que por causa della a entrambos vino, considerando la falta en que el caia si le detuviesse, gela otorgo. (1.40:605).'

Amadis, Gandalin, and the dwarf Ardian are not far away when Amadis remembers the broken sword that Briolanja had given him, and sends Ardian back to get it. Ardian, having misinterpreted Amadis' offer of service to Briolanja to have a more romantic connotation, passes on his ignorance, thereby creating the dreaded crisis: Esto fue ocasion por donde seyendo sin culpa Amadis y su senora Oriana y el enano que con inorancia lo hizo, fueron entrambos llegados al punto de la muerte, queriendoles mostrar la cruel fortuna, que a ninguno perdona, los xaropes amargos que aquella dulcura de sus grandes amores en si ocultos y encerrados tenia, como agora oireis [...]* (1.40: 605)

Oriana immediately believes the dwarfs report (606), but the effect will be delayed until the beginning of the second book, when her vengeful letter to Amadis results in his self-exile at La Pena Pobre. However, before he goes into such an extreme exile (to be examined in its own section), Amadis first goes to the insola Firme, an exilic middle ground representative of romance's place in between state service and absolute withdrawal.

LA INSOLA FIRME Book 2 begins with the background of the Insola Firme, founded a hundred years earlier by Apolidon, son of King of Greece and of the Emperor of Constantinople's daughter, who gives

* "It can be appropriately told that on that green grass, on top of that mantle, more by Oriana's grace and courtesy than by Amadis' daring or boldness, the world's most beautiful maiden was made a matron." [For duefia, I use 'matron' in the sense of a non-maiden, with an implication, due to the relative chastity of the presentation, of married purity as in OED 'matron' lb.] t "She [Oriana], with many tears and pangs in her heart, as if she were divining the misadventure that for this cause would come between them, [and yet] considering the dishonour that would befall him were she to detain him, gave him her leave." * "This was the occasion in which, Amadis and his lady Oriana being without fault, and the dwarf acting in ignorance, both [lovers] were brought to the point of death, cruel fortune wishing to show them that no one is spared the bitter syrup locked up and hidden within the sweetness of such great love, as you will now hear..." Note: this bitter syrup, prefigures the bitter food that Amadis will eat in his dream prior to his trip to La Pefla Pobre (2.45: 681) (citedbelow, page 68). 64 up the crown in favour of his younger brother. Instead, he claims the consolation inheritance: riches and books. With this, he sets off, and eventually falls in love with the sister of the Emperor of Rome, Grimanesa. From Rome, the two travel to the Insola Firme, ruled by a giant, whom Apolidon defeats. Sixteen years of lovemaking and architectural feats ensue: en ella [la Insola] con su amiga Grimanesa moro xvi afios con tanto plazer, que sus animos satisfechos fueron de aquellos deseos mortales que el uno por el otro passando havian; en que en aquel tiempo fueron hechos muy ricos edificios, assi con sus grandes riquezas como son su sobrado saber, que a cualquiera emperador o rey, por rico que fuesse, fueran muy graves de acabar. (2.intro: 659)

The death of the King of Greece compels the Greeks to request Apolidon's return. On Grimanesa's urging, Apolidon leaves the challenge of the Insola Firme by which it can only come into another's possession who is great in both strength of arms, fidelity, and beauty: [ella] rogo Apolidon que ante de su partida dexasse alii por su gran saber como en los venideros tiempos aquel lugar senoreado no fuese sino por persona que, assi en fortaleza de armas como en lealtad de amores y de sobrada fermosura, a ellos entrambos paresciesse. (2.intro: 660)^

In a way reminiscent of Shakespeare's Prospero, Apolidon uses his magical, bookish knowledge to place an arch over the only entrance to an orchard, through which everyone wishing to enter must pass. Anyone who has been in the remotest sense unfaithful towards his or her first love will be met by horrible sound, fire, smoke, and physical ejection. Only the faithful produce a sweet sound with their passing. In addition, two pillars magically protect the lovers' chamber from any man less skilled in weaponry than Apolidon, and only any woman of lesser beauty to Grimanesa. Of course, Amadis passes all the tests and becomes the ruler of the Insola Firme (2.44: 670-74). On the heels of this success, however, comes the letter from Oriana, which begins: Mi raviosa quexa acompanada de sobrada razon da lugar a que la flaca mano declare lo que el triste corazon encubrir no puede contra vos el falso y desleal cavallero Amadis de Gaula, pues ya es conocida la deslealtad y poca firmeza que contra mi [...] haveis mostrado [...] (2.44: 676)*

"He lived on the island with Grimanesa, his friend, in such pleasure, that their spirits were satisfied by those mortal desires that each had for the other. During that time, with his great riches and knowledge, many grand buildings were built, that even the richest emperor or king would have difficulty bringing forth." t "She begged Apolidon that before his departure, using his great knowledge, he contrive that in future times no one would rule that place who was not of the greatest strength of arm, fidelity of love and great beauty." * "My furious complaint, backed up by ample motive/reason, provokes my feeble hand to declare what my sorrowful heart cannot conceal against thee, the false and disloyal knight, Amadis of Gaul, since it is now well known the disloyalty and inconstancy that you have shown towards me [...]" 65 Even though he has been supernaturally affirmed the most faithful lover possible, the unfaithfulness of his beloved causes Amadis to escape from his newly established "kingdom," and retreat from the knightly life altogether. What would have otherwise been the culmination of perfect service has instead produced the complete abandonment of service, in which romantic consummation has played a key role. For as long as love remains unrequited and valour unproven, great acts occur. When love has been recognized and reciprocated, when the union of lovers is affirmed, the knight no longer serves an abstract ideal, but a real person; and when this real person happens to be the female protagonist of a romance of chivalry, the knight is also subject to woman's inconsistency, in this case in the form of rabid jealousy. Of course, it is not uncommon for the pre-consummation Amadis to be paralyzed by tears at the mere thought of his beloved, but consummation has amplified the danger of such attacks of effeminacy. The severity of the attack is itself amplified by a further marker of exile: text. Ardian's report to Oriana is based on naive observation of the exchange between him and Briolanja, the naivete contributing to the already exilic condition of observation. Further, Oriana believes the report, essentially re-writing previous events to fit into her new view of reality: she translates Amadis' anxiousness to be done with the Briolanja problem as evidence of his affection for Briolanja rather than of his concern at leaving his beloved.44 The opening of her letter, cited above, reveals further layers of exile: the razon (Ardian's nai've report) motivates a complaint lodged in the heart that a weak hand then translates to paper (through discourse/razdrc, whereby razon becomes the cause of the complaint and the means of its transmission). The text is careful to point out that the writing act itself is carried out in solitude; being deprived of any counsel has exacerbated her fury by exiling herself from her senses and allowing her to transform her love into an expression of hate.45 Addressed with Amadis' seal and the words "Yo soy la donzella herida de punta de espada por el coraeon, y vos sois el que me feristes," the letter is entrusted to a page in her confidence (Durin) along with instructions that he deliver the letter, take note of Amadis' reaction, and not accept any reply. Oriana mimetically transfers her wounds to Amadis; having received the point of a figurative sword in her heart, she delivers her own pen thrusts into his heart.

Amadis has difficulty containing his emotion when he receives the letter, but quickly regains his composure. When he learns that Durin, as instructed, will not accept a reply, he instead addresses the letter: "—Vos sois la causa de mi dolorosa fin; y porque mas cedo me

"] am the maiden wounded in the heart by a sword's point, and it thee who struck the blow." 66 sobrevenga, ireis comigo. / Y metiola en su seno" (2.45: 679-80). Not only has Oriana transferred her wounds to Amadis, but also her body; she becomes the letter. As does Oriana, Amadis tells as few people as possible. More responsible than she, he provides for the continued governance of his new territory before heading off to eventually abandon all the trappings of knighthood before enlisting himself in the service of a hermit. While both Oriana and Amadis feel as if they are acting in passionate harmony with their inner selves, they are instead exiled from themselves, an exile that is exemplified in the production, transmission, and consumption of the letter. Romantic consummation has not led to a bond that no man can put asunder, but rather to its opposite: a radicalization of individuality that resists to the bitter end the faith in the desired other necessary to true consummation. The lovers are increasingly unstable and exacerbate their condition by fleeing the counsel of friends who would otherwise temper their passions. Love for a lady, it would seem in Montalvo's and his generation's estimation, is wholly inferior to the love of a trusted friend, for the latter is an intellectual love uncomplicated by temporal desires. In addition to heightening the absurdity of these passionately destructive and narratively essential actions, the Insola Firme serves an additional, if contradictory, purpose. As an enclave of true love when not undermined by bitter letters, it serves as a romance Utopia, an ideal within an ideal. The story of its founding is a text within a text, making the Insola Firme a mise en abyme both on a textual and a conceptual level. Its oxymoronic name indicates that it is an island that is not an island, too close to the land to be truly distinct, yet still separate; like an oxymoron, it is both 'sharp' (oxus) and 'foolish' (moros), and its connection to the mainland mirrors the link between the main narrative and the wider society in which chivalric values were being practiced. The Insola Firme is a heterotopia par excellence.41 Just as the romantic hero is in dialogue with himself, and romance with society, here romance is in dialogue with itself. As discussed, the dialogue with Esplandidn that is set up in the prologue sets out to undermine the type of chivalry depicted in Amadis. Indeed, in books 3 and 4, Esplandian begins to introduce the "matter of Rome" by rejecting what is judged to be the decadent individualism of "traditional" chivalry in favour of a more global, imperial, and godly struggle against the infidel. This is one aspect of the move of Montalvo's entire oeuvre towards a more epic struggle, which nevertheless occurs within romance: the struggle becomes less and less about the

'"You are the cause of my painful end; and since you strike me down so unexpectedly, you will accompany me.' And he stowed it next to his breast." 67 confrontation of "magics," and more about a confrontation between leaders; and, in the background is a "greater" purpose to that of entertainment. The Insola Firme stands firm against too sudden a shift towards epic; this remains romance after all. The magical realm of fully consummated romance stands in contrast to the court, what Weber de Kurlat calls "un movimiento divergente" (53). Indeed, unlike Lisuarte's court, which is peripatetic and revolves around the King's person rather than being limited to a particular place, and in spite of the general errant nature of the text and its characters, the Insola remains a romantic Utopia, critical of the relative faithlessness of most of the knights. Even Amadis and Oriana cannot live up to this ideal: not only does Amadis' arrival culminate in his disgraceful departure, but the union will also, in book 4, result in an all out war with Lisuarte. Amadis does not need the direct criticism that occurs in Esplandidn, for it is already critical of itself. The Insola Firme, like Utopia, is an ideal non-place. Unlike Utopia, it is not governed by rationally conceived institutions, but by a kind of narrative fate: the belief that true love does exist and can be confirmed by a series of tests designed by fate for each individual. In this Utopia, the exile of identity does not automatically require the construction of a self-narrative within a set of strict rules. It is indeed a "suspension of royal power," and realizes the fantasy of a magical wood that is not marginalized, that does not compel an immediate return to the castle, that has been institutionalized: rather than a wood, we have a carefully tended orchard, its wildness and inhospitableness removed and surrounded with its own wall. This is the "myth of personal freedom" at the foundation of romance (Norhnberg 5), which is only conceivable as an anti-castle. The alternative freedom, the exilic and errant adventure, is in contrast an unfreedom; it always requires a return to society, cannot exist outside the bigger picture that frames it in an experiential narrative. Errantry "implies a kind of release from the traumatic experience of a mass translation of rootedness or domain" (Norhnberg 6) that is intrinsic to statehood and epic purpose; Utopia, on the other hand, offers a momentary glimpse into a world where the trauma is neutralized by a highly individualized rootedness There are limits to the challenge romantic consummation poses for the state. It removes the knightly drive to service, and exposes him to the unruly feminine (for the love is always consummated illicitly, in some bower, or even under the patriarch's nose in the castle itself). Nevertheless, consummation, like its delay, mirrors the state's desire to cleave the individual to itself, and therefore threatens the individual with a more pressing and personal trauma of rootedness. Woman's fickleness also mirrors the inconstancy of the state; neither woman nor 68 state is able to maintain its faith or stay the course (e.g. Lisuarte's uncontrollable pride). This leaves one last refuge: radical loneliness, which, unlike the kind suffered by Oriana and Amadis when they are lost in the throes of jealousy, revenge, and righteous indignation, completely removes any of the corrupted world's troubling input.

Penance: The Self As Hermit and the Fantasy of Discipline The dreaded letter having been read, Amadis hastens to leave the Insola Firme. He calls for Gandalin and Isanjo (the island's governor), and after swearing them and Durin to secrecy, instructs them to get his armour and open the gates of the castle. He then thinks back on a dream he had had the night before: le pareciera fallarse encima de un otero cubierto de arboles, en su cavallo y armado, y aderredor del mucha gente que fazia grande alegria, y que llegava por entre dellos un hombre que le dezia: «jSefior, corned desto que en esta buxete trayo!», y que le fazia comer dello; y pareciale gustar la mas amarga cosa que fallar se podria; y sintiendose con ello muy desmayado y desconsolado, soltava la rienda del cavallo y ivase por donde el queria; y pareciale que la gente que antes alegre estava se tornava tan triste que el havia duelo dello, mas el cavallo se alongava con el lexos y le metia por entre unos arboles, donde veia un lugar de unas piedras que de agua eran cercadas; y dexando el cavallo y las armas, se metia alii como que por ello esperava descanso; y que venia a el un hombre viejo vestido de pafios de orden, y le tomava por la mano, llegandolo a si, mostrando piedad, y deziale unas palabras en lenguaje que las no entendia, y con esto despertara; y agora le parecia que comoquiera que por vano lo avia tenido, que * como verdadero lo fallava. (2.45: 681) The timely insertion of what will turn out to be a premonitory dream reveals the deliberate and somewhat ungainly nature of the text. The interpretation is clear, and will be interpreted later by the priest to whom Amadis entrusts his salvation (2.51: 729): the hillock is the Insola, and the bitter food he is compelled to eat from a delivered casket is the news of Oriana's letter; now, as he leaves the Insola, many people will be sad, and, abandoned to his bitter depression, he will wander aimlessly until relief is obtained.51

"He found himself on a tree-covered hillock, armed and mounted, and there were many people all around him celebrating happily. Out from amongst them came a man, who said to him: «Sir, eat of what 1 carry in this casket!», and he made him eat. Its flavour was of the most bitter thing imaginable, and, feeling faint and disconsolate because of it, he dropped the reins and allowed the horse to carry him wherever it might wander. The once joyful throng grew sad, which pained him, but the horse carried him far away, and entered a stand of trees, where he saw a dwelling of stone surrounded by water. Leaving his armour and his horse, he entered the building as if he expected some succour there. An old man dressed in the robes of an Order approached, and took his hand, and brought him close, showing great pity. The man spoke to him in the words of a language he could not understand, and with this, he awoke. And though he had disregarded it at the time, how true he found it to be now." Note the bitter food is prefigured in the bitter syrup (xaropes amargos) that Oriana compares to the news of Amadis' "betrayal" (1.40: 605) {see citation above, page 63). 69 This, the first of few dreams related in the text, indicates a move to an even more intimate interiority than depicted before. Backing it up is the text's very first prayer in direct discourse: an appeal to the Virgin Mary for mercy on his soul if his body is to perish (2.45: 682). Despite his apparent desperation, Amadis still has the presence of mind to act responsibly: he gives Gandalin the rule of the Insola in an impassioned speech that emphasizes their de facto status as brothers (683-84). He forbids any of them from following him, and, as in the dream, allows his horse to carry him into the wilderness, where he eventually falls asleep (684-85). Gandalin and Durin follow him nonetheless. They find him asleep, but, fearful of recrimination for disobeying his orders, they remain hidden. Upon awakening, he issues a characteristically long complaint that mirrors the one analysed above (page 60), except his captivity is no longer to his ladylove, but to fate iyenturd) that has taken her from him, and that has removed all the honours ("pompas y vanas glorias perescederas") it had just bestowed on him. Whereas he could have lived without any of those honours, and on his lady's support alone, now that the latter has been taken away, he prays for death (2.46: 686-87). Punctuated by tearful fainting spells, his complaint is then addressed to Oriana for the irrational death she has inflicted, followed by an apology to his father Perion for not living up to his potential, another apology to his adoptive father Gandales for being unable to receive what is his due, a complaint to his cousin Mabilia for her inability at counselling Oriana (687-89). After wounding the impetuous Patin, who has the misfortune to pass by while declaring Oriana's love for himself (2.46-47: 689-98), Amadis definitively leaves a sleeping Gandalin. As foreseen in the dream, he meets up with the man of Orders, whom he begs to take his confession. The priest gently belittles the cause of his suffering: -Segun vuestro entendimiento y el linaje tan alto donde venis, no os devriades matar ni perder por ninguna cosa que vos aveniesse, cuanto mas por hecho de mugeres, que se ligeramente gana y pierde, y vos consejo que no pareis en tal cosa mientes y vos quiteis de tal locura que no hagais por amor de Dios, a quien no plaze de tales cosas, y ahun por la razon del mundo se devria hazer, que no puede hombre ni deve amar a quien le no amare. (2.48: 705)

According to the priest, who echoes what we assume to be Montalvo's attitude, Amadis has placed too great a trust in an imperfect, temporal love of a fickle woman and worldly honours. Amadis is not prepared to follow this advice, and rejects it soundly:

"According to your intelligence and high lineage, you should not kill yourself or lose, especially not because of the actions of women, that which is your due and which is so easily won and lost. I counsel you not to give it any more thought, and to throw off such madness. Neither God, who is not pleased by that which is not done for love of Him, nor worldly reason allows a man to love anyone who cannot love him in return." 70 yo no vos demando consejo en esta parte, que a mi no es menester, mas demandovos consejo de mi alma y que os plega de me llevar con [v]os; y si lo no hizierdes, no tengo otro remedio sino morir en esta montafia (2.48: 706)

The logical cause of the problem (reliance on fickle women) has a logical solution (abandon the pursuit of women), but neither Amadis nor the text can permit such a simplistic resolution. This episode is less about romantic deferral than about a different kind of knightly practice, which first requires that Amadis abandon his horse and arms; it is only once stripped of the signs of knighthood that he will be able to wear them once again. Thus begins a religious Utopian exercise that complements the other Utopias in the text. Oriana is merely the diegetic motivator of this exile, which is more fundamentally about Amadis' (and Montalvo's) struggle for balance between the internal and external life. The religious is another adventure to add to the arsenal of a complete self. Amadis is more forceful with Gandalin, when the latter suggests Oriana's inconstancy or misinformation as reasons for her letter. Amadis insists that she is faultless: "Oriana, mi senora, nunca erro en cosa ninguna; y si yo muero es con razon, no porque lo yo merezca, mas porque con ello cumplo su voluntad y mando" (2.48: 699-700).* The mere suggestion by Gandalin, however reasonable (he also suggests that she had been deceived by false information), causes the definitive separation between the knight and his squire for the duration of the Pefia Pobre exile. It is not about what one deserves, but how purely one obeys, with complete disregard for the foolishness of the request. By blindly obeying a foolish woman, Amadis is proving his ability to obey without question. He is, it would appear, already able to practice Christianity, itself a sometimes-foolish practice (ICor 3.18-19). Amadis claims that the advice regarding his romantic life is unwarranted, for in that area, he is whole; also, this is not the area of the priest's specialty. What the romantic life cannot give him, Amadis desires of the priest: healing for his soul. He has spent much of his time earning the love of his lady, and now must attend to other matters in order to be truly whole. This transition to wholeness culminates in Esplandian, the crusader with only great battles on his mind, and little time for the niceties of chivalry. The time at Pefia Pobre is marked by a temporary change of name: the priest renames him Beltenebros ("Fair Shadows"). The nature of this wholeness, achieved through its opposite (a time of shadows), is less an absolute fixed state (i.e. a Utopia, traditionally conceived) than something to be engaged in.

"My lady Oriana has never erred in any way, and if I die, it is with good reason, not because I deserve it, but because by doing so, I am complying with her will and her order." 71 Initially, the priest disallows this conclusion; by withdrawing indefinitely, the priest affirms the impossibility of balance, of living in the sinful world. Likewise, while he does not necessarily recommend that Amadis completely abandon his material life, he suggests it be put in perspective: a hierarchy must be established in which the love and service of God is not confused with the love and service of a lady. This does not prescribe stasis as the ultimate goal; rather, it reveals a desire for stasis, and is therefore an affirmation of dynamism. Ideas of perfection are means of managing the dynamic world that always, ultimately, rejects static models; stasis is the complementary inversion of the Other as enemy, and instead of receiving lance thrusts and a discourse of oppression, stasis becomes a haven for mind thrusts, the locale of a discourse of self-oppression, a conformity to an idea.53 The function of the priest, according to his own interpretation of the first dream, is to educate Amadis in religious matters: things that he could not understand without him ("unas palabras en lenguaje que las no entendia", i.e., "las palabras santas de Dios") (2.51: 730). But mere instruction is insufficient: Amadis continues to think about worldly honour, and his subsequent mood threatens suicide. The hermit's solution is regular activity of a more basic type: por le apartar algo de sus muy grandes pensamientos y congoxas, [el hermitano] faziale muchas veces en compania de dos mocuelos, sus sobrinos de aquel hombre bueno, que consigo tenia, ir a pescar a una ribera que ai cerca estava con varas, donde tomavan pescado assaz. (2.51: 730)

As Cacho Blecua points out in his footnote to this passage, fishing was gaining favour as a noble activity that, conveniently enough due to the lack of fauna on the Pena Pobre, could replace hunting (730, n.15). There are, however, important differences in the two activities. Hunting was an extension of a warrior's training: the noble could practice with his weapons as well as study his territory's geography, should he ever need to defend it.5 Fishing as a noble activity, on the other hand, emphasizes a shift to more contemplative values. While Amadis' angling does take in many fish (pescado asaz), the emphasis is not on the sustenance value of the activity, but rather its distractive value. In this context, fishing is beginning to take on the qualities of "angling," a sport with considerable spiritual connotations for American Transcendentalists as a means of contemplating the meeting place between "eternal and temporal realms."55

"in order to distance him from his heavy thoughts and complaints, the hermit often had him accompany two young men, the good man's nephews who were there with him, on fishing expeditions to the shore, where with rods they took many fish." 72 Amadis-Beltenebros does not seem too distracted, however, and continues to have time to reflect on his woeful situation. Rather than being overwhelmed with physical activity and discipline, he becomes a poet. Every night he retreats to the wooded area of an orchard near the hermitage, "por fazer su duelo y llorar sin que el hermitafio nin los mocos lo sintiessen" (2.51: 731). Here, he composes a song in which he contemplates his lost glory and the living death he now experiences (731). The song is instrumental in his being reconciled with Oriana. Just as Oriana's initial letter is responsible for his exile, another letter from her will bring him back (it has already been written by this point but has not yet been delivered). Oriana's second letter, unlike the first, is part of her therapy, and accompanies counsel, the lack of which had exacerbated the passions that caused the first letter and the separation: que despues de le haver dado muchos consuelos, [sus servidoras y amigas] le hizieron screvir una carta con palabras muy humildes y ruegos muy ahincados, como adelante mas por estenso se dira, para Amadis. (2.49: 718)^

Whereas Amadis-Beltenebros' creativity is not practiced under the watchful eye of his friends and counsellors, it does lead to gradual reintegration with society. Soon after his composition (on another night), he hears the sound of instruments. He follows the music to a pair of damsels in the woods. When he has listened to a song, he shows himself: —Buenas donzellas, a Dios quedeis, que con vuestro muy dulce tafier me fezistes perder los maitines. (2.51: 732)+

Here, Amadis-Beltenebros conflates his self-centred weeping with the practice of Morning Prayer. Perhaps he wishes to appear holier than he is to the island's visitors, but it could also be that isolated creativity and its associated self-exploration (and self-obsession) is presented as a valid alternative to externalized ritual activity, such as fishing or prayers. As the damsels show, music has begun a process of reintegration that more austere and physical measures could not inspire. By bending of the rules of nature (the Pena is not supposed to be so accessible), the two damsels turn out to be in the company of four knights, five male servants, and one lovesick lady, who have arrived by ship, which is anchored offshore (733). During a mass said by the hermit,

* "in order to mourn and weep without the hermit or the young men knowing." t "after having consoled her, her servants and friends made her write Amadis a letter of the humblest and most supplicatory words, as will be related in greater detail later on" J "God be with you, good damsels. Your sweet playing has made me miss matins." 73 the presence of this retinue reminds Amadis-Beltenebros of his own troubles, and he begins to cry again, which causes wonder and admiration in the visitors: y las donzellas y cavalleros que assi lo veian llorar tan de coracon pensavan que era hombre de buena vida, y maravillandose de su edad y fermosura como en tal parte lo queria emplear por ningun pecado que grave fuesse, segiin en todas partes la misericordia de Dios alcacanva, aviendo los hombres verdadero arrepentimiento (2.51: 734)

The prayers that Amadis had not been practicing in private are now well and "genuinely" performed for the visitors. After the mass, information is exchanged with the damsels. The lady is Corisanda, lady to Florestan, Amadis' half-brother, and they are on their way to Lisuarte's court to find him. Amadis manages to hide his own identity, and pretends to have been an eyewitness to Florestan and Amadis' exploits. When exchanging news, Beltenebros represents Amadis as a character separate from himself. He even claims to have learnt a song written by Amadis from a damsel he met in the woods. At Corisanda's urging, Beltenebros and her damsels go and rehearse the song in the chapel for a performance, which brings great pleasure (2.51: 736- 37). Again, Amadis is managing his return from exile. This time, it is not through managed narrative of violence, but rather through artistic creativity, which has become part of a discipline once reserved for prayer. In the magical world of chivalry, it would not have been unusual for the damsels to effortlessly accompany Beltenebros in performance; however, they must rehearse. The power of the performance soon pays off, and plays a part in the narrative tension of Amadis' return. No sooner is it performed for Corisanda than she is back on her ship, across the water, and at Lisuarte's court, where she tells of her Pena Pobre experience and the mysterious young knight doing penance for some sin there. The rehearsal means that the damsels know the song intimately; it is now part of their repertoire, and through rehearsal, Beltenebros has enabled Amadis to reach the ears of Oriana, who is among the audience at this second public performance: y Oriana paro mientes en aquellas palabras, y bien vio, segun ella le avia errado, que con gran razon Amadis se quexava, y vinole muy gran queja al coracon, de

"And the damsels and knights who saw him cry thus from the heart considered him to be a good man, and they marvelled at his age and beauty that he had chosen to employ in such a place for what did not appear to be too great a sin, since God's mercy was far reaching, provided men's repentance be genuine." 74 manera que, alii no pudiendo estar, se fue a su camara con verguenza de las muchas lagrimas que a los ojos le venian. (738)

Only after Oriana flees does Mabilia begin to make the connection and suspect that Beltenebros and Amadis are one and the same, a suspicion she passes on to Oriana: sabed que, segiin lo que he sabido de Corisanda, aquel caballero doliente que se llama Beltenebros y esta en la Pena Pobre, por razon deve ser Amadis, que se partio alii de todos los del mundo, y quiso cumplir vuestro mandado en no parescer ante vos ni ante otro ninguno [...] (739)

It is through creative discipline that Amadis has been able to appear before his lady without disobeying her order that he not do so. By spending ritually intense time alone, by intense self reflection that is placed on par with a labour of transcendence (fishing), then by passing on his creation through an extension of his discipline to others (the rehearsal), Amadis has created a self separate from and representative of himself: a shadow, packaged in words and delivered to music, that makes his non presence present and able to touch the heart of his lady. And, since lady and state share their abstraction and a need for the exilic services of the knight, Amadis' shadow self is also the expression of desire for re-incorporation, which Cortes will also express in his letters, as examined in chapter 3 of this dissertation. Divine intervention in the form of a storm brings the Donzella de Denamarcha and Durin to the Pena Pobre to confirm her suspicion and to complete the process of Amadis' re-integration (2.52: 740-41). The encounter is drawn out by Beltenebros' rapidly declining health, and the shock of seeing possible deliverance causes him to faint (741). The Donzella eventually recognizes Amadis by a scar left by a battle with Arcalaus (the body remains a text also), and gives him Oriana's restorative letter (743-44). Melodramatically, the letter causes its own fainting spell, but Amadis is soon on his way back to Oriana. Before he leaves the Pena, he enlists the hermit's help in reforming/restoring (reformar) the monastery on the Insola Firme's own pena. This exile exists not (only) to engineer a dramatic return, but indicates that Amadis has undergone a change that he wishes to preserve. His time on the Pena Pobre has enriched him by providing not only a rigid ritualized structure, but also time for in-depth personal reflection, and a chance to perform himself creatively, in a disciplined fashion. In making provisions for a monastery very near his residence at the Insola, he is incorporating this discipline into his daily life, much as More constructs his own personal

* "And Oriana considered those words carefully, and could see clearly how she had wronged him, how Amadis had good reason to complain, and a groan grew in her heart so that she could not remain there, and she fled to her chambers for shame of the many tears welling in her eyes." 75 chapel in compensation for forgoing a monastic and purely studious life in favour of service. Within the new life of the citizen, there must be space for creative, ritualistic reflection; "the ideal of Utopia is discipline, not liberty" (Chambers 137). Amadis thus manages to combine the exile of romance (i.e. matrimony, the sedentary life) with an exile of penance. It will be up to the product of this union, Amadis' son Esplandian, to incorporate this exilic hybrid back into an epic of empire.

The establishment of the modern state is not merely a top-down affair, but is rather a combination of a discourse of empire with a discourse of interiority. At the same time as the nation attempts to expand beyond its borders, it must expand within them, through a reformulation of the relationship between its essential components: territory, language, and citizens. In becoming a citizen, the individual goes through a similar process of external and internal expansion. Its external expression is directed by a discourse of service, which must be complemented and counterbalanced by a practice of self-discipline. The Utopian dreams of humanists and epic poets that promote a discourse of constraint through their institutions (Church, Crown, Literary Convention) offer only one side of the equation. The pressure of the drive to epic, however, when it is applied to romance rather than asserted instead of romance, produces a discourse capable of incorporating both national and personal expansion and reflection. In "plotting against" Amadis, Montalvo is responding to the need for a more socially acceptable form of diversion without fully giving into it. Understanding the intrinsic value of literature—it provides experiences for mass consumption on an individual scale (for a readership is not only a mass, but a sum of its individual parts)—he has attempted to harness the individual, solitary reading act to a project of social reform (or counter-reform). Solitude is the "vehiculo de realization personal" that is essential to modern selfhood, for it is here that the self can imagine itself as other (ser otrd) (Ruiz Novela 17). Chivalry is politically and psychologically necessary; it reflects the conflict between the individualistic, hedonistic, courtly life and the requirements of a centralising monarchy. The moral digression, and its textual counterpart in Amadis—the retreat to Pefia Pobre to attend to a broken heart rather than the requirements of the kingdom—is a recognition of the Renaissance caballero, este tipo de hombre nuevo que se interroga con amargura y cierto patetismo sobre el valor de la vida y la muerte, la fortuna y la desgracia, el servicio a la corte y su 76 recompensa, y que no comprende por que el amor de la mujer, esa pasion que incita a vivir y cuya ausencia provoca la mas agotadora tristeza, no es simplemente eso que creia ingenuamente en un principio, una simple comedia de la carne. (Ruiz 120-21)

Whereas Montalvo saw the chivalric life as courtly distraction (he was a practical bureaucrat himself, unwilling/unable to engage in much errantry himself), it is clearly more than mere ocio-otium. Chivalric romance is a response to the anxiety of the time, expressed by Carlos V's desire to reaffirm his empire as something more than the fiefdoms he had serendipitously inherited and which were held together only by several accidents of succession (as will be discussed in the following chapter). This ambition is itself a reflection of the ambition of the noble class of which Carlos was a part (Ruiz 142-3). The book of chivalry is a mirror, valued for its role in helping the self-observer out of the labyrinth of his existence, that allows him to conceive of a unity between internal and external Utopias. The dream of unity, expressed in the obsession with the Ottoman threat (an extension of the Crusade), and the desire to control northern Italy, was at the same time expressed by Humanists like Luther and Erasmus, intent on joining Europe under a re-Christianized version of the Roman Empire. This view of empire was fighting a losing battle against regionalism, particularity, and the individuality of nations. In a struggle against the nascent nation and the break-up of empire, chivalry attempts to pave over the emerging pull of blood, language, and territory. Chivalry is a Utopia, a swan song, that "rested on the open geography of adventure" that would also find expression in the conquest of the Americas (144-45).56 Like Utopia, it is far from irrelevant fantasy, but a dialogue between the forces active in society. This dialogue resists the teleology of epic. Chivalric romance, with its never-ending digressions, always gravitates around and interacts with a centre—the court, which, in actual European society, was in the process of finding its own centre as it adopted a fixed structure and became a proto-capital. The rituals that give meaning to knighthood mirror the routine undergone by the reader, who must not only navigate the diverse adventures of the characters of a text, but who must also place these adventures in dialogue with his own life, aided in Amadis by Montalvo's omnipresent moralization. Routine is essential to the fantasy of the institutionally-contained, self-regulating being; it is only by understanding routines as routines that the individual can change himself. An essential individual, a pure atom, is unchangeable; an individual that is instead a composite of actions, a plot within a narrative structure, can be changed, can progress and regress, grow and wilt. 77 The cyclical, never-ending nature of chivalric adventure can be dissatisfying to the modern reader for its lack of progress. Of our novels, we demand characters that are real, believable, who undergo crisis and are altered because of it (just as our own crises have changed us, or at the very least serve as markers in our own personal narrative). In one sense, then, we desire teleology, a gesture of closure offered by epic; however, when romance offers this, in the form of didactic moralization, it is again disdained. When we analyze a chivalric romance, as I have done in some detail in this chapter, this disdain must be softened, for it is within chivalric romance that the beginnings of modernity are manifest: a balance between epic closure's forceful expression of definitive, unerring presence and romance's emphasis on process: erring absence in a world without end. And in a life that is a pure continuum, beginning with a birth that is a random beginning, ending with a death that is a random ending, nothing is more absurd than telling stories that do begin and end. (Frye, Secular 125) 78

Chapter 2 The Conquest of Self: Court, Countryside, Capital Punishment (Hernan Cortes' Cartas de Relation)

In my study of chivalric romance and medieval epic, I consider the self as character, narratively inscribed as an ideal of vassalage to serve the interests that enable the writing process.57 The letters of Hernan Cortes stand in stark contrast, for while they are written to appeal to the central authority, and therefore have the interests of the centre in mind, they are written by the central character and not the centre, an act that exposes the complex relationship between authoriality and auctoritas. As he rebels, Cortes asserts and requests authorization by taking on the task of relating both his own actions and the territory he traverses and claims: meticulously controlled description pretends to open up and expose itself to the authoritative gaze (i.e., give itself and the described territory over, to be directed as the imperial reader desires), and yet directs this gaze through its own eyes. Authority is split between the author and the auctoritas, exposing the complex make-up of each component. Regal auctoritas, especially in the Spanish medieval context, stems from a combination of heredity, popular election, and divine appointment (Maravall, "El pensamiento" 36-7); each element speaks to particular aspects of the regal self, and the selves of those who serve him. Heredity underlines the intrinsic right of a particular person to rule; this singular body rules by virtue of having certifiably come from two other certified bodies. Election requires that the candidate tailor himself to the expectations of various groups, and underlines the public performance, the fashioned image of the individual body as he seeks approval. The King's heredity is the epoxy of the community, whereas his election58 by that community is the catalyst that completes the bond. A discourse of divine appointment can be overlaid to transform this person into the Sovereign (from souverain, i.e. super-reign, one who reigns from above), at some cost to his self: by appropriating divine symbols, the king-cum-sovereign surrenders part of his corporeality in exchange for the ability to override (though only partially) the elective component that initially legitimized him. The sovereign is, then, a managed union of three elements: a flesh and blood individuality, a public persona, and a transcendent symbol.59 Likewise, an author is not only an individual soul-body with a particular history and a physical impact on his environment, but also, once published and "successful," a public figure 79 with transcendent extra-communal symbolic power. This chapter discusses Hernan Cortes, born in Medellin, Extremadura, a self-made vassal to Carlos V, and eventually a symbol of Spanish and even European expansion into the New World. Of principal interest is the second element: the self-articulated vassal who manages his public persona with a view to securing legitimacy and thereby the imperial seal of success on his defeat of the Mexica Empire. Cortes accomplishes this by mining his advanced understanding of regal auctoritas to its limit. In this light, the Cartas de relation are a series of performed narrative selves, bridges of discourse that expose the public/private divide of all narrative and that mark an important transition into modernity. The modern self is simultaneously public and private, and is engendered by performance in both realms according to the norms expected in each. Cortes begins to practice what the author of Lazarillo perfects (see the next chapter, page 147): narrative as a public performance of edited/revealed internal thoughts. In both cases, the need to describe and "colonize"—to self- empower as well as to dominate imperially—one's internal and/or external space calls narrative into being. The self-as-narrative must then present a face to the world that will attract whatever success possible: fame, position, riches, recognition, or even simply reprieve from the oblivion of silence.60 Cortes' negotiation of the public/private tension is discussed here in terms of three of the approaches that he uses to situate himself in relation to the king, his councillors, and even (to a more limited extent) to the general public. These situational approaches can be profitably explained as dualisms.61 The most obvious and well developed of Cortes' strategies is his use of a rhetoric of empire, which relies on concepts of subjecthood and citizenship, institutions, and a universal notion of mission. Inseparable from the intellectual throwback to classical ideas and the regimes that spawned them, this rhetoric must coexist with an appreciation of a far more recent feudal present: to ignore the realities of vassalage would be foolish, Cortes realizes, and he never ceases extending and strengthening his personal network of dependents and protectors. The second approach is mapping: the representation of space. While the connection between mapping and empire seems obvious, the exact nature of the relationship was still being worked out during the sixteenth century. As empires extended across oceans, maps were used to determine jurisdiction, extract resources, and perhaps most importantly, quickly navigate to the area in order to obtain the resources. Through his detailed descriptions of the territory he is claiming, Cortes -provides a textual map, aware that his descriptions will be integrated into the knowledge desired by the empire. Nevertheless, as much as he tries to integrate himself into a 80 universal vision, the textual map stems from a particular experience, and cannot fully meet the abstract demands of cosmography. It is, however, a testament to his originality (i.e. his self- articulated difference from Velazquez) that Cortes tries to become not only the present agent in the field, but also the "absent" overseer of the universal project the agent serves: his role extends into the future and into a global-imperial vision of the present as governor, cosmographer, and perhaps even viceroy. This tension finds concrete expression in the difference between the itinerary and the universal map. From the perspective of an empire, centrally organized around systems rather than individual experience, the itinerary map is too specific, and it cannot be put to other uses: it is designed for a particular trip by a particular route, for a particular reason. While the itinerary map can tell me how to get from A to B, it cannot tell me how to get from C to B as well as the abstract map. The tension between the particular and the general replicates a theme to be found in the other parts of this chapter: the itinerary map is to the cosmographer's world map what vassalage is to empire. Itinerary and vassalage are more concrete, personal, practical, and actual modes of perceiving space-time/politics than the more abstract, general, efficient, and future-oriented mappamundi and imperiae. Text, like self, finds itself caught between (and enabled by) contradictions. The third approach is that of surveillance and punishment. Cortes must provide an image of the territory (map), and an image of the people inhabiting it, who have been transformed into vassals or subjects (and/or into traitors or slaves) by the rhetoric of vassalage and empire. Cortes' interpretation of the Mexica as a polity is essential to his mission; indeed, Cortes' political astuteness (his ability to capitalize on divisions within the Mexica empire) is credited as the main cause of Montezuma's defeat. As he negotiates the fine and shifting line between empire and vassalage, and once military victory is assured (or, at least assumed), Cortes asserts the new order of law in a manner that once again highlights the relationship between the public and private realms. The punishments Cortes metes out are obviously corporeal for the individuals concerned, but far more significantly, they are psychological gambits aimed at policing the inner life of the new subjects. And, of course, Cortes never ceases in his efforts to demonstrate that not only his successes, but also his intentions and gubernatorial capabilities are pure and useful, if not critical, to the Spanish presence in the newly minted "New Spain." Self being the process by which an individual negotiates his position within his society, each of these "orbits of duality" (empire/vassalage, cosmos/itinerary, surveillance/punishment) provides an entry point into a discussion of Cortes' self. Taken together, the orbits convey a more complex appreciation of self, for all levels interact with, overlap, and occasionally contradict the others. The orbits and their relationship are represented by the figure below:

Figure 1 Each side of the illustration suggests that vassalage, itinerary, and punishment share an affinity with particularity and action, while empire, cosmos, and surveillance share a sense of contemplative universality; the right and left side of the triangle replicate the relationship between the vertex and base (the individual and the cm'tos/sovereign). The illustration's neatness is undermined by the movement between the individual and the king; the self is this back-and-forth movement that exploits certain aspects of the dualities according to the individual's desires and his perception of his king's and his society's expectations. Both desire and expectation are formed through a series of choices—what to reveal, what to obfuscate, what to say, and what not to say, which elements from which orbit to select, and which to ignore—the results of which are the texts analyzed here. The presence of a figure to represent an argument underscores the problems inherent in both self and an attempt to analyze self. As a process, the self is ultimately immune to the parallel process that attempts to contain it. The oversimplification of an illustration is, in this way, a mise-en-abyme of structure to which a critic must resign himself, but what he must also resist. Like self, the discussion of self is a process of becoming. Constant and unremitting is the need to re-create, recite/ritualize, and perform, something I believe Cortes understood. From the moment he began his mission, and probably long before, he was aware that he was initiating a process that would let him rest only in death. For Cortes, standing on Cuban shores and dreaming of a greater glory, it seemed worth the risk. And so, in a similar vein, with far less at stake, I attempt here to conquer Cortes, to civilize him into my own discourse. My strategy consists of a consideration of the three fronts suggested above. After an introduction of the texts themselves and a brief account of their historical context, tactics will be governed by four episodes/aspects that follow the basic strategic structure: the foundation of Veracruz in the first Carta; the execution of Qualpopoca in the second Carta; episodes of territory description from various Cartas; and, finally, the execution of Cuauhtemoc during the expedition to Honduras in the fifth Carta.

Text and Historical Background Of the five cartas de relation by Hernan Cortes as we know of them today, the survival of the initial letters was unlikely, and nothing would have survived had there not been interest in the material. Initially, the letters of a rebel were not likely to garner much attention (Martinez 858). One avid collector, likely Ferdinand I of Germany (Carlos V's younger brother), had the Vienna Codex prepared, which contains the manuscript copies most contemporary to the originals). The first letter has been lost. In modern collections and in the Vienna Codex in its place the Primera relation stands the Veracruz letter, or the Carta de Cabildo. This letter reached Valladolid in the hands of Cortes' procuradores ('proxies', 'agents') in April of 1520 (Delgado Gomez 66-67). Cortes took care of making sure that subsequent letters were preserved by making copies of all of his letters and having them sent to a friend (often his father, Martin Cortes), who then forwarded them on for publication. The second, third, and fourth cartas were published to great success (Martinez 858). The second Carta was published by Cromberger in Seville on October 8, 1522, after Cortes was named governor of New Spain (October 15, 1522) and Velazquez's allies were no longer able to stand in the way of its publication (Delgado Gomez 71). The third Carta was published in March of 1523, the fourth in October of 1525. The fifth relation is not published until 1844, after further publication of anything by Cortes was banned in 1527, at which time public burnings of the letters took place (Martinez 858). The texts, it was feared, could transform Cortes into a hero, the symbolic power of which could not be controlled by the Crown; the authorities wished to avoid "que el conquistador de la Nueva Espana se convirtiera en heroe fundador y eponimo del nuevo 'reino' gracias a la difusion de las 83 Relaciones de su conquista" (Bataillon). The ban, of course, did not affect publishers outside of Spain, and many editions circulated in translation. With the exception of the Veracruz letter, of which there are several authors, the readership of the relaciones is invariably multiple. They are not only addressed to the King, but also the executive bodies governing New World affairs (the Casa de Contratacion, and the Council of Castile). Even more important is the public to which the copies are ultimately addressed. With the intention to publish, the purpose of these letters—Cortes desire for legitimation and compensation (the focus of rhetorical studies of the texts: e.g. Carman, Fryer, and Marin)—now includes an appeal to a general reading public. The multiplicity of levels engaged by these letters is characteristic of letters generally at the time. As Gary Schneider discusses, letters not only made up for a lack of physical contact, they exploited this lack by becoming both expressions of social bonds and buffers that allowed for an expression of emotion without the consequences a face to face confrontation would produce (132). The potential danger of the letter also produced a need for privacy, and therefore a more individualized sense of self as the producer and consumer of written material: in order to safeguard the content, letters had to be read and written privately, in private spaces, and needed to be circulated in exclusive circles (68). The "affective integrity and communicative efficacy" of the letter was achieved through "imaginative sympathy," which was evoked in the reader "by inscribing rhetorical strategies and images based on speech, aurality, and physical presence" (110-11). Even as they became part of a larger, less personal discourse—political, religious, pedagogical, historical, entertainment (183)—"print letters consistently attempted to construct themselves as personal and intimate despite their systematic (re)production" (231). Even less personal genres such as history could use letters to impart a more personal, intimate tone with the readership, as in the case of Peter Martyr, whose history of the discovery "managed to keep the personal tone characteristic of personal letters and to reach—at the same time—a larger and more impersonal audience" (Mignolo Darker, 184). The letter straddles the grey area between private and public without becoming merely one or the other; a personal relationship does not cease to be personal when it becomes public, even if publication is to advance the interests of one of the parties involved in the letter.

Before Cortes left Cuba (originally named Juana, then Fernandina) on February 18, 1519, Velazquez had already received (on November 12, 1518) the license to explore Yucatan, which

* "that the conquistador of New Spain should be converted into the heroic founder and eponym of the new 'kingdom' thanks to the dissemination of the relations of his conquest." 84 was still believed to be an island. Cortes' emissaries, Hernandez Portocarrero and Montejo, had left with the Veracruz letter on July 26, 1519, and arrived in Spain in November (the journey took four months), but it took until early March, 1520 to track Carlos V down in Tordesillas, near Valladolid.63 In May, likely on the strength of their position, and, more importantly, on the instability of the new regime (which was soon to bring down Velazquez's most important ally, Fonseca, Bishop of Burgos and head of the Council of the Indies), Carlos refused to declare Cortes a rebel, and ordered the return of their ships (Martinez). When Cortes composed the Second Carta—it was signed on the 30th of October, 1520—he may have heard of the King's refusal to cede to the Fonseca-Velazquez demands, and would have been encouraged by rumours of Fonseca's falling out. If Velazquez could be shown to be endangering the Spanish presence in the region, Cortes' case would be even stronger. After the fall of Tenochtitlan in August of 1521, Cortes was wise to avoid Cristobal de Tapia, who arrived on the shores of "New Spain" in December with gubernatorial credentials, which Cortes eventually simply rejected. His gamble paid off, for at the same time Cisneros, the Regent of Castile, along with Pope Adrian VI, sided with Cortes, and sidelined Fonseca. Delays in communication with the authorities, an inconvenience for anyone dependent on their decisions, could be used effectively by those aspiring to a position of influence from the margins, such as Cortes—an example of the infamous climate of obedecer sin cumplir that reigned in the colonies, and that often frustrated attempts to enforce policy set by the Spanish administration.64 In May of 1522, just as Cortes was composing the Third Carta, a royal committee decided in his favour, and the King named him governador, capitdn general y justicia mayor de Nueva Espana in October. Considering the lag between political shifts and the decisions they eventually brought about, it is possible that Cortes had received information that such a decision was in the works before he composed the Fourth Carta, in which case the confidence of his tone would have been partly justified. Cortes received official notification of his success only in September 1523 (Elliot xxxii), having received news of its arrival in May (Martinez), and was able to assume the title in the address of the Fourth Carta, signed on October 15, 1524.

Foundation and Empire After a few skirmishes along the Yucatan coast, and after having retrieved Geronimo de Aguilar (the all-important Maya-Castilian translator) from his Mayan captors, Cortes' expedition arrives at a natural harbour. There have been suggestions as to the true nature of the mission (in 85 the mind of Cortes and those closest to him) up to this point, but here, intention bursts into action of a unique and definitive sort ... lo mejor que a todos nos parescia era que en nombre de Vuestras Reales Altezas se poblase y fundase alii un pueblo en que hobiese justicia para que en esta tierra tuviesen senorio como en sus reinos y senorios los tienen; porque siendo esta tierra poblada de espanoles, demas de acrecentar los reinos y senorios de Vuestras Majestades y sus rentas, nos podrian hacer mercedes a nosotros y a los pobladores que de mas alia veniesen adelante. (Rl, 135)

This results in the founding of La Villa Rica de la Vera Cruz (or, simply Veracruz), a place of great promise. Not only is it to be a source of wealth (villa rica), but being of the True Cross (vera cruz), it also bears a crusading resonance of which Columbus would have approved. Nevertheless, both wealth and faith are subordinated to the further significance of-the foundation of a town in a territory of which the coastline is barely known. The Council, or Cabildo, ostensibly responsible for the Veracruz letter (Rl, the First Carta) is making the definitive break with Diego Velazquez and the colonial administration in Santo Domingo. Initially (at least partially) funded by Velazquez, and certainly proceeding under the latter's authority, the expedition now wishes to declare independence. To those loyal to Velazquez (and likely highly ambivalent towards his upstart captain), it may appear that this group of conquistadors prefers to keep most of the (potential) spoils to themselves; however (and perhaps also because of this possible view), the arrival at Veracruz is framed as far more than the planting of a flag or the marking of a tree, the recital of a few words, and the exchange of trinkets for gold with ambivalent natives. Offsetting possible accusations of rapacity is a nobler and more civic- minded purpose: they wish to use their bodies to extend the dominions of their king as well as the reach of his laws and tax collectors. All they ask for in return are benefices for them, their descendents, and those who come after them. Also, for the time being, they ask for immediate, effective, and authoritative leadership. Unsurprisingly, this leadership (pending the king's approval, but also, in this thinly veiled rebellion, in spite of it) is invested in Hernan Cortes, whose first-person singular presence looms large throughout the third- and second-person plural narrative of the First Carta. Hannos ansimismo pedido el procurador y vecinos y moradores desta villa en el dicho pedimento que en su nombre supliquemos a Vuestras Majestades que

"[...] to us it appeared that the best thing would be, in the name of Your Royal Highnesses, for us to settle here and found a town where there is [rule of] law so that in this land you might enjoy dominion over this land as you have in your kingdoms and domains; for, were this land populated by Spaniards, not only would your dominions and kingdoms increase in size, but also Your Majesties' rents; and, you could grant benefices to us and to those settlers who come after us." 86 provean y manden dar su cedula y provision real para Fernando Cortes, capitan y justicia mayor de Vuestras Reales Altezas, para que el nos tenga en justicia y gobernacion hasta tanto que esta tierra este conquistada y pacifica y por el tiempo que mas a Vuestras Majestades paresciere y fuere[n] servidos [...] (Rl, 149)

The 'we' of the writing voice is writing on behalf of 'them'—the citizens (vecinosy moradores) of the town 5—to enlist the services of the T that will assume full authorship in the subsequent letters and who intrudes at certain points in this one. The community appeal to the king for a town charter is an important political and rhetorical move, and highlights the difference Cortes is constantly at pains to explain between himself and Velazquez. Indeed, the personal rivalry between the more noble and better-connected Velazquez and the relatively disenfranchised petty noble replicates the instability of Castile during the Comunero Revolution (1520-22)-—precisely the time of the Conquest. The fifteenth century had seen a significant shift in the concentration of wealth towards "a wealthier, more sophisticated urban elite" with an interest in the lands controlled by urban centres, as well as towards an increasingly robust collection of merchants, artisans and woolworkers (Haliczer 29). Powerful grandees who controlled great swaths of territory (and who had designs on territory not controlled by them) resented the encroachment on their traditional access to key posts by the increasingly influential and wealthy lesser nobility, merchant, and artisan classes who demanded a say in governance commensurate with their contribution. The monarchy, for its part, attempted to consolidate and centralize its power by exploiting both factions (Haliczer 30-65). The War of the Castilian Succession (1475-79) resulted in a shift in favour of the urban elites and minor nobility who backed Isabella. Many of the landholding grandee aristocratic families had supported Juana la Beltraneja and Alfonso V of Portugal's claim, and were subsequently punished by a temporary decline in their political influence. After the war, urban support became a power base upon which to build the authority of the Catholic Kings, Ferdinand of Aragon and Isabella of Castile (Haliczer 10, 30). As a result, urban elites became empowered, but also demanded impartial treatment in their cases against large landholders who, as land became increasingly scarce and valuable to a growing population and economy, began to infringe on common lands at the expense of towns and cities.

"In the said affidavit, the residents and inhabitants of this town have also asked the procurator that in their name we beseech Your Majesties to give your charter and royal provision to Heman Cortes, Captain and Justicia Mayor (Chief Justice) of Your Royal Highnesses, so that he might maintain us injustice and governance until such time as this land be conquered and pacified, for the [period of] time by which Your Majesties would be best served..." 87 A significant contributor to the Comunero Revolution was the monarchy's inability (or lack of commitment) to sustain the "myth of impartiality" after Isabella's death in 1504 (Haliczer 151). Resentment grew as grandees laid claim to urban controlled lands, petitions went ignored, judges sided with aristocratic interests, and the tax burden from extensive foreign engagements under both Ferdinand and Charles fell onto the shoulders of untitled merchants, labourers, and artisans. Once the royalists reasserted control of the country, the root causes of the conflict had to be dealt with: The disastrous state of the royal treasury made it imperative for Charles to reduce popular hostility to his government and to bring a broad cross-section of Castile's local elites—the officials, the middle and lesser nobility, merchants, professionals, and master artisans, all of whom voted and apportioned new taxes—to identify themselves with his policies. [...] [Charles] reaffirmed the policy of his grandparents. His government, like theirs, would base itself on the services of the lesser nobility, urban notables, and university-trained letrados. It would also rely on the political support of the city- regions. (Haliczer 208-09, 211, emphasis added)

In the wake of the Comunero Revolution, the monarchy realized that its mode of governance required significant changes if it was to reflect the changing constitution of the society it aspired to manage. It needed to inspire formerly marginalized members of its society to self-identify with the monarchy and direct their creative energies (especially their wealth- producing ones) towards the growth of the corporate/imperial/communal body. The drive for motivated, creative, and educated members of the lesser nobility and burgher classes to self-identify with a bolstered administrative and symbolic centre is thus beneficial to sovereign and subject. The Veracruz letter is keen to take full advantage. Cortes had played the patronage game with Velazquez, as had the captains of the two failed expeditions prior to his. Cortes, on the other hand, is now determined to succeed in ways far beyond the immediate mandate of the expedition. Success requires bold, determined action on an entirely different scale, beginning with a redefinition of the very term "success." Of course, the conquistadors were interested in obtaining a status and resource base more akin to that of the grandees, but Cortes' leadership qualities recognized that, on paper at least, they could not be so conservative. Rather than rely on traditional feudal models of a network of interpersonal relationships and settle for a relatively small slice of the patronage pie, the new man had to simultaneously increase the size of the pie and, subsequently, his part in it. The model of self practiced by Cortes is one that incorporates itself into a larger body, in response to a parallel need of the centre (king/state/nation) for its extremities to self-identify with it. This process of 88 self-identification also requires identification of the centre by the self in the field; the desires of the centre need to be responded to, but also shaped by the field agent. In the New World context, empire cannot be run exclusively from the centre, as all the roads leading to Rome also lead away from it. The urban gesture that is the foundation of Veracruz is, of course, an attempt to move out from under the authority of Velazquez and to advance Cortes and his supporters (i.e. it is driven by the desire of individuals for more power and resources); however, it is also a response to the needs of the centre. Paradoxically, but easily understood in our own age of advertising, these needs include articulation by the very individuals who will fill them. Cortes' self-transformation into a direct agent of empire is an attempt to trump the corrupt, ineffectual, and unstable governance of the traditional elite (which Cortes uses Velazquez to represent) with his own more practical and loyal service directly to the king. He is able to elucidate these goals by transforming his command of epistolary rhetoric (see the detailed studies by Fryer and Marin) into a broader and, to the emerging Spanish authorities, a more appealing rhetoric of empire (Carman). At first glance, 'rhetoric' and 'empire' seem to convey what we understand today as discourse and story: rhetoric is the means or logos towards the end or mythos of empire. Rhetoric is the means by which the ideologue constructs the empire, or grafts onto existing structures an ideology of empire.67 The rhetor attributes a sense of higher purpose or grandeur to a process that is, before his intervention, more mundane or commonplace. Rhetoric is a tool for the transformation of the tactical into the strategic. Nevertheless, rhetoric is far more than a skill; it is predicated upon (and/or produces) a particular stance towards not only language, but also the universe that language describes. In Motives of Eloquence, Richard Lanham describes the Early Modern English attitude towards the teaching of rhetoric to children: Let words come first as objects and sounds long before they can, for a child, take on full meaning. They are looked at before they can be looked through. From the beginning, stress behavior as performance, reading aloud, speaking with gesture, a full range of histrionic adornment. Require no original thought. Demand instead an agile marshaling of the proverbial wisdom on any issue. Categorize this wisdom into predigested units, commonplaces, topoi. Dwell on their decorous fit into situation. Develop elaborate memory schemes to keep them readily at hand. Teach, a theory of personality, a corresponding set of accepted personality types, a taxonomy of impersonation. Drill the student incessantly on correspondences between verbal style and personality type, life style. Nourish an acute sense of social situation. (2)68 89 The teaching of rhetoric is thus associated with an ability to break down one's social situation into packages of knowledge. This is only a step towards reintegrating those packages into one's own performance of one's life. Homo seriosus is platonic, a self (just as any other truth) of a concrete and fixed essence that awaits discovery by the philosopher. In contrast, homo rhetoricus is in constant flux, forever adaptable to context (Lanham 6). Homo rhetoricus "is an actor; his reality public, dramatic. His sense of identity, his self, depends on the reassurance of daily histrionic reenactment. He is thus centred in time and concrete local event" (4). Just as homo rhetoricus is performative and ever-changing, so are the truths he defends and the lies he attacks; his argument seeks not to change his opponent's mind (this is the goal of the philosopher), but rather to "cast his opponent in another play."69 Hernan Cortes is homo rhetoricus par excellence. He is repeatedly able to read his multiple situations and performs masterfully in all of them, transforming them in the process. Cortes reads the political situation of his Mexican surroundings, and shapes his military and ideological conquest accordingly; his understanding of political and cultural rivalries in the region enables him to channel them in a way that serves his needs and that in effect transforms the political landscape permanently. Also, through his letters, Cortes performs for the king at court, equally able to read a political situation leagues away; he channels the deep seated desire among the ruling elite to govern a wider empire and he exploits the divisions between the different levels of governance to suit his needs. One moment he is the representative of a town, eager to prove that he is more loyal and more useful than the self-aggrandizing magnates of the older colonial order, the next, he is the self-styled centre of a New World bureaucracy that is classically trained and dedicated to the prosperity of the kingdom. And when the situation demands it, he is not averse to asserting his personality like the hero of a conquest epic. Homo rhetoricus is the central figure of the new civilization, the modern way of being that will not rest until it has absorbed, discovered, and described everything beneath its gaze, beyond the horizon, and within the scope of its imagination. Homo rhetoricus is not only a performer in the limited sense of the public face of a production, he is the entire production: producer, director, set designer, lights, sound, and wardrobe. The theatre in which this performance takes place, the structure that contains and arranges its audience and that channels the performance towards the audience, is text. Mundus rhetoricus reveals its nature most clearly when it attempts to imprint itself on that which formerly lay outside its domain. The civilization of Early Modern Spain and Europe is textual, and shows itself and its processes when it attempts to bring the non-textual (or the differently 90 textual) into its fold. The connection between writing and civilization in a colonial context is explicit to the Early Modern Spaniard through Bernardo Jose Alderete, who says of the pre- Hispanic indigenous peoples of the Americas: "aquellas gentes carecian de toda suerte de letras, i consiguientemente de las ciencias, i estudios dellas, i de la policia, que las acompaiia, i biuian a guisa de fieras desnudos." In this re-inscription of the rhetoric of lack that served to characterize many non-European peoples, the lack of writing is the reason for all subsequent lack, most visible in, but not limited to, a lack of clothes.70 Clothing and speaking were at the same time signs in which good "policia" (civility), or the lack of it, could be identified, and they were signs whose reading allowed the construction of social identities by the perception of social differences. (Mignolo, Darker 35)

Writing is not only a category employed to differentiate cultures and selves, it is the means by which such differentiation takes place. Other modes of expression are lost in the same process. The differentiation that occurs in writing (the equivalence of lack of writing with inability to self-articulate) silences other types of self-expression simply by refusing (or being stubbornly unable) to see them. Because the differentiation (the texutalization of difference) props up conquest and colonization, this silencing is far more than merely epistemological. It is physically real: the violence of the word is (or at least becomes) the violence of the sword. Clothing, like rhetoric, is not as superficial as it appears to the essentialist, platonically- oriented mind; neither is a mere distraction from the true nature of things, or flotsam that must be penetrated before true knowledge can be obtained.71 At least for Cortes, the divide between truth and the means used to defend it was inconceivable. The "truth" according to the Cartas de relation prevails only because its form is not fixed, but rather tailored to the circumstances of each utterance. Cortes may claim to defend the truth in his letters, but he also acknowledges the rhetorical nature of that defense. (Carman Rhetorical, 51)

Even if the world view maintained by Cortes and his contemporaries is "stable" in its fundamental views on truth and falsehood,72 the notion of divine truth (or any existential truth for that matter) becomes inseparable from the process of its articulation. Truth does not simply exist; it does not wait in the darkness until the light of recognition falls on it. Truth must be

"Those people lacked any kind of letters, and consequently they lacked science and scientific study, governance, which accompanies science, and lived naked, in the manner of beasts" (Bernardo Jose Alderete, Del origen y principio de la lengua castellana o romance de elogiosoi se usa en Espaha (1606): book 1 ch 1; Cited by Mignolo Darker 343, note 11). 91 defended; it must be conquered through the direct intervention of the individual of merit. n't Truth must be made. Even the divine Word is fleshless without an active reader/re-writer. The "flesh" that is constituted by the individual's (and, through him, his community's) rhetorical engagement with the material of the world is eucharistic and essentially communal; it depends on a ritual, and becomes true through practice and repetition. The same applies to the constitution of the self and the articulation of the world, in which writing, printing, and the vernacular play a vital role. In the medieval to Early Modern context, Latin is a closed language of few current speakers; it is not the language of the everyday engagement with life, nor the language of the soul.74 As a result, "Latin ideology was inadequate to the task of constituting subjects of the state—a task requiring endless repetition, variation, and adaptation" (Haidu 72). The vernacular makes a more intimate interaction with the world possible, and printing improves the reach of this interaction still further. And since Cortes' letters are public as well as private documents (i.e. they are directed to the king, but also to a general public), a communal world- making activity of narrative is inaugurated.75 Latin only disappears in its pure form; it continues to have a presence within the vernaculars that replace it. The European vernaculars are Latin's adaptation to particular contexts; they are hybrids between the language of administration, law, and spirituality (Latin) and the language of a particular geographic, ethnic, and historical everyday. Cortes' use of the vernacular from the shores of the New World repeats this process of adaptation and extension in an ever-newer context. The "endless repetition, variation and adaptation" of which Haidu claims Latin incapable has, in fact, already been practiced by Latin: the result of Latin's variation and adaptation is the vernacular itself. Thus, Cortes' performance is as new as it is a repeat of past experience. The novelty is in the context, part of which is a changed view and practice of textuality that has been brought about by other contextual (historical, political, technological) changes in governance, printing, and transportation. The novelty of the geographic context, and its distance from the "Old World" foregrounds the processes by which Cortes operates, which naturally involve the application of old assumptions to a new situation. Because the process is more visible, assumptions are just as likely to be bolstered as they are to be challenged and undermined. More specifically, as we have seen, the founding of Veracruz not only underlines an awareness of the importance of civil life in the governance of the empire (for Spain in particular and for Europe in general), it also threatens to tip the scales in an already delicate political situation (hopefully, for Cortes, in his favour). 92 The application of an old idea to a new context is repeated at the end of the second Carta in Cortes' proposed name for the new territory he is adding to the Castilian dominion: New Spain. Por lo que he visto y comprendido cerca de la similitud que toda esta tierra tiene a Espana, ansi que en fertelidad como en la grandeza y frios que en ella hace y en otras muchas cosas que la equiparan a ella, me parescio que el mas conveniente nombre para esta dicha tierra era llamarse la Nueva Espana del Mar Oceano, y ansi en nombre de Vuestra Majestad se le puso aqueste nombre. Humillmente suplico a Vuestra Alteza lo tenga por bien y mande que se nombre asi. (R2, 308)*76

In this passage, like so many others in the Cartas, Cortes appeals to and assumes authority simultaneously. In observing the land, and in describing it, by seeing its value (economic and political), he then moves the naming. Nevertheless, the name must be authorized, which Cortes requests with rhetorical humility. Cortes is employing the same double-sided tactic as in the foundation of Veracruz: the city is an attempt to integrate himself (and the land he would govern) into the Spanish domestic political scene, and one that brings him out from the authority of Velazquez, geographically more capable of causing Cortes problems. The inconvenient application of actual authority is challenged by an appeal to nominal and symbolic authority. Note that "grandeza," which I have translated in the above citation as "great magnitude" also signifies "nobility" as a general quality as well as the group of high nobles (grandees) of Spain (Diccionario de Autoridades 1734, p. 79,1). This underlines my earlier suggestion that Cortes is attempting to undermine those who represent the grandees and who represent a threat to the centralizing thrust initiated by Ferdinand and Isabella. Whereas the grandees are slave-driving resource-grabbing opportunists, Cortes paints himself as a new man, a city man, a part of the educated elite through which Spain will become governable as a unit (i.e. as a state). "New" Spain is not, it seems, restricted to the New World; the processes of its becoming are just as ' active in the "Old Spain" of which it is an extension. Notably, the naming of "New Spain" contributes to the calling-into-being of "Spain" itself; it occurs before "Spain" was widely used to refer to the state roughly as it stands today (Thomas, Conquest xix-xx, 366). Cortes could have continued in the tradition of his predecessors, who tended to name islands after royal patrons, most recently Velazquez, who

"Due to what 1 have seen and understood regarding the similarity between the whole of this land and Spain, as much in its abundance as in its great magnitude, and in its coldness, and in many other things that she offers to provision, it seemed that the most appropriate name for said land would be the name of New Spain of the Ocean Sea, and it is thus in Your Majesty's name that it has been named. 1 humbly beseech that Your Highness be agreeable to this and command that it be called thus." 93 panderingly proposed "Carolina" for the territory of Yucatan;77 instead, Cortes broke from this feudal habit and asserted New Spain, an act which also served to rationalize the coherent no existence of its namesake. The Hispanic practice of identity formation through text predates Cortes in Alfonso X (1221-84 AD) and his Siete Partidas. The latter established a legal code that (ideologically at least) gave birth to Spain as a political entity distinct from, yet dependent on, the influence of past and present "visitors" to the peninsula: Carthaginian, Roman, and Islamic (repetition, variation and adaptation once again). In the same way that Alfonso justified his sovereignty over Spain, Cortes attempts to justify his disobedience of the orders of Diego Velazquez, Admiral Diego Colon's representative in Cuba. Cortes' cartas are a creative appeal to authorities as a means of positioning himself and affirming his interests. The multiplicity of authorities is vital: not only does Cortes go over the head of Velazquez, he also, in appealing to the general public, goes over the head of the King. Alfonso X performed a similar manoeuvre in attempting to legitimize the control he exercised over sections of Iberia. He altered the Roman ideas of universal empire (one level of authority) so that they might underpin state sovereignty, based on the homogenous peculiarity of each region (another level of authority). Roman doctrine regarding the corpus or universitas was applied to a particular society. The imperial hierarchy that insisted on itself as the centre and highest point was transformed into an idea of divisible communities: based on natural phenomena, each community/zone enjoyed its own sovereign hierarchy (Maravall, "Del regimen feudal al regimen corporativo..." 90-1). Particularity depended on an idea of homogeneity in a given territory, based on a mixture of cultural, historic, linguistic and geographic parameters. Most important was the idea of communal affection; everyone, down to the peasant, was expected to care for the countryside and for the community of which he was a part: Se trata de un amor a la tierra que se desdobla en amor al grupo o al pueblo, a su historia, a su lengua, a su ley, a su rey. Un amor comunitario que no esta basado en un conocerse personalmente [...]. Ahora se trata de un amor fundado, no en relation interindividual, sino en comiin pertenencia a un grupo que afecta cada uno de sus miembros. (Maravall, "Del regimen feudal al regimen corporativo..." 122)

[The text] speaks of a love of the land that is replicated in a love of the group or village/people, a love of its history, language, king, and law. [It is] a communal love that is not based on knowing one another personally. This love is founded, not in interpersonal relationships, but in a common belonging to a group that affects each one of its members" (my translation). 94 Out of the feudal bond, which depends on a more directly personal relationship between master and servant, comes the corporate bond: a commitment to a broad, embodied community, a "Body politic," current in the medieval/Early Modern political thought of Edmund Plowden's Commentaries (1517). the King has in him two Bodies, viz., a Body natural, and a Body politic. His Body natural (if it be considered in itself) is a Body mortal, subject to all Infirmities that come by Nature or Accident [...]. But his Body politic is a Body that cannot be seen or handled, consisting of Policy and Government, and constituted for the Direction of the People, and the Management of the public weal, and this Body is utterly void of Infancy, and old Age, and other natural Defects and Imbecilities [...] (Kantarowicz 7; cites Edmund Plowden, Commentaries or Reports, London 1816, p. 212a

It is not the physical Body natural that rules, but the Body politic, the absent presence of the King. In an expanding state, the King cannot be everywhere at once, and so must allow his absence to be felt as presence, for which he draws on the undeniable presence of the land. Since it is lived on and lived from, if the land can become a part of the royal body, power can be asserted over all who live there. This transformation is effected through the judicial text, a simultaneously descriptive and prescriptive constitution of the state; the biological and territorial bodies, each a corpus, are drawn together by the textual body of the law, corpus, which incorporates the state, a conglomerate of disparate elements that are made the same or naturalized through a discourse of normalization. Just as the "spirit of Rome" is passed on to (appropriated by) successive empires so too is the Body politic.79 The transference of this spirit that empowers its temporal vessel with authority is effected through text: the fabric {textile) that binds temporal and spiritual together through its ability to adapt to new surrounding. In the founding of Veracruz, the Body politic is extended to a foreign shore; or, the foreign shore is normalized into the Body politic. In either case, the process is textual, in both a general and a stricter sense of the word 'text'. Geographical space is marked and managed by the imposition of the town. Choices are made, walls and buildings are built, the landscape is submitted to a grid. In this respect, the Roman culture is not only a source of rhetorical practice, but also a model of landscape management in the broader context of empire. Roman urban grid plans attempted to reproduce the symmetry of the human body, and to incorporate the city and all of its citizens into the imperial body (Sennett 1994, 107-08). Essential to this incorporation is the creation of spaces conducive to observation and management by the centre. The Romans tried to improve upon the chaos of the Greek model: in the public and open Greek agora "the babble of 95 voices easily scattered words, the mass of moving bodies experiences only fragments of sustained meaning." In the Roman vision, "babbling" voices needed to be countered by the sustained, single voice of the theatre, where rhetoric (produced and controlled from behind the scenes) had the chance of directing the audience (Sennett 1994, 52). The attention to public space with a view to harmonizing individual behaviour (i.e. removing its tendency towards chaos) was an attempt to produce the citizen, part of the body of the city in which he resided. By directing individual wanderings through the arteries and veins of the city, the state was attempting to produce a captive audience that was more likely to accept and contribute to the formation and extension of the empire's vision for itself. The result necessarily contradicts competing visions of wandering and domesticity as the centre for religious and social practice, and continues in contemporary discourse on urban planning. Veracruz is the grafting of the Castilian domestic scene onto an imperial situation. By promoting it, Cortes inserts himself between two streams of political thought on governance, articulated most clearly by More and Machiavelli. The central ideal of Utopia is that it is governed by a wholly absent ruler, who invaded the island, altered the landscape, established cities and institutions to govern, and then stepped back, becoming little more than a historical presence. The network of cities in Utopia is static, and designed to function with maximal efficiency and rationality, as all other aspects of Utopian life.81 On the other hand, Machiavelli's Prince is a highly active presence in political life; the system orbits around the particularities of the ruler, existing as an extension of him. In Utopia, the ruler is titular, historically present, but actually absent, who has left his imprint (a minor primum mobile) and who allows officialdom to manage and repair minor glitches in the machine. In the Machiavellian principality, the machine is the man himself, who continually needs to manage the character of his imprint. The absent presence of authority is, for Gonzalez Echeverria a crucial element not only of Cortes' letters, but also, as a result, of the "emerging" Latin American novel, which, like a letter, is an appeal to the "absent father, whose presence is felt only through the codes, like writing, that denote his absence" (55). This writing to the absent is particularly relevant to the chivalric knight discussed in the previous chapter: the knight's training for obedience to absence is complete when, from the margins, he transforms himself into a citizen scribe by attempting to incorporate himself into the centre through his discourse. Central to Gonzalez's argument is the tension that is exposed when rhetoric meets writing. According to Gonzalez, sixteenth-century Spain saw writing as "subservient to the law" as well as "a tightly regulated activity through which the individual manifested his or her 96 belonging to a body politic" (44-45). With Cortes and other writers of relaciones, however, the "tightly regulated" medium is in the hands of a "new, civil individual, who writes on his own, subject to no myths and to no tradition" (55). To expose this oversimplification: medieval man is a classically trained schoolboy who is able to recite set pieces at will and who never strays from the rules (grammatical and otherwise) imposed on him; modern man is an independent artist, uncorrupted by his formal education, and able to impose his own radically individual personality onto the world through any medium in spite of the rules inherent in that medium. Such a crude characterization of this argument serves as a warning against Manichaeism as an end in itself, especially in the service of formulating an idea of literary-historical progress. All use of language is a balance between the application of rules and the user's adaptation of those rules to particular circumstances, which impacts on the rules, which again must be adapted, ad infinitum. The physicality of the written document evokes a kind of permanence that longs for preservation in Gonzalez's patriarchal Archive, at the expense of the performative nature of the inscribed language understood within its context. The view of language as performative allows us to see the foundation of Veracruz for what it is. Through its legalism, the founding of Veracruz denotes the symbiotic relationship between the physical and the rhetorical, the public and the private, the feudal and the imperial. The Cabildo meets, elects officials, and gives a report, a report which itself asks for textual confirmation in the form of an official seal. The "charter and royal provision" (cedulay provision) requested by the Cabildo is expressly for Cortes (cited above, page 86) to replace the instructions made irrelevant by the altered nature of the mission, as will be discussed below (p. 98). The circumstances on the ground are only partly responsible for this change; text plays an equally if not more important role both between Cortes and the natives, and in the rhetoric employed. After venturing onto land, whatever resistance is met is easily dispatched. Cortes sends letters to the chieftains offering friendship. Although it is unclear what form, written or oral, these letters had, it is likely some message was sent back with the prisoners freed after the battle. In response, two people "resembling lords" (que parescian principales) come with their regrets regarding the battle and their intention to become vassals (Rl, 131). The peace agreement leads to trade, and the realization by the Spaniards of the great material wealth of the territory (132). This is followed by another offer of vassalage from another chieftain. The letters sent in the first place go far beyond the purview of the original fact- and gold-finding mission, which the first Carta makes clear is the primary reason for the founding of the city: 97 nos parescia que no convenia al servicio de Vuestras Majestades que en tal tierra se hiciese lo que Diego Velazquez habia mandado hacer al dicho capitan Fernando Cortes, que era rescatar todo el oro que pudiese, y rescatado, volverse con todo ello a la isla Fernandina para gozar solamente dello el dicho Diego Velazquez y el dicho capitan. (134-35)

In light of the possibilities of such a rich land and inhabitants willing to be royal vassals, a mission of gold collection seems trivial. Cortes, reportedly, is convinced (without much arm twisting, to be sure) to give up his share of the gold and to lead a new expedition of settlement and conquest. The town founded, the instructions given to Cortes are requested by the Cabildo. Cortes surrenders them, and they are found to be irrelevant to the current situation. Y vistos y leidos por nosotros, bien examinados segiind lo que podimos mejor entender, hallamos a nuestro parescer que por los dichos poderes e instruciones no tenia mas poder el dicho capitan Fernando Cortes, y que por haber espirado no podia usar de justicia ni de capitan de alii adelante. (137)

Cortes' authority, stemming as it does from Velazquez, must be completely removed— another reason for the Cabildo to write the text instead of Cortes himself. He is an extension of Velaquez until he is convinced, however gently, that this mission is out of sync with their general (public) purpose: service to the Crown. The context is manipulated with phantom letters sent to illiterate people that seemed to be chieftains who appeared to have the authority to apparently offer themselves up as vassals to a foreign lord on the basis of a couple of nasty battles and kindly worded threats. As a result, the instructions, written for an almost entirely unknown situation, are deemed worthless and, indeed, contrary to Crown interests. Once everything is stripped away, it must be rebuilt. The new town requires a leader, and Cortes is the obvious choice. His qualities are listed: he zealously wishes to serve royal interests (in his role as notary, he has always kept accurate accounts), and he has a lot invested in this trip, and everything to lose by giving up his share of the treasure of the former, now discredited, mission (137-38). The legitimacy of this rebuilt expedition is backed up with all of the valuables and information collected to date being sent to the Crown, above and beyond the mandated royal fifth (138). The end of the first Carta is effectively an itemized list of goods and a geographic description promising far greater wealth, clearly intended to buy the good graces of the ultimate authorities (138-58). Hands are to be kissed, and favours humbly requested. For the moment, however, the most important is the charter and royal provision: the seal of approval on Cortes' authority and his new place, and that of his followers, in the imperial body-text. Cortes never tires of underlining the obviousness of this appointment. Unwilling to rest merely on his own positive traits, he must outline the negative qualities of his opponents. 98 Velazquez, perhaps somewhat restrained by his subordination to Diego Colon and the Friars of Santo Domingo, had proven himself incapable of a feat of the magnitude and decisiveness of Cortes'. The previous expeditions of Hernandez de Cordoba and Grijalba that had been authorized and only partly financed by Velazquez had proven of limited worth. Hernandez lost many men, as well as his own life, and Grijalba failed to get all but a few pieces of gold. Velazquez himself regretted his decision to give the prudent and youthful Grijalba the command, which reveals some substance to Cortes criticism of Velazquez himself as incompetent. From the perspective of the more entrepreneurial Cortes, who was representative of those who had come to the New World to gain status and wealth their fathers and grandfathers looked for during the Reconquista, Velazquez may have seemed unwilling to lead his own expeditions (perhaps he was too old, or felt that, after helping to subdue Hispanola and Cuba, he had paid his dues). Velazquez was unwilling to give competent men such responsibility, for fear they might not submit to his authority: a justifiable fear, as it turns out. Perhaps Velazquez himself felt constrained by authority, and lack of Finances; the expeditions of exploration, so limited in their goals and achievements, were "holding operations," designed to prevent Diego Colon or another from "stealing the opportunity" of an "armada of conquest" Velazquez eventually planned to lead himself, once he received authorization (Thomas 116). The concern over control of his men was a reflection of his own anxiety of self-control; perhaps, barely able to contain himself, Velazquez justly feared the effectiveness of self-control among those who served him. Such fears nearly led to Cortes being removed from command, which may have occurred if Cortes, helped by some inside information (resentment against Velazquez was evidently relatively widespread), had not outwitted his mentor by leaving Cuba before the indecisive Velazquez could act. Grijalba's expedition may be even more indicative of a Velazquez shortcoming; for following stringent direction (he was likely appointed for his obedient character), Grijalba was unable to act decisively, for which Velazquez, his uncle, is said to have called him a "booby" (bobo) (Thomas 115). A testament to Velazquez's obsessive control, of the thirty items in the instructions given to Cortes, fifteen focus on issues of control, thirteen of these on control of the Spanish crew under Cortes' command. There are provisions against blasphemy, gaming, and sexual relations, and Velazquez recommends a thorough control of the ships' inventory and three locks on the chest where any gold is to be kept. There is only one mention of the untrustworthiness of Natives (Velazquez "Instrucciones..."). 2 As we shall see, Cortes used the difficulty of managing his men to strengthen his position as essential to the enterprise (see page 99 106). In contrast, Velazquez reveals an obsession that is essentially an admission of weakness. Made up mainly of poor cousins of noble Spanish houses, conquistadors were no doubt an unruly bunch that required a strong, even a ruthless leadership style. Velazquez, an astute political figure (he was, after all, able to secure licenses to explore through his powerful contacts at court), was not noted for being a military leader. Both Cuba and Hispanola had been easily conquered, and even more easily ruined. Leaders in the fight for indigenous rights were not the only ones to have noticed this; the Caribbean-wide search for slaves was a tacit admission by encomenderos, once conquistadors, that "their" Indians could not withstand the harsh labour conditions imposed on them. That Velazquez limited his initial expeditions to the search for slaves and gold irked not only the adventurous and acquisitive-minded among the Spaniards he governed, but his inability or unwillingness to improve the lands under his control and the apparent intention to simply extend the same administrative methods to other territories would not have been admired at the imperial centre. Cortes, by standing out as an alternative to Velazquez, with a more comprehensive and forward-looking strategy for the management of future colonies and trade relations, sealed his mentor's fate. Cortes' instructions to hisprocuradores ('proxies' or 'advocates,' Francisco de Montejo y Alonso Hernandez Portocarrero, who carried the Veracruz Letter to Carlos V) stand out, not only as a concise summary of his colonial ambitions, but also of his understanding of what he imagined Carlos' ambitions to be, and an acknowledgement of the necessity of presenting such a strategy well. As with the Veracruz Letter itself, the instructions are signed by members of the Cabildo, or Town Council, of the newly founded Veracruz, but clearly with Cortes' involvement. These instructions provide the, procuradores with discussion points and various requests to make of the King. As in the Veracruz Letter, there are comparisons between Velazquez and Cortes (Davila, items 1-2), as well as practical demands that highlight the differences between how the islands had been ruined, and how, if they are to have their way, the mainland will prosper. The islands suffered from being divided into competing fiefdoms with no comprehensive development or governing strategy (item 5). In order to secure the integrity of the new colony, they ask for a coat of arms, seal, and standard (item 6), for the administrative positions of the colony to be filled from the ranks of the conquistadors (item 7), for permission and equipment to build and operate a foundry, to work the silver and gold on site before sending it, and for license to import slaves (items 9, 10, 12, 13). Proper compensation for the conquistadors is also requested, in the form of encomienda rights, assurances that their Cuban possession will not be expropriated, and permanent mercedes where appropriate (items 4, 5, 7, 18). Nothing ought to 100 go to Velazquez, who has not funded the expedition and was only after gold, and who should, in any case be investigated (items 2, 3, 15, 22). Future exploration is intended, and relaciones promised (item 13), as well as further conquest, to subdue and enslave the enemies of Catholicism "como se acostumbra hacer en tierra de infieles, pues es cosa muy justa" (item 20). To this effect, a Papal Bull is also requested to exculpate all participants in the conquest should they die, as a means of encouraging them to take risks (item 16). It may be unfair to compare Velazquez's instructions to Cortes with the Cabildo's instructions to the procuradores. After all, the latter were in a briefing document for those about to have a royal audience, and were therefore indirectly addressed to the King and Council, whereas the Velazquez instructions were really only meant for the eyes of Cortes. Notwithstanding this objection, the comparison allows us to illustrate Cortes' astuteness in formulating his goals along the lines of a vision of empire, and in generating a consensus among his men (or an appearance of such a consensus) that added to the likelihood, in the eyes of Spanish authorities, of these goals being brought to fruition. Cortes was engaged in a struggle against Velazquez, and their mutual antagonism no doubt played some role in the tone of their accounts, but Cortes was more careful to reveal that his goals were not essentially personal. Whereas Velazquez was searching for a way to unseat Diego Colon as his superior and consolidate his own political and territorial gains (much of his effort was dedicated to obtaining the title of adelantado?3 of Yucatan), Cortes' goals were imperial, or, at least he was able to wrap his goals in an imperial veneer. Thus, whereas Velazquez was pursuing a land grant that would enable him to become a more powerful member of the aristocracy, Cortes was attempting to become a direct agent of imperial authority. The difference underlines the tension within Spanish politics of the day, as discussed in terms of the Comuneros and the tension between urban elites and landed gentry. The instructions to the procuradores also provide an efficient way of discussing the content of the third person Carta del Cabildo, the base of legitimacy of which would be expanded upon in the subsequent first person accounts: In these, Cortes proceeds to distinguish himself from his base of support as an essential factor in the imperial strategy he had helped his followers articulate. In the Second Carta and beyond, he continues to emphasize his interest (which he assumes is Spain and Carlos' interest) in the strategic exploitation of mines and

"as is customary when fighting against the infidel, this [subjugation and enslavement] is most just." 101 agricultural trade resources; accounts of battles and discussions are interspersed with detailed resource reports. In his struggle to become governor, Cortes had to do more than simply outline an appealing imperial strategy within a legalistic framework. He also needed to connect with Carlos as a vassal, and for this, to re-create a Court, through writing in which to forge such a connection. This task was no doubt made easier by the nature of the indigenous societies on the mainland, which, with their infrastructure and economic and social "complexity," resembled European society in ways the Caribbean societies could not. Most notably, there was an entrenched nobility, an accompanying sophisticated code of behaviour, which, if mastered and effectively manipulated through text, could be moulded into a virtual court where Cortes could prove his worthiness, not only as a colonial manager, but as an effective royal representative and member of the established nobility himself. Thus far, Thave evoked an image of a rhetorically trained Cortes, adapting his knowledge of the structures of the Old World to a New World. We might choose to see Cortes as a Humanist in action, physically transposing the glory of Rome and Greece onto the Mexica heartland in the same way as a Renaissance scholar might have translated the classics into the vernacular and applied them to the rapidly changing social situation surrounding him. I wish to forestall any assumption that this represents a definitive shift towards a modern civil individual from a feudal one. Indeed, there are elements of modernity in Cortes' actions and the representation of those action by him and others, but only insofar as we understand modernity to be a re-jigging of elements already available to one's predecessors. Modernity, in this sense, is the application of different but contiguous technologies to different but historically contiguous contexts. Technology may become more "refined" in the hands (and minds) of its contemporary users, and contexts may be more rigorously documented as a result, but the basic process of humans projecting themselves onto their surroundings changes only in hue. Anthony Pagden chooses to see continuity between feudalism and the transposition of empire: Hernan Cortes, true to the aspirations of the world in which he had been reared, saw himself as the feudal vassal of a medieval monarch and the instrument, as he never tired of repeating, of a God-directed enterprise. [...] "New Spain" was to be no mere province, much less a colony. It was to be a kingdom within the world empire of Charles V. [...] New Spain was to be a Germany overseas, with the emperor as its sovereign lord and Hernan Cortes as its governor and de facto ruler. The whole history of the conquest of Mexico was conceived as a translatio imperii from the old world to the new. (Pagden "Identity" 52) 102 "Empire," however, is the antithesis of "feudal." Feudalism is a system where land is held, under contract, in exchange for a promise of military service. Feudal elites live by tribute and military service, and they are "attached to the land" (Pagden 58). The relationships between the land-granting authority (the king or prince) and the military elite (nobility) are interpersonal, based on a complex package of gifts, threats, and promises. An empire is centrally administered, imposes taxes, and controls its own military; as a result, its power is more coercive, institutional, and impersonal. In order to control a great expanse of territory, an empire must become less interpersonal. Granted, as with any definition, neither exists in a pure form, yet we can safely assert that when the balance between the interpersonal and the administrative tips one way or the other, we have either a feudal or an imperial system. In Pagden's article cited here, the focus is primarily on the exploitation of the "contract" established between the conquistadors and the Crown by the descendents of the conquistadors. The feudal element within the Cartas is undeniable (for Pagden they are a prime example of such language), but this is not the only element at play. During the conquest, before its success, it was necessary to cover all the angles. The vassalage contract was a means to an end: obtaining a governorship. A governorship is entirely different from a fiefdom, as the descendents of the conquistadors found to their frustration. Also, central to Cortes' argument is the failure of the encomienda system as practiced on the Caribbean islands, and as represented by Velazquez; where feudalism has failed, governorship and empire will triumph. In this way, for an ironic moment, Cortes is in agreement with Las Casas, Defender of the Indians. The mobilization against the encomienda system had begun as early as 1516, and such an astute politician as Cortes could not resist adding this argument to his own arsenal. He did this within limits, of course, for he no doubt wished to supplant Velazquez within the system rather than reform the entire system. Cortes is a product of his environment; however, unless his environment can be shown to be decidedly feudal, then neither was he. Cortes' success depended partly on his ability to subdue the Mexica, and partly on his ability to articulate himself into the good graces of the central authority; however, without the changing nature of this central authority, his military and literary successes would not have translated well. Indeed, because of the changing political and administrative climate, Cortes was unable to lay claim to any kind of feudal rights long after the conquest. The change in colonial administration, which also displaced those loyal to Velazquez, is completed by the displacement of the Casa de Contratacion in Seville and the Council of Castile 103 in favour of a new authority, the Consejo Real y Supremo de las Indias, in 1524. In opposition to the fixation of Velazquez on the collection of gold and slaves (which corresponds to the the model of Caribbean colonization driven by the merchants of Seville and the Casa de Contratacion), Cortes asserts his goals into a larger project: the Spanish Empire, the impending success of which must have been very appealing in the wake of losses being sustained in Flanders. Cortes' direct appeal to the imperial centre plays into the centralizing vision with respect to New World administration in the wake of the transition from Isabella (d. 1508) to Charles. Already in 1508, the Casa de Contratacion was becoming a de facto executive council: those in charge oversaw all transactions and consulted the Court on policy. This centralizing drive was completed in 1524, with the foundation of the Consejo de las Indias, a move which also saw the removal of Fonseca, Velazquez's most powerful ally, who had run the Casa de Contratacion with a view mainly to collecting wealth rather than the administration of an overseas empire. This was often with Feraando's blessing, whose attention was reserved for Italy and North Africa (Schafer 43-50). From 1516, with the declaration of indigenous rights, the Crown was also declaring interest in its overseas territories as more than a source of wealth; the New World required administration, and therefore administrators rather than pillagers, slave drivers, and merchants.84 By Cortes' founding of Veracruz, a vital component of this empire is underlined: it is based on a network of cities and civil individuals that, in contrast to the chaos of the Italian city-state system, is unified by a common ideology, a common history, and a common imperial centre.

Justice, Governance, and Qualpopoca The Early Modern version of empire (and of knowledge generally) bases itself upon the static heroism of the Roman and Greek models. The models, of course, cannot simply be transposed to a new time; they must be shaped, practiced, applied, and managed to suit a variety of new challenges. The agent responsible for this model-management is, at least for Jacob Burckhardt, unique to the Reniassance (and more particularly to Renaissance Italy): the individual. This radiant figure seems almost single-handedly responsible for pulling Europe out of the dark wasteland between the fall of one set of empires, and the rise of another. In The Civilization of the Renaissance in Italy, Burckhardt goes even further, displaying contempt for any period and every territory lying outside the purview of his study. From the chaos of the Italian political climate, where competing bands express their illegitimacy through constant recourse to violence, emerges the remarkable, poetic, and tragic figure: the individual, who is 104 first admired for "emancipating" himself from illegitimate regimes (233),85 but who then falls under the excess of his character and the resulting strength of his egoistic conviction: The individual first inwardly casts off the authority of a state which, as a fact, is in most cases tyrannical and illegitimate, and what he thinks and does is, rightly or wrongly, now called treason. The sight of victorious egotism in others drives him to defend his own right by his own arm. And, while thinking to restore his inward equilibrium, he falls, through the vengeance which he executes, into the hands of the powers of darkness. His love, too, turns mostly for satisfaction to another individuality equally developed, namely, to his neighbour's wife. In face of all objective facts, of laws and restraints of whatever kind, he retains the feeling of his own sovereignty, and in each single instance forms his decision independently, according as honour or interest, passion or calculation, revenge or renunciation, gain the upper hand in his own mind. (237-8)

Individuality is the resistance to and contravention of social and political norms; emancipation from state power deemed "illegitimate" spills over into the contravention of sexual norms. In an individual-centred world, adultery is the result of the same drive to fulfillment (and self-destruction) as treason. For Burckhardt, the splendour of the Renaissance is the product of the tension between tyrannical corruption and individual assertiveness; Burckhardt regrets that a highly centralized and controlled society of meek, law-abiding monogamists cannot duplicate this splendour. Burckhardt's assessment is as entertaining as it is poetic, and overlooks the more mundane drives that constitute an individual's action in the world. The tension between state and individual is one of legitimacy as well as liberty. The state is not only a monolith that unthinkingly quashes individual expression; nor is the individual a petulant child constantly pushing at the boundaries. The state attempts to manage its citizens through law and surveillance, but not to stifle the essential creativity that ensures its survival. Likewise, the individual is only able to come to "splendour" within a certain structure that both encourages him and sets basic limits upon him. This is the perennial tension of which educators, parents, politicians, and business leaders have always been aware: how to instruct and still allow active learning and exploration; how to provide security and stimulation; how to govern without tyrannizing; how to guide without micromanaging. Burckhardt's vision of the state is one whose representatives are in what Guido Ruggiero calls "the logical extremes of a moralizing vision" that do not reflect the far less polarized reality of actual experience (3).86 These moralizing visions tend to exaggerate the relationship of state-individual into one of conflict, whereas their interests are rarely, if ever, so divergent. 105 Rather than fighting one another over psychic territory (i.e. over where to draw the line between self and state), both state and individual strive for incorporation, by which they hope to channel the other's qualities in a particular direction. Seen in this way, even the state/individual distinction becomes purely academic, for the state is a collection of individuals, and individuals agents of and participants in the state. Of course, hierarchy plays a vital organizational role in this symbiosis (even democracy, for all its egalitarian pretensions, cannot free itself from hierarchy). For reasons of rhetorical clarity, one might at times choose to see the state channelling individual creativity, character and violence to its own ends; at other times, the individual can be seen as manipulating the state's regulatory framework and resources to his own ends. Nevertheless, both entities are shaped in relation to the other; both are brought into being, incorporated, through an endless cycle of performances. Court is one type of stage where the performative nature of this incorporation plays itself out. We can see versions of court as far back as we choose to look. The fortunes of war favoured Hrothgar. / Friends and kinsmen flocked to his ranks, / young followers, a force that grew / to be a mighty army. So his mind turned / to hall-building: he handed down orders / for men to work on a great mead-hall / meant to be a wonder of the world forever; / it would be a throne- room and there he would dispense / his God-given goods to young and old /... / ... And soon it stood there, / finished and ready, in full view, / the hall of halls. Heorot was the name / he had settled on it, whose utterance was law. {Beowulf 11.64-79)

In a manner comparable to Cortes' evocation of Veracruz on the shore of a natural harbour, the Great Hall is spoken into existence by the head, the lawgiver of the group, whose power stems from the army that surrounds him and from the fortune-gotten goods he distributes in exchange for service and commitment to service. The hall is also a mead hall, where men meet not only to receive rewards and witness others receiving rewards, but also to tell and listen to stories and songs that bind the group together by lauding their exploits and by emphasizing their lineages. The goods, it must be noted here, are "God-given," to be redistributed, in the name of one lawgiver by his earthly representative; the rampaging Grendel is a stark reminder of the dangers of placing too much importance on the material and earthly. In essence, the Great Hall, and all edifice-institutions like it, exist as a means of incorporating individuals into a collective; individuals submit to a hierarchy on condition that it be constructed to recompense them for individual acts of heroism and service. The warrior understands that the rituals of storytelling and the distribution of rewards, both of which bring honour, prestige, and a measure of power (within the limits of the hierarchy), are only possible in a collective, the laws of which must be obeyed if one is to remain part of the body-story. The collective's head understands that there is a contract: the warrior lends his physical power to the uses of the collective provided his worth is fairly and publicly valued. Violence is thereby contained, or managed, by the court, the physical and psychological centre of the organised community, and the first step towards civilisation (in the sense that the latter is an incorporation through edifice—actual city- building—on a larger scale). Unlike the authors of epics such as Beowulf, Cortes does not have the luxury of assuming that bonds of vassalage and kingship, contracts of treasure and honour-filled tales for military assistance will be as easily won as they seem to be for Hrothgar. Unlike Hrothgar, Cortes cannot call an actual building into being within a few lines; although to a certain extent he does summon Veracruz from nothingness, the latter is a first step rather than the culmination of a campaign. Also, Cortes cannot take for granted that the fortunes of war will produce fortunes in both treasure and allegiance. Treasure he must hope to find (and get others to invest their own hope for treasure in him); allegiance he must forge. Soon after the arrival of Cortes and his party in Tenochtitlan, Montezuma makes his first speech of vassalage, which portrays the Spanish arrival as providential from the Aztec point of view, and which leads Montezuma to declare himself a vassal of Emperor Carlos, his "natural lord."87 Cortes, already having written about Qualpopoca, then raises the issue with Montezuma. Qualpopoca, a cacique of Nauhtla (briefly named Almeria, north of Veracruz), had made a similar offer of vassalage by messenger to the lieutenant in charge of the fort of Veracruz. When the Spanish delegation arrived to formalize the relationship, two Spaniards were killed. After attacking Nauhtla, at the cost of more Spanish lives, the Spaniards interrogated the natives, who reported that it was under Montezuma's orders that the "treachery" took place. Since the account of the Qualpopoca affair appears before Montezuma's declaration of vassalage, and since Cortes clearly knew about it before hearing the declaration, the information has been purposefully delayed. By arranging his account just so, Cortes attempts to destabilize Montezuma's declaration without delegitimizing it entirely; its authenticity is too important to the case for treachery that will enable just war doctrine (a license for atrocity) in the re-taking of Tenochtitlan (the Second carta is written after the Spanish were ejected from the city during La Noche Triste, and prior to their triumphant return, the substance of the Third carta). Citing the inconsistencies between Qualpopoca and Montezuma's versions of events, and after admitting to the unpredictability of his men (he calls them "insufferable and troublesome," incomportables y importunes), Cortes decides to imprison Montezuma for security purposes.89 The conqueror's solutions to his management difficulties suggest that the natural lordship of the Spanish king over his subjects does not translate into a natural lordship of Spaniards in general over Indians in general, in spite of Montezuma's Aristotelian admission of "natural" vassalage so important to those, such as Sepufveda and Juan Lopez de Palacios Rubios (the composer of the Requerimiento), who advocated in favour of conquistadors' encomienda rights. What is most important is the quality of leadership, the legitimacy for which comes from the sovereign, and the practice of which stems from the man in the field, Cortes and only Cortes. The absence of natural lordship on the basis of barbarism90 is an important element of these early colonial texts. Natural lordships, and its corollary, natural slavery, were part of later justifications of colonialism, the most explicit beginnings of which arise during the Sepulveda- Las Casas debate of 1552 (see Las Casas, "Aqui se contiene una disputa o controversia"). The idea that goodness stems from leadership and is not natural to any people is reiterated by Walter Ralegh, who is intent on controlling the behaviour of his men so as to promote the image of a gracious Queen and English Nation, and of course the image of himself as just the man to serve (and be rewarded by) such a Queen and Country: 165 " I suffred not anie man to take from anie of the nations so much as a Pina, or a Potato roote, without giving them contentment, nor any man so much as to offer to touch any of their wives or daughters: which course, so contrarie to the Spaniards (who tyrannize over them in all things) drew them to admire hir Majestie, whose commandment I told them it was, and also wonderfully to honour our nation. (Ralegh 165)

The centrality of the field commander, combined with the courtly scene of imprisonment, highlight the need of the courtier/general to be a virtuous, self-contained, and self-reliant individual. When he is to carry out his plan to imprison Montezuma, Cortes leaves guards in the streets, just one indication of the insecurity of the Spanish position, in spite of declared friendship. Once "at court," Cortes, like a true courtier, engages in pleasantries: there is a gift exchange, including the giving of high-ranking daughters as brides. At first mention, Qualpopoca is painted as Montezuma's loyal subject who by his actions has undermined the sincerity of Montezuma's declaration of vassalage (218). Montezuma's response is to order Qualpopoca before him. Cortes thanks him, and then "invites" Montezuma to remain with him in his quarters until the truth can be known more definitively. le dije al dicho Muteecuma que yo le agradescia la deligencia que ponia en la presion de aquellos, porque yo habia de dar cuenta a Vuestra Alteza de aquellos espanoles y que restaba para yo dalla que el estuviese en mi posada fasta tanto 108 que la verdad mas se aclarase y se supiese el ser sin culpa, y que le rogaba mucho que no recibiese pena dello porque el no habia de estar como preso sino en toda su libertad, y que en su servicio ni en el mando de su senorio yo no le pornia ningiind impedimiento; y que escogiese un cuarto de aquel aposento donde yo estaba cual el quisiese y que alii estaria muy a su placer, y que fuese cierto que ningiind enojo ni pena se le habia de dar, antes, demas de su servicio, los de mi compania le servirian en todo lo que el mandase. Y cerca desto pasamos muchas platicas y razones que serian largas para las escribir y aun para dar cuenta dellas a Vuestra Alteza algo prolijas y tambien no sustanciales para el caso, y por tanto no dire mas de que finalmente el dijo que le placia de se ir conmigo y mando luego ir a adreszar el aposentamiento donde el quiso estar, el cual fue muy presto y muy bien adreszad. (216)

Cortes is highly delicate in reporting these events, aware of the impropriety of imprisoning a noble servant of the King who is clearly his superior. Above, Cortes delicately represents himself as sensitive to Montezuma's feelings to lessen the shock at his impertinence. He has, after all, gone from pleasantries (during which he receives gifts that do honour to him), to raising the problem of Qualpopoca (for which he receives a cooperative response), to suddenly imprisoning the prince who has, on the surface, proven to be the loyal servant he claims to be. However, Montezuma's response is not Cortes' greatest concern. His illegitimacy threatens to bring down a disdainful response, and potentially a prison term for himself, from the court he is trying to impress. As in Castiglione's Courtier, the court is a place for pleasantries and entertainment, which are simultaneously distractions from and reflections of the practice of power- manipulation. Hunting is preparation for war: it keeps the sword arm limber, ensures the knight- courtier's knowledge of the terrain, and is a symbol of his social position. We are not often privy to the skinning and dressing of the unfortunate prey. Likewise, beyond the pleasantries of Cortes' court, there is "much conversation and reasoning"— muchas platicas y razones—that cannot be fully reported for their unseemliness; they can only be represented, mentioned. Not only would the explanation be long and "insignificant to the case [in hand]," but it would also

[I told the said Montezuma that I thanked him for his diligence in imprisoning them [Qualpopoca and co.], [however] because 1 had to give an accounting to Your Highness of those [dead] Spaniards and in order to do this it was necessary for him to remain in my quarters until the truth were made clearer and until that time when it could be known that he were without guilt/responsibility, and I begged him not to take offence because he would not be a prisoner but rather at liberty, and that neither in his service nor in the commandment of his realm would I place any impediment; and that he should choose a room from those quarters where 1 was staying, whichever he wanted, and that there I would be at his pleasure, and that he be sure that he should not trouble himself in any way, but instead, that in addition to his own servants,* those of my company would serve him according to his wishes. And on this topic we had much conversation and reasoning that would be too long to write down here (even to give an account of them to Your Highness would be tedious [since] they are not substantial to the case at hand); and on this I will say nothing more except that he finally said that it pleased him to go with me and he gave orders to prepare quarters where he wished to be, which was done quickly and well.] 109 undo the courtly illusion. Cortes is aware of the contradiction between this "invitation" to stay with him and the assertion that Montezuma would be "at full liberty" with all his servants and comforts and all the possibility to govern without impediment, and it would be naive to assume his reader is any less aware. With their deliberate ambiguity, the muchas pldticas obscure and declare the power, the ungentlemanly gore, behind the words. Cortes is a master at exploiting such contradiction. Important to his letter is a double unpredictability that emphasizes his assumed central role that he hopes to have legitimized. Were the declarations of vassalage watertight, he would succeed his way to irrelevance, being less vital to the success of the imposition of Spanish dominion. The need to compensate for the lack of discipline among his troops emphasizes this need again: without his presence, the expedition would fail, and no other man is at this place at this time, no other man could infiltrate himself as he has done; however, while Qualpopoca's insubordination undermines Montezuma's authority and raises suspicion about the latter's fidelity, the insubordination of his own men has the opposite effect for Cortes. Only his presence holds the enterprise together, raising the question of narrative control. Writing after La Noche Triste, he claims the latter was caused by his absence, when he has to go and deal with the intrusion into "his" territory by Narvaez, a Velazquez crony: "la .tierra se levantaba a causa del dicho Narvaez..." (256). The playwright has cast himself not only as the hero, but also as the deus ex machina who will solve the problems caused by the characters in the hero's favour. The high level of control exerted by the narrator (Cortes) over the plot (the story of willing and happy vassalage of the Mexica) threatens to bring down the entire structure. This is underlined by the report of another conversation, mas pldticas, between Cortes and Montezuma. algunas veces y muchas le acometi con su libertad rogandole que se fuese a su casa. Y me dijo todas las veces que gelo decia que el estaba bien alii y que no queria irse porque alii no le faltaba cosa de lo que el queria, como si en su casa estuviese, y que podria ser que yendose y habiendo lugar, que los senores de la tierra, sus vasallos, le importunasen o le induciesen a que hieiese alguna cosa contra su voluntad que fuese fuera del servicio de Vuestra Alteza; y que el tenia propuesto de servir a Vuestra Majestad en todo lo a el posible, y que hasta tanto que los tuviese informados de lo que queria hacer que el estaba bien alii, porque aunque alguna cosa le quisiesen decir, que con respondelles que no estaba en su libertad se podria escusar y exemir dellos. Y muchas veces me pidio lic-encia para se ir a holgar y pasar tiempo a ciertas casas de placer que el tenia asi fuera de la cibdad como dentro, y ninguna vez se la negue. Y fue muchas veces a holgar con cinco o seis espanoles a una o dos leguas fuera de la cibdad y volvia siempre muy alegre y contento al aposento donde yo le tenia. Y siempre que salia hacia

"The land (i.e. the people) was rising up because of the said Narvaez." 110 muchas mercedes de joyas y ropa asi a los espanoles que con el iban como a sus naturales, de los cuales iba siempre tan acompanado que cuando menos con el iban pasaban de tres mill hombres que los mas dellos eran senores y personas prencipales, y siempre les hacia muchos banquetes y fiestas que los que con el iban tenian bien que contar. (218)

In this passage, Cortes overlays the necessary brutality of his justice with a soothing courtly veneer of banquets and lavish gifts (among the recipients of which Cortes is careful not to include himself). In counterpoint to the aggressive and theatrical—placing Montezuma in irons—Cortes begs him to be at liberty. Instead, Montezuma meekly accepts his lot, at least in Cortes' account.91 This produces another problem for Cortes. Vital to Cortes is the appreciation by the Court of all that Narvaez and Velazquez imperil by hovering at the margins of his accomplishment; they are blamed for La Noche Triste almost as much as the "treachery" of the natives. If Montezuma is not seen to be exercising his sovereignty over the Mexica, the sovereignty of Carlos-Cortes over him is meaningless; the substance of the vassalage Cortes has fought so hard to obtain is in doubt. Montezuma's meekness, his tears, and his general silence threaten to bring down Cortes' house of cards. Whereas Montezuma is supposedly willing to accept the rule of Carlos via Cortes, he is not prepared to rule for them. As if turning Cortes' carefully constructed double unpredictability against him, Montezuma uses imprisonment to avoid misbehaving unwittingly; he is afraid, he says, of being just as incomportable y importuno (or of being influenced by this in his own advisers) as Cortes' men. Thus, he relinquishes his role as a player to become a pawn, paradoxically re-empowering himself through self-sacrifice. In allowing his removal from actual rule, he effectively prepares for the "rebellion" that will result in La Noche Triste. Montezuma's indecisiveness and meekness, transformed into a selfless nobility, can thus be placed alongside the selfish short-sightedness of Velazquez and company; both are threats to

".. .sometimes, many times, I proffered his liberty, begging him to go home. And he said to me every time that I did so that he was well there [in my quarters] and did not want to go because he wanted for nothing, [and he felt] as if he were at home there, and that it was possible that once he left and given the opportunity, some lords of the land, his vassals, would trouble him or induce him to do something against his will that was not in the service of Your Highness; and that he was committed to serve Your Majesty to the utmost extent, and that once they [his vassals] were informed of what he wanted to do and that he was well there, because although they might say something to him, that he could say that he was not at liberty and thereby excuse himself from them [and their request]. And many times he asked permission to go and rest and spend some time at certain retreats that he had outside the city as well as in it, and never did I refuse him. And many times he went with five or six Spaniards one or two leagues outside the city and he always came back, happy and content, to the lodgings where 1 had him. And every time he went out he granted many gifts of jewels and clothing to the Spaniards accompanying him as well as to his own people, of which he always went so accompanied that there were at least three thousand, most of whom were lords and noteworthy persons, and he always threw many banquets and parties that those who went with him always had a good story to tell." Ill the continued existence of imperial rule. Likewise, the assertive and necessary presence of Cortes—his placing of himself as the hero of his own discourse—is not sufficient to maintain empire. The self of the citizen-scribe is political and public; it exists to show the Natives the ordering principle that the foreign sovereign represents, and to show the sovereign that the agent is a worthy, dependable, and ideal representative. Military capability is still important, but the agent must also be a manager. In response to Montezuma's threatening silence, Cortes props up the virtual court with a scene from the actual, indigenous court; as if to overwrite the menacing irrelevance of the Mexica emperor, he gives Montezuma something court-like to do, evoking an image of a court whose main function is lavish parties and gift-giving. This serves to criticize the actual court as good only for the irrelevant pleasure-seeking elite, which will continue to exist only as long as men like him can feed it. Careful to exclude himself from attendance at these parties, Cortes shifts the virtual court away from himself, using it to criticize and silence the actual voices at the Spanish court that threaten to drown out his letter. In comparison with the almost pastoral scene of the Mexica court, the Machiavellian resolution to the Qualpopoca problem is epic, but no less calculated. The scene responds, once again, effectively to issues both among the readers of his Carta, and the more immediate audience (his men and the Mexica). Twenty days into Montezuma's imprisonment, Qualpopoca arrives in Tenochtitlan with his son and fifteen other lords, all of whom are apprehended and interrogated along the lines of similar scenes of informants and interrogations that occur throughout the Cartas. Notably, the interrogation never contradicts the informant's report, but the practice of interrogation, which will come to fruition in the final letter, is still essential to the truth-value of the information. It is as if Cortes is compensating for his lack of language skills (in spite of his two translators) with the rigour of his (reported) method Qualpopoca and company admit to having slain the Spaniards, affirm their vassalage to Montezuma, and deny their lord's involvement. "Y ansi fueron estos quemados prencipalmente en una plaza sin haber alboroto alguno" (217). "And consequently they were summarily burnt in a square without there being any commotion at all."92 But before their deaths, with one voice (a una voz), they retract their denials and restate that they had acted according to Montezuma's wishes. The result: Y el dia que se quemaron, porque confesaron que el -dicho Muteecuma les habian mandado que matasen a aquellos espanoles, le hice echar unos grillos de que el no 112 rescibio poco espanto, aunque despues de le haber fablado aquel dia gelos quite y el quedo muy contento. (R2, 217)

Clearly a carefully designed piece of political and judicial theatre. The execution, imprisonment, and declarations of vassalage are constructed partly to assert the sovereignty of the monarch in whose name these acts are carried out. Through their violence, these tactics also compensate for the absence of clearly declared substance, i.e. the explicit consent of the King. Because of this absence, and because of the anxiety produced by potential illegitimacy, Cortes must perform as if he were the judicial representative. Torture is one means of establishing boundaries and reducing tension.93 Another method is rhetoric. The rhetoric employed in these letters is not only that of empire (Carman), but that of self, the substance of which is a performance. In dealing with conquest and colonization, it is impossible to ignore greed as one of the greatest motivators. Today, it is difficult to accept the sincerity of any value system that did not have gold as its standard. In this view, a performance of vassalage is mere sycophancy, the burning of a traitor, mere torture. Our suspicion of rhetoric is similar as we continue to echo Plato with our insistence on qualifying rhetoric with the word'empty.'94 In contrast, this episode shows that a rhetorically performed self does have a substance, in the form of an effect on its multiple audience. We can only imagine the reaction of the Tenochtitlan witnesses to such a spectacle. The noted lack of disturbance could signify that they were as horrified by such a death as the Spaniards were at the Mexica practice of tearing out still beating hearts, or, alternatively, there was no audience at all. 5 In any case, the main audience is not in the square, but at Court. Even if the intended audience does not feel the terror, it is true to its purpose: "to make everyone aware, through the body of the criminal, of the unrestrained presence of the sovereign" (Foucault Discipline, 49). Of course, this presence is as restrained as it is mediated. Justice is performed calmly and efficiently, even mercifully. Montezuma, after all, for whom Qualpopoca perhaps burns in effigy, is only subjected to the irons for a short time. Montezuma's release is followed by Cortes' public announcement that Montezuma should remain in power, acknowledging "the sovereignty which Your Highness held over him, and that they could best serve Your Highness

"But on the day of their execution, because they had confessed that Mutezuma had ordered them to kill those Spaniards, 1 ordered him to be put in irons, from which he received no small fright, although later that same day, after having spoken with him, I had them removed, and he was very pleased." (Pagden) by obeying him and holding him for their lord, as they had before I came to this land" (Pagden91).* The execution of Qualpopoca has not only revealed the force of Spanish justice, but its fires have tempered the representational chain: Charles V is represented by Montezuma, a link that is made possible by the coming of this authorial T, capable of marking the land with its presence, of obliterating any obstacle before it, and of reordering society to fit into the empire. Cartagraphy Empire, like nation, is an abstract space; its relationship to the territory of which it assumes ownership is precisely that of the Body politic to the Body natural (see above, page 94). From a human and social point of view, all borders are lines in the sand, even if they happen to be partly concretized by mountains or bodies of water. Borders are texts that must be performed constantly in order-to continue to have currency.96 The textual act that precedes the performance of borders is the performance of possession. A vivid example of the textual nature of possession occurs in chapter 31 of Bemal Diaz's Historia verdadera. On the way up the Yucatan coast, the expedition runs into resistance. According to Diaz, Cortes orders his men to refrain from shooting back until he can read a requerimiento: y como todas las cosas queria llevar muy justificadas, les hizo otro requirimiento delante de un escribano del rey que se decia Diego de Godoy, e por la lengua de Aguilar, para que nos dejasen saltar en tierra y tomar agua y haballes cosas de Dios y de Su Majestad, y que si guerra nos daban y por defendernos algunas muertes hobiese u otro s cualquier danos, fuesen a su culpa e cargo, e no a la nuestra. (88)

Once the "aggressors," who do not wish or are unable to listen to such terms, are routed and flee into the woods, Cortes proceeds to take possession of the land: y alii tomo Cortes posesion de aquella tierra por Su Majestad y el en su real nombre, y fue desta manera: Que desvainada su espada dio tres cuchilladas en seiial de posesion en un arbol grandes [sic] que se dice ceiba, questaba en la plaza de aquel gran patio, y dijo que si habia alguna persona que le contradijese, que el lo defenderia [...] E por ante un escribano del rey se hizo aquel auto. (89)

The use of "auto," which implies a range of juridical and theatrical actions, underlines the performative nature of the possession-taking, as well as of the relaciones in general. In Diaz's description, the actual act of slashing the tree with the sword takes place before the auto is

"siempre publique y dije a todos los naturales de la tierra, ansi que senores como a los que a mi vienian, que Vuestra Majestad era servido que el dicho Muteecuma se estuviese en su sefiorio reconosciendo el que Vuestra Alteza sobre el tenia, y que servirian mucho a Vuestra Alteza en le obedescer y tener por sefior como antes que yo a la tierra viniese le tenian" (R2, 216-17). 114 mentioned; the act becomes performance by virtue of the text that witnesses it and relays it to the public. The physical marking of the landscape coexists with its abstract and wider meaning: Cortes marks his personal, individual presence, and has the text (via the scribe/notary) mark the symbolic presence of the power he purports to represent. Cortes engages in more than a simple declaration: he physically marks the landscape. Another less physical but no less vital mode of engagement with landscape occurs in its description. As he passes through the land, he describes it, taking it in with his gaze and relaying this grander act of possession to his sovereign reader. From the outset of the relaciones, we see this commitment to giving "complete reports." While information is also the focus of the Velazquez instructions, Cortes explicitly ties the collection of information to his control of the political situation. The most glaring example of this occurs just after Montezuma has been placed in irons and then set free. One of his conditions of "parole," is to provide and facilitate the collection of information: Despues que yo conosci del muy por entero tener mucho deseo al servicio de Vuetra Alteza, le rogue que porque mas enteramente yo pudiese hacer relation a Vuestra Majestad de las cosas desta tierra, que me mostrase las minas donde se sacaba el oro. El cual con muy alegre voluntad, segiind mostro, dijo que le placia, y luego hizo venir ciertos servidores suyos y de dos en dos repartio para cuatro provincias donde dijo que sacaba. (218-19)

Service to the King is explicitly linked to providing information, which, in the short run is more valuable than gold. At least, this is what Cortes hopes, for it is his promise that he is marketing to the King: the promise of gold as much as the promise of a successful conquest, and the promise, just beginning to emerge from Cortes himself, of good governorship. With only meagre samples of gold and material wealth, explorers since the beginning had been selling a promise, the hope of more just over the horizon or the next hill. And when samples are missing, information takes its place. In the context of a discourse of failure (in the end many explorers and conquerors failed to obtain the material gains they pursued), information comes even to replace the material wealth: a discourse of faithful service becomes a good in itself, information for information's sake.

"After I had become convinced of his great desire to serve Your Highness [and] in order to be better able to give a complete report to Your Majesty of the things of this land, I asked him to show me the mines from which they extracted the gold. To which, with great good will, or so he showed [i.e. so it appeared], he said that it would please him, and he quickly had come certain servants of his and he split them up into groups of two for the four provinces where he said they extracted it." 115 Vital to Cortes' sense of his own mission is the idea that the description of the territory is analogous with the King taking it in with his gaze and subsequently taking possession of it. The letter becomes the courtly gift, a substitute for the kissing of hands and the rendering of the glove of sovereignty. Unlike the vain and wasteful gift exchange going on in Montezuma's court (perhaps a veiled criticism of the undeserving dandies at the Castilian court), Cortes paints himself to be a «eo-courtier, one who is producing and who will continue to produce valuable, practical service in the new world order of a centrally administered meritocracy. The performative nature of the game and the suspicion of sincerity are always present, as with the suggestion that Montezuma's good will is merely a veneer. The instability evoked asserts that all are actors in this game, Montezuma, Velazquez, and even the King, but it is I, Cortes, who am the most serious player of all, for sometimes I do not play; sometimes I actually produce results. Or, at least I promise I will... An element of these results is the physical description itself: Cortes' relaciones are precursors to the relaciones de memoria requested by the Council of the Indies later on in the sixteenth century. The memorias were descriptions requested of all functionaries in the Spanish dominions, descriptions that would be used to establish an authoritative map or series of maps governing the territories controlled by the Crown. Nevertheless, the global vision of a late- sixteenth-century cosmographer cannot be simply assumed to be nascent in an early sixteenth- century operative. Cortes' vision has more to do with a desire to incorporate himself with and ingratiate himself to the central authority. The great majority of even learned people of the time, including Cortes and Carlos V, were still illiterate by the cosmographer's standard. For the Cartas and their author, Carlos V is merely the most privileged of a relatively mapless readership, for whom Tenochtitlan would remain "in the hinterland of the unknown" even after the publication of Cortes' letters (Padron 118). Indeed, the paratexts of the printed editions (limited maps, title pages, prefaces) did attempt to extend the itinerant nature of the text towards a more abstract, imperial notion of the conquered space, but, as the illustration of the Cromberger edition suggests, this was still a conversation between a subject and his king (117) (see Appendix B). In spite of cosmographic efforts, for most, space remained related to one's travels through it, from one place to another, as one went about fulfilling one's function. The officials charged with providing cosmographers with raw data insisted on providing "way-finding maps" instead of precise geographic data arranged by coordinates (79). Since we share to some extent the cosmographers' vision of space today, we may appreciate the cosmographers' frustration. Just rediscovered in the fifteenth 116 century was Ptolemy's Geographia and the application of Euclidean geometry on space in order to gain an "Apollonian" or bird's eye view of geographic features that could then be located by coordinates rather than by following a prescribed path (32). This requires a measure of abstraction that a functionary on the ground would not think terribly useful. Locally, place was controlled, loved, and lost, whereas "space" was only the emptiness in-between places (58). In the culture generally, this attitude would change as a result of the abstraction of space that was shifting people's vision of the world away from the orbis terrarum (a land-centred world confined by oceans) and towards a view of "a fully masterable terraqueous globe."97 For both Carlos and Cortes, the itinerant map is the dominant way of understanding space. Travel is essential to establishing control over a territory, not only for colonial officials, but also for the court itself, which is constantly in motion during Carlos V's reign. The static capital will only become possible once the space controlled from it can be conceived of through the unification drive of the cosmographer. For the time being, personal experience is key, and this is reflected in the reports of territory. Sidelining the more modern question of language's lack of ability to represent space, a text such as Cortes' can, at least, produce space as conceived of at the time: a linear progression through space, rather than a global appreciation of it. Cortes promotes the incorporation of the Mexican landscape into the kingdom of Spain just as he attempts to promote his own incorporation into a more central and lucrative position next to the King. This incorporation is not quite the same as a global abstract view promoted by the cosmographers. Most notably, although there are spatial descriptions in the cartas (i.e. descriptions of what a territory looks like), what dominate are demographic, geologic, economic, and more importantly political descriptions. Cortes does not provide a detailed description of the territory to be conquered, but rather apolitical picture: the policia of the territory, a description of its government, economy, architecture, and social structure (Padron 101-2). Cortes' notion of cartography is thus subservient to his mission towards vassalage as discussed in the previous section. The march towards Tenochtitlan is accompanied by a labelling of friends and foes, and the systematic (and sometimes violent) transformation of the latter into the former. When the Spaniards are routed from Tenochtitlan during La Noche Triste, Cortes' loss of control is expressed in his description of the chaos of retreat: Gone is Cortes' control of the territory. Space is again figured as a series of towns and cities, but this time they appear only as nameless way stations along a desperate itinerary, "a good town," "other villages which were thereabouts," "a plain with some small houses," "a great city with many inhabitants." That linear spatiality that had served to organize the story of the journey to the capital 117 reappears now, only to find Cortes on the wrong side of the frontier between civilization and barbarism. Loss and powerlessness are the themes of these pages. (Padron 115-16).

Likewise the foray into Honduras, but more extreme, for it is not a retreat, but a desperate attempt to continue along an imperial path, but destined to be a deeply personal one. The itinerary of stopping places has disappeared in the depths of the jungle, the pilgrimage (a planned route) replaced by a voyage into the unknown. Faced with this unknown, with the disappearance of well-trod paths, experience is still central, but the threats to the body, in the absence of resting places for its regeneration, produces a very different kind of experience. This novel experience of the fracaso (failure) has no end in sight, and the individual becomes singular, alone, and desperate. And all the while, he is attempting to re-establish an itinerary, to find a way out. He slowly realizes, however, that there is none, that language, and his body, are failing him; he cannot describe this new space that is as much internal as external. The externality of the itinerary/pilgrimage is displaced by a more novelistic discursive experience that is always unfolding, expanding, grasping at fleeting meaning. Violence is one means of overriding the sense of helplessless, but this only serves to emphasize the powerlessness: one has become an event, a sign moving through an abstract linguistic space, rather than a physical body between the thickness of two places. The imposition of the grid is perhaps one way of imposing order on this chaotic letdown, but then again, the imposition of the grid is responsible for the crisis of self in the first place. By providing the possibility of Apollonic vision and Adamic authority over a terraqueous world, the grid that created abstracted space has also opened up a chasm: the orbis hominis. In losing the boundaries of an unbreachable ocean, man may have gained an illusion of mastery over his terrestrial domain, but this bite from the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge has also exposed an inner ocean far more boundless.

Law and Order and the Frontier: Cuauhtemoc, Nature, and the Critical Consciousness By positing himself as the juncture between vassals and an empire, as the not disinterested representative of a higher mission, as a public figure without letting go of his private drives, Cortes has created the challenges that face him. In a painfully obvious mise-en- abyme of his own separation from Velazquez, Cortes is compelled to venture into the jungles of Honduras in order to quash the rebellion of one of his captains, Cristobal de Olid. Cortes' initial rebellion forced him to forge a place for himself between various tensions. The process begun by this rebellion, which is a simultaneous assumption and appeal to authority (on shifting 118 terms), produces the modern reality, one that is polysemic. And, having ventured into this jungle, having opened the Pandora's box of individuality, the T, the voice of the individual is the only one available as a guide through it: El yo es la unica guia disponible en la selva confusa del mundo: pero—no lo olvidemos—guia parcial y del momenta, tan cambiante como el mismo mundo; y, por definicion, de ella no cabe extraer conclusiones firmes (no, particularmente, en el dominio de los valores), con pretensiones de universalidad. (Rico Novela picaresca, 54-55)

In the jungle, the focus becomes an impossible control over the new environment. The political description upon which he has based his map, his appreciation of space, is no longer possible here. The execution of Qualpopoca shows us Cortes' efforts to make himself into a physical symbol of something he is not: the king. His yo is not his, but an idealization of himself according to certain norms and expectations. As we will see in the next chapter, Lazaro has an easier time focalizing his caso into just the right light to achieve his goals. Unlike Lazaro's, Cortes' caso has not ended, but is still being shaped as it is being experienced. He is not able to focus everything into the present moment, because the present moment is not fixed, his journey is not as completed as he requires it to be. The execution of Qualpopoca is an attempt by Cortes to embody the sovereign. Faced with the limitations of his medium and the restrictions of his environment (the jungle), the emphasis shifts from embodiment to focalization, of which mapping has been the first step: the tension between chorography (itinerary) to cosmography prepares the imperial gaze for the more challenging project of bringing the society living in that space into line. The Cortesian self shifts its emphasis from a practice of law to the enforcement of order. As an agent of authority, Cortes must engage in a process of domestication. He has tamed the Mexica of Tenochtitlan, and yet continues to struggle to tame his own men and remnants of dissent within the conquered people. Cortes' concern is not representation, but control; he must tame his own voice as well as that of his environment and the people within it." This shift in concern towards control and away from simple authority (recognition of legitimacy) is a sign of Cortes' success. By the writing of the fifth carta, Cortes has succeeded. He is a hero, but heroism produces a new set of challenges: heroes are necessary for the acquisition of empires, not their administration. If he is not to suffer the same fate as ByrhtnoS or Roland, he must adapt to a new order along lines similar to El Cid and Amadis: Cortes' bid for incorporation must take on a different emphasis. 119 Placing the Cartas de relation in a broader context of Latin American narrative that begins with conquest texts, Beatriz Pastor identifies a corollary transition from mythifying discourse (discurso mitificador)100 towards two de-mythifying discourses {discursos demitificadores): the discourse of failure (fracaso) and the discourse of rebellion. Whereas the de-mythifying discourses are never entirely absent, Pastor identifies them with the breakdown through questioning of the myths and models erected by the mythifying discourse (iv); and while her work pursues these discourses in the literature that spans a century (from Columbus to Alonso de Ercilla's Araucana), this transition is present, to a limited extent, in the Cartas de relation, and is particularly noticeable from the Second to the Fifth Cartas. The execution of Qualpopoca, following as it does the dramatic and symbolic acceptance of vassalage by Montezuma, is part of Cortes' self-mythification. A comparable, and yet profoundly different execution occurs in the fifth carta, and plays into the process of de- mythification by highlighting both rebellion and failure: the execution of Cuauhtemoc, the last Mexica Emperor who surrendered to Cortes after the fall of Tenochtitlan. After convincing his readers and being appointed governor, Cortes' decision to leave Tenochtitlan for Honduras in order to quell Olid's rebellion is surprisingly inconsistent. Cortes vacillates, sending deputies back to restore the order disrupted by his absence, but his mission is too important to make the trip back himself. Perhaps, in spite of his claims, he has written himself into a corner by presenting himself as a man of action who takes personal risks willingly. In spite of his legitimate title, or perhaps because of it, just as he rebelled to his profit against his governor, so he is unable to control his underlings. In any case, the decision to go to Honduras is a fateful one. The tone of the fifth letter is notably different. Gone is the mastery over a complex political system, the appreciation of alliances and antagonisms that had enabled him to take a city larger than any in Europe with only 600 men. The landscape takes over. In spite of promises of still richer kingdoms, there is little in the jungles of Central America that would have been recognizable as civilization. In a perhaps non-intentional use of the pathetic fallacy, the environment reflects the inner life and bodes badly for the expedition's outcome. There are definite attempts to master the countryside. In spite of the Native preference for coastal travel, Cortes insists on taking horses and heavy guns through jungle swamps. When he meets swamps that are too wide or deep to cross, he has bridges built. When he meets Native leaders, the most important resource is no longer gold, but food, directions, and help to clear paths 120 In order to forestall Native rebellions, Cortes had taken with him the last Mexica emperor Cuauhtemoc, along with several other nobles. In the middle of the jungle, as everyone is suffering from the lack of food, Cortes tells of one of these nobles, Messicalcingo, who reports a plot to kill Cortes and his men as the first stage of a general rebellion to eject the Spanish from the territory and prevent their return. Cortes' response is swift: Y luego en amaneciendo, prendi todos aquellos senores y los puse apartados el uno del otro y les fui a preguntar como pasaba el negocio, y a los unos decia que los otros me lo habian dicho—porque no sabian unos de otros—y a los otros que los otros, ansi que hubieron todos de confesar que era verdad que Guatemucin [Cuauhtemoc] y Tetepanquecal habian movido aquella cosa, y los otros era verdad que lo habian oido, pero que nunca habian consentido en ello. Y desta manera fueron ahorcados estos dos, y a los otros dos solte porque no parecia que tenian mas culpa de habello oido, aunque aquello bastaba para merecer la muerte, pero quedaron sus procesos abiertos para que cada vez que se revuelvan puedan ser castigados. Aunque creo que ellos quedan de tal manera espantados, porque nunca han sabido de quien lo supe, que no creo se tornaran a revolver. Porque creen que lo supe todo por algund art, y ansia piensan que ninguna cosa se me pueda esconder [.,.] (563-65)

In contrast to the public, terror-inspiring, and theatrical execution of Qualpopoca, this execution and the psychology of punishment and observation have a more personal, desperate, and modern character. As a rebel, Cortes' theatrics were more externalized: the public terror was a means of asserting the King's presence among the Mexica, as well as Cortes' presence in the Court. In the Second Carta, Cortes was an effective proxy, as well as the only one available. In the Fifth Carta, however, after the fall of Tenochtitlan, he is not the only option, and perhaps a less desirable one due to the poor management decision of leaving the city to the internecine struggles of his deputies. Instead, again reflecting the intimate connection of sovereign and territory, grumblings against Cortes, and any threat to his authority, are extended to all Spaniards and any future Spanish interests in the region. Gone undiscovered and unpunished, the plot would have meant a complete Spanish failure, only preventable by Cortes, who is no longer a mere representative, no longer a stage manager, but the embodiment of the King, and of Spain.

"No sooner did I awaken that 1 seized all of those lords and separated them and I went to ask them how this affair was being planned, and to some I said the others had already told me—for they had no way of knowing the state of the others—and to the others that the others had done so, so that all had to confess that it was true Cuauhtemoc and Tetepanquecal had been the prime movers of the case, and that the others, it was true, had heard of it, but that they had never consented to it. And this was how these two were hanged, whereas 1 freed the others because they were not as guilty for only having heard it, although this was sufficient to merit death. Their cases remained open so that they might be punished if they should revolt. Although I believe that, because of this, they live in fear, for they never knew who had informed on them, and I do not believe they will revolt again. This is because they think that I found out through some magic, and thus they think that nothing can be hidden from me." 121 The King-Governor connection is now, for Cortes, more a King-Viceroy one; Cortes now embodies rather than symbolizes and manages the King's presence. The increased detail of the punishment and interrogation underscores the more emotive connection; there is more than a mention of a lack of disturbance, as with the Qualpopoca execution, and there is a relatively detailed commentary on the hanging of Cuauhtemoc. Whereas Qualpopoca quickly admits to his crimes during interrogation, for the plot, Cortes employs the prisoner's dilemma, pitting the self-interest of each perpetrator against that of the others. He never informs them of his true source, and his pardon of the survivors is designed to police them. He leads them to believe that he can see into their thoughts, and claims that their fear of this power of observation will prevent future offences. Whereas previous pardons were for political expediency, i.e. to gain allies against Tenochtitlan, here they are an indication of the psychological power he holds over them, a new Foucauldian "technology of power" that extends to his reading audience—the control of an internalized discourse that replaces the theatrical with a broader will to power that attempts not only to control behaviour, but also thought. The fact that this is a technology is emphasized by the revelation that the chieftains believe that Cortes' chart and compass give him this power of observation. Likewise, the natives are reported as being impressed by the bridges Cortes had built over the swamps. Even though the natives were just as likely intrigued by the technology as flabbergasted at the waste of resources (why not just take a canoe, or leave the cannon?), technological "superiority" is a marker, for Cortes, of his aptitude for rule. As we saw above, it is not his nature as a.Spaniard or a European that makes him an ideal commander, but a measure of individual talent honed by acquired skill, along with a presence at the right place, at the right time. The ideal is a combination of education, fortune, hard work, and luck. Cortes has learned how to use a compass and a chart, and if he does not know personally how to build a bridge or a brigantine (essential to the victory in Tenochtitlan), he knows how to find people with the requisite skills and how to organise them efficiently. Conceivably, these are skills that could be taught to other men of calibre, perhaps even Indians, but, for the moment, only Cortes himself has them. The lack of such skills is a mark of general ineptitude even corruption in the likes of Velazquez, and of general cultural unreadiness on the part of the natives; even from the more apparently benign paternalism of Las Casas, they are children, full of potential that can only be realised by the right kind of education and the right kind of educator. Technology, an extension of acquired (or, in its religious aspect, Revealed) knowledge, authorizes the superiority of the knowledge holder over the ignorant and even enables the knowledge holder to penetrate the ignorant and reshape "it" into a more amenable "him" or "her." Just as the bridge over the swamp allows the conquistador to tame the untamed land and more easily exert his physical power over it and its inhabitants, the chart and the compass, symbolic extensions of the psychology of thought control through interrogation, allow him to penetrate the minds of the untamed natives, to restrain their desire to rebel. As Gonzalez Echevarria notes, the reunification and purification of the social body occurs in the punished individual, whose suffering and forgiveness is analogous to that of the writing self: "Like the pillory, which served to let the individual expiate his deviance in a public display of shame, writing, coming clean, is an act through which pardon, reunification with the body politic is pursued" (70). Albeit the most dramatic, a discovered crime is not the only cause of alienation from the social body; although he is not as alienated from the social body as the criminal, the persecutor of crime is equally responsible for the community's maintenance, and, as a servant of the state, the persecutor's action is also a means of firming up and/or improving his position in his society. In that a part of his mission is to legitimize his rebellion, Cortes anticipates the pillory; in that he attempts to transform his rebellion into service, he goes one step further, by punishing others. Through the execution of Qualpopoca, Cortes tempers the representation chain of vassalage and lordship between Montezuma and Carlos V, with himself as blacksmith and the essential link. The execution of Cuauhtemoc, on the other hand, reveals a new form of governance that is based less on the symbolic performance of vassalage, and more on the performance of a functionary in a bureaucracy governing individuals. For Cortes, the transition is crucial: while he manages to escape punishment as a rebel, he will not be able to escape the investigation into his governance of New Spain; the mythic persona constructed in the first letters will ultimately fail to withstand the new regime that would replace dangerously assertive heroes with (self-)policed protagonists. Vital to a discourse of self as self-discipline (an essential stepping-stone towards modern selfhood) is the relative chaos of the world; the self of an ordered world has no need for self- imposed discipline. In the Fifth Carta the natural environment takes centre stage, becoming the "worst enemy, hostile and threatening," far more indomitable than the indigenous warrior. The result is a shift from the portrayal of "heroic deeds" to one of a "struggle for survival, where "wandering" replaces exploration, and any idea of occupation and domination (so important in the discourse of mythification) is simply abandoned. Incentives of "wealth, glory, power, and the myths surrounding them" are displaced by "hunger, thirst, cold, and the threat posed by the natives," and goals are themselves redefined from the search for treasure, to a search for food and guidance (Pastor Bodmer 123-26). There is also a shift in the importance of the narrative itself. The First Carta was accompanied by treasure; the narrative only contextualized that treasure and promised more, provided certain requirements were met (i.e. the legitimation of the enterprise). Exemplified in the opening lines of the Naufragios, in the discourse of failure, the narrative itself becomes service, rather than a promise of service. no me quedo lugar para hacer mas servicio de este, que es traer a Vuestra Majestad relation de lo que en diez anos que por muchas y muy extranas tierras que anduve perdido y en-cueros, pudiese haber y ver, asi en el sitio de las tierras y provincias de ellas, como en los mantenimientos y animales que en ella se crian, y las diversas costumbres de muchas y muy barbaras naciones con quien converse y vivi, y todas las particularidades que pude alcanzar y conocer, que de ello en alguna manera vuestra majestad sera servido... (Nunez 76)

Here, value is embedded in the words, potentially with geographical and ethnographic information, but more importantly as evidence of the sincere devotion of the vassal, who is willing to suffer in the name of service, whose sacrifice tries to be worth more than its weight in gold. The narrators of the discourse of failure begin to present their misfortunes as a form of service, as valuable and deserving of favor as any other more successful venture. Thus conceived, the purpose of describing their misadventures is not just to inform the king truthfully and in detail about everything that occurs but rather to claim recognition for hardships and sacrifices that express the utmost loyalty and consequently deserve the highest reward. (Pastor Bodmer 128)

The discourse of failure attempts to transform and invert success in order to be deemed successful. The inverted value is still ultimately translated into conventional rewards: position, money, resources, or support for further ventures that will capitalize on the suffering of the narrator and on the promise of future gain provided in the information relayed by the account— there are always more gold and fascinating discoveries "over there," just beyond reach. In Pastor's study, the mercantile fantasy of Columbus transitions into the political fantasy of Cortes, which transitions into the successful failure of Nunez, which in turn informs the last studied text, Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana. In the latter, Pastor detects the beginnings of a

"There was not the opportunity serve better than with this, that is to say by bringing Your Majesty an account of what in my ten years in those strange lands over which 1 wandered lost and naked I was able to know and see regarding the lay of the land and the provinces therein, the .[agricultural] resources and animals raised there, the diverse customs of the many barbarous nations among whom I lived, as well as any details that 1 managed to discover. All this so that, in some way, Your Majesty would be served" {my translation). Spanish American "critical consciousness" that is based on a Montaignesque inversion of savage and civilized in which the natives are invested with the qualities of the epic hero, while the Spanish are increasingly corrupt and degraded. The fault, in Pastor's interpretation of Ercilla, lies in the abandonment of epic and noble values by those supposed to uphold them (Pastor Bodmer 136). We might recall Columbus' initial effort to colonize the Indies with Spaniards of noble stock as the beginnings of Utopian Spanish colonization. This ended in disaster; the colonists were unable to maintain their nobility without sufficient resources to sustain them, i.e. without the unquestioning support of the native population. Once he has proved his mettle on the battlefield, the epic hero (the product of the discourse of mythification) is exposed to the elements and becomes either "the complex warrior presented in the narrative discourse of failure," or "the cruel exploitative colonizer" (Pastor Bodmer 247). His environment either consumes him, or he exploits it mercilessly. This dichotomy becomes the hinge of the debate around the future of the Spanish presence in the Americas, exemplified by Las Casas and Sepiilveda. One side promotes the justice of the war of conquest, and asserts the rights of the conquistador, having survived, to exploit the land and its functionalized inhabitants. The other side takes over the Utopian vision, infuses the natives with humanity, and envisages a pure community based on Christian values of which Spain has become incapable, its materialism now threatening the Indies. Clearly on the Las Casas side of the debate, La Araucana "makes it unequivocally clear that the Spaniards' degradation is to be explained in terms of the historical development of the colony. Once away from the colonial context [...] the men recover their energy and glory" (Pastor Bodmer 249). Selfishness, pride, and materialism are products of the city, of an administration that does not have a just value system; in the name of civilization, savageness is rewarded, while true civility exists only nostalgically, in an epic reconstruction.

The critical consciousness is thus partially the result of another kind of failure: the inability to make oneself at home in new surroundings. Cortes' innovation, we must remember, is in his ability-to articulate and fulfill the Spanish desire for empire, which finds its first expression in the founding of Veracruz, and culminates in the full capitulation of the Mexica Empire. Along with plans to explore further both the conquered territory and the lands beyond it, there is a need to fulfill the expectations of exploiting the resources of the land so lauded during the conquest. There is also a need to govern, to manage a group of incomportables y importunos, whose high jinks once made Cortes essential to the enterprise, but which now threaten to bring it down. Failed home-making, or that which is in danger of failing, causes a rejection of the central authority and, by association, of the model hero that serves such an authority. Through demythification, caused by incongruence between experience and the model, the model is no longer applicable, and must be remade, to some extent in its own image. The rebel attempts to form for himself a fiefdom that resembles that which he served; he wishes those under him to serve him as he once did the organization/individual against which he once rebelled. However, the rebel has initiated a chain reaction that is impossible to contain, or at least continues it, since even the central authority or canon is eventually recognized as being founded by a rebel or a usurper (Alfonso X's reworking of imperial law to fit his national scheme being a case in point). The discourse of failure, combined with that of rebellion, reveals a new complex self that is at odds with but dependent on a central authority. This self strives for independence for or advancement within the society, but it must rebel to some extent to accomplish either. The self then pursues re-incorporation, for its success is based on similar values to those infused in it by the centre and is dependent on validation by that society. The result is a tension here that is more pronounced than the servility moderns show towards individuality and originality. Ercilla's condemnation of the colony is based on frustrated ideals that have not been sufficiently applied because those entrusted to apply them are too enslaved by their mundane desires; they are governed by an anti-ethics of "thine and mine." In the discourse of mythification, the ideal of leadership is key: the "right" man on the ground, with the ability to direct the energies of his men towards a noble goal, is central to success. In the Fifth Carta, leadership is not enough when the leader is incapable of being everywhere at once; rule by absent presence, essential to the epic-chivalric model, is found to be impossible, especially when that rule is based on a rebellion all too fresh in the minds of all concerned. What is needed is a new method of governance, based on new institutions and methods of control. The failure of a system of courtly patronage and the idea of institutionalefficiency find ultimate expression in Thomas More's Utopia; in Utopia, careful geographic design, architecture, and strict rules determine everything down to the citizens' schedule, which removes selfishness and enforces community living in such a way as to appear natural. To most readers, Utopia is decidedly not an ideal place to live; in the name of efficiency, individual will and desire are centrally controlled. In its attempt to eliminate natural degradation through the application of a carefully designed system, Utopia has also removed what is natural, what is human. An internal life is recognized, but it is also controlled through routine. There is no time for otium or pure contemplation; instead, everything is efficient activity. In part, Cortes struggles against this efficiency; the royal appointment of four officials to "assist" him in governance are said to have "stifled" his individuality.101 On the other hand, his own inability to control his lieutenants (i.e. Olid), and the challenges of controlling such a diverse and challenging territory and such a diverse populace require him to apply stifling measures of his own.

Text and the Technology of Self Cortes meets this challenge by resorting to his technological "superiority." The compass, rendered useless (as a compass) in the uncharted valleys south of the Valley of Mexico, is transformed into a symbol of this superiority. New methods of interrogation are aimed at extracting sincere confessions, and new methods of punishment are used to police the internal life of subjects rather than simply perform sovereignty. Using these methods, Cortes claims an ability to maintain control over the natives even when he is clearly in an uncontrolled environment; the natives are reportedly amazed by his abilities, fearful of his wrath, and responsive to his mercy. The instability of his environment is not only a major factor of the discourse of failure; it also reveals an important aspect of his success: the use of another important technological tool—the written, and eventually, the printed word. In Tzvetan Todorov's controversial treatment of the conquest, writing technology is an extension of the European capabilities of interhuman communication, in which they are "incontestably superior to the Indians" (126). The Mexican texts, and the gods who speak through them, are silent in the face of the novelty of the European invaders, wresting communicative control from indigenous hands (82).102 When it comes up against the "infinite progression" of Christian eschatology, the cyclical prophesy of the Mexica is powerless: "Leur education verbale favorise le paradigme au detriment du syntagme, le code au detriment du contexte, la conformite a l'ordre plutot que l'efficacite de l'instant, le passe plutot que le present" (113). Because of his literate training, in which interpretation plays an important role, Cortes is aware of being "read"; he is sensitive to the fact that the Natives will interpret every gesture, his choice of clothing, and the timbre of his voice (144-49). In short, ritual and memorization have restricted the Native capability for dealing with change, while writing culture has enabled Europeans to recreate themselves in the moment, for the moment. Written language enables improvisation because it is based on recreation, rewriting, and re-interpretation.

"Their oral education favours paradigm over syntagm, code over context, conformity to order over an effective response to [the demands of] the moment, the past over the present." 127 The controversial nature of Todorov's characterization of Mexica, Mayan, and oral culture generally should not be overlooked. The very idea that literacy is superior to orality carries a heavy bias that is difficult to counteract from within a written culture that often insists in reducing "orality" to "illiteracy," a response that defines oral culture as based on lack rather than as a distinct mode of being-through-language. Todorov's stance is even more surprising since he has clearly read many colonial texts, but has apparently failed to note that these texts rely on similar structures of superiority to justify and rationalize the violence of conquest. Of course, Todorov's comparison of American and European pre-Columbian culture is. in part designed to explain the astounding victory of Europe over civilizations just as "complex" and "advanced," and the apparent lack of decisive response to the invasion. The reason why one civilization triumphed over another must lie in some fundamental difference instead of a mere coincidence of factors that could have swung the outcome the other way just as easily; the alternative, that our laboriously constructed societies might crumble under the slightest pressure, is highly discomfiting. A sign of more culturally sensitive times, the recent geographic explanation provided by Jared Diamond is far more agreeable, for it lessens the tendency towards a providential explanation of the conquest. The identification of history's causes is a valid project, but it is not the focus here. I have been developing a theory on the European self as it is articulated in European texts, to which Todorov's explanation provides an important insight. Todorov's La conquete de I'Amerique: la question de Vautre, however ethnographically questionable in terms of providing answers on the actual nature of the Other, exemplifies the importance of the Other for the development of a sense of self. Todorov's expose on the difference/lack of literacy in Mexica culture emphasizes the importance of literacy for European culture. For the European, in Todorov's estimation, language is more syntagmatic than paradigmatic, more interested in context than code, able to conform to the moment rather than be enslaved by past interpretations (113, cited above). To extend on this, Cortesian language is more metonymic than metaphoric; things may change names, but they do so more on the basis of "contiguity in common experience" (metonymy) than on the basis of an interpreted breach of difference (metaphor) (Abrams, "Figurative Language" 67-9). Of course, this evaluation does not hold across time, cultures, or authors; in the brief span of sixteenth century Spanish colonial context, Pastor reveals Columbus' writing to be far more paradigmatic, and Ercilla's more metaphoric, than Cortes'. In addition, the experiential and contextual nature of language is not an outgrowth of writing, but rather of another discipline spanning both orality and literacy: rhetoric. 128 In this light, we need to reconsider Pastor's determination of Cortes' initial efforts as mythification. What does it mean to claim that Cortes attempts to mythify himself? Pastor's study places Cortes on a continuum from Columbus to Ercilla, and is biased by her destination: an evaluation of the remythification of Latin America through literature and the development of a "critical consciousness" in which the colonial enterprise is questioned, and the Native people and (home and) native land re-evaluated and re-incorporated. Next on the continuum of this study, we might assume, is the novel; the rehabilitation of Ercilla's epic poem after centuries of disdain for its inconsistency and untraditional nature is only possible from within a culture of criticism in which the novel, bastard genre par excellence, reigns supreme. In comparison, Cortes' initial letters are attempts at making himself part of an epic, rather than of a novel; he attempts to construct a fixed self along the lines of literary and more broadly cultural models. This is only possible in a context of success, or of expectation of success, or of an all-or-nothing determination. When things begin to go wrong, when failure seems far more likely, the attitude, the writing, and the models used in that writing, change tack. This approach merely affirms, albeit in an instructive way, that context and code are inseparable. The change in the Fifth Carta reveals the strategy of the former letters, which is far more than an attempt to mythify. The legal and rhetorical elements of the Cartas reflect Cortes training in and sensitivity to the Hispanic Early Modern way of being a minor noble who aspires to more. While ancestry and other links to past nobles and noble deeds are important, this does not mean that the intention is to become a mere copy of a Reconquista warrior. Mythical models are important, but they are only part of the performance of self; they are a chapter in the grammar of society and part of the "taxonomy of impersonation." Cortes is casting himself and his interlocutors in another play, one that extends beyond the mythical, one that looks into the future and that is grounded in the present; he is selling himself and an alternative vision, a lifestyle, to extend Lanham's comparison with modern advertising. If enough people "buy in" to the vision, if enough are prepared to join the performance and "make it real," the participants will receive a payback: a portion of the resources the troop/troupe controls. The hierarchical pyramid of empire is transformed into a pyramid scheme, the profits from which depend on an exponentially widening web of patsies masquerading as entrepreneurs. In Lanham's educational-rhetorical model, the health of the social organism and of its parts depends on a constant contact, interaction, and nourishment. This is more feasible within the confines of a classroom, a court, or a home. Social living has developed technologies that reduce work and/or increase work's efficiency, and that provide new possibilities for travel and communication. The latter technologies allow for separation by providing a sense of attachment. The compass and other navigation instruments, for example, permit their user to venture further afield because they provide a conceptual connection to the origin. Only by knowing where one has come from can one know where one is going; before walking to Montreal, I must first locate Toronto. Even without a destination, an explorer must strive to maintain a concept of where he came from, for only this will enable him to transform a chance encounter into a discovery that can be re-located; otherwise, he is merely a wanderer. However, as has been noted, technology is fallible. Cortes' compass becomes useless in the uncharted valleys of Central America, where trees and mountains prevent him taking an accurate and meaningful bearing. While he is busy discovering another use for his magnetic needle—the ability to "read minds" and police his charges—he does so through another technology that also connects him, but that threatens to separate him, from society: text. Because it is the inscription of language, text shares the same fate as language. To those obsessed with empirical truth, text is possibly less adequate; its very materiality lulls it into thinking of itself as permanent, an extension of its teleological intentions. A sustained attempt at mythification is quite simply bound to fail; that is, if the attempt really is at mythification. If Cortes' legal ruminations and vassalage games are performance rather than mythification, failure is not the right word for the concluding Carta; however, just as the transition from mythification to failure is grounded in context, so too is the rhetorical performance, but without the verbal acrobatics of equating mythification with success, or failure with demythification. In the Fifth Carta, the context is different, the writer's needs are different, and the readers' expectations are different than with the previous letters. The enemies are no longer an incompetent and power- hungry governor and a great, rich, and sprawling empire, but a competent and power-hungry rebel captain (not unlike Cortes' initial incarnation), the associated difficulties of managing a subdued people and a conquering army that feels entitled to spoils, and an indecipherable junglescape. Cortes, the writer, requires support and validation rather than reward and legitimation. And the readers, the emperor, and the colonial administration expect the fulfilment of the imperial and commercial promise established in the initial letters. There is a failure, but it is a failure to effectively make the transition from conquering general to colonial administrator, a failure to change roles, or to improvise effectively in the new context. Words fail him. In the first four letters, Cortes uses comparisons to Europe as well as a clear presentation of the Mexica, "but by the fifth letter," writes Pastor, "Cortes states explicitly 130 that this new reality simply cannot be described and any attempt to do so 'from over here' would never be understood 'over there': Y porque al tiempo que despache el dicho navio y mensajero no pude dar a Vuestra Majestad cuenta de mi camino y cosas que en el me acaescieron despues que parti desta gran ciudad de Tenuxtitan hasta topar con las gentes de aquellas partes, y son cosas que es bien que Vuestra Celsitud las sepa a lo menos por no perder yo el estilo que tengo, que es no dejar cosa que a Vuestra Majestad no manifieste , las relatare en suma lo mejor que yo pudiere, porque decirlas como pasaron, ni yo las sabria sinificar ni por lo que yo dijiese alia se podran comprender. Pero dire las cosas mas notables y mas principales que en el dicho camino me acaescieron, aunque hartas quedaran por acesorias, que cada una dellas podra dar materia de larga escritura. (R5, 525-6)

Likewise, text fails him. Whereas in the first letters, Cortes appears close to his audience, it is difficult to maintain this proximity. He begins to flounder. Of course, text does not cause failure; it merely makes success more difficult. This is a story of alienation: having set up an empire through words, Cortes has engendered a state that wishes to possess that empire and exploit it. A modern state intent on stasis has been grafted onto a society based on performance. As empire expands, it supposedly pushes the margins of the unknown further away; but it is actually absorbing the margins. As a result, the representative self must change, and improvise, on the ground. In imposing universality, empire exposes particularity, and opens fringes within itself; the barbarian is no longer the nameless other, and the citizen, well entrenched in and trained by society, becomes a danger to imperial integrity. It is as if the Trojans are building their own wooden horses, symbols of acquisition and triumph, succor to pride, but dangerously close to producing something far more fearful than a breach of its walls— an implosion of the entire system. This is effectively dealt with in contemporary society by the transformation of free individuals into consumers, who, empowered by their ability to make choices between products, are disempowered because this radical and banal liberty has undermined any sense of community cohesion. At its fringes, civilization breaks down; we are not capable of exporting, we are on our own. The bureaucracy is the answer to individual lusts etc., but it is always insufficient, particularly considering the internality that is developing, as we saw in the application of more sophisticated, psychological, individualistic punishment.

"And since when I dispatched the said ship and messenger I could not give Your Majesty an account of my travels and that which happened after 1 left the great city of Tenochtitlan and until I met with the people of those parts, and they are things that 1 would do well to tell Your Excellency so as not to go against the custom 1 have thusfar maintained, which is to leave nothing untold, I will relate them briefly as best I can, because to tell them [exactly] how they occurred, neither would 1 know how to in a way that could be understood over there [i.e. where you are]. But I will tell of the most notable and principal things that happened during this trip, but many will remain brief, since each is fit to provide material for an extensive text." 131 Writing (and more importantly, printing, the more extreme commodification of writing) is another technology that exposes a tendency to divisiveness, while also, potentially, being a tool of universalization and empire. From the Archive emerges the authoritative text from which contesting voices are expunged; to posterity is presented a unified vision of the nation-self. However, in writing to the Archive, the individual writer writes to change it, something done even more effectively if he appeals to a separate market that is far less hierarchical because the measure of hierarchy is not complicated by complex social categories such as nobility, but is reduced to money; anyone with the cash to buy a volume, or is part of a network of people that can afford such things together, is privy to its information. The writer can thus contest the Archive, either deliberately or unknowingly. He can serve his own interest by offering an alternative. He complains, he stimulates the writing of history, which in turn produces a demand for more "accurate" truth. His direct experience is reproduced, refined by that of others. And this is stimulated by an exile from the Archive, a feeling that things have not been said, or settled, accurately or fairly. The exile desperately wants re-incorporation, but will settle for convincing as many as possible of his merit. Whereas in the first letters, Cortes sets himself up on complex legal formulae and a management of vassalage, the punishment episodes reveal a shift. His performance now emphasizes his humanity: he has risked so much, done so much, with such sincerity, that he deserves more than he is getting. He appeals to the court's mercy and judgement rather than imposing a rhetoric that would make a counter-argument impossible, as in the Second Carta. His presentation is more flexible, but now, he is lost, undermined by the very size of his venture; he has taken a wrong turn, lost his grip on the situation. He must rely partly on the myth he has also constructed, which has been undermined, which is no longer true, no longer representative. The execution of Qualpopoca reveals the attempt to assert the sovereign presence Cortes is desperate to represent; the Mexica noble's gruesome death is the best way Cortes can think of to make that presence felt on both sides of the ocean. Once he achieves acknowledgement of his symbolic power of representation, the goal changes. In the new empire, the functionary wields true power, however banal his tasks might be; efficiency, effectiveness and accountability displace grand gestures. The execution of Cuauhtemoc is Cortes' attempt to alter his approach to the new requirements. The interrogation of the "conspirators" is thorough, and the punishment made both to fit the crime, and to maximize a social-gubernatorial benefit. With the supposed ringleaders dead, the co-conspirators are filled with the apprehension that they are being watched, that their thoughts are being read—the beginning of the Orwellian Thought Police. The 132 hanging of Cuauhtemoc, unlike the burning of Qualpopoca, is part of an ongoing activity rather than an end in itself; the burning is symbolic representation, the hanging part of a new, introspective way of being. Another important marker of "failure" emphasizes this introspection: the difficulty of surviving in the jungle. As in other "discourses of failure," actual treasure (booty) is less important than information. Information on how to survive is fundamental to that on which exploitation and profit will be based. Securing the basic means of survival—food, shelter, basic infrastructure (e.g. bridges), and directions (geographic information)—are the first step in the development of intensive agriculture, mining, and the use of native information and manpower that will also potentially yield a greater treasure: an organized colony that is able to provide resources to the metropole on a constant basis, rather than a one-time payoff of war booty. The punishment of Cuauhtemoc reflects the way in which individuals will be controlled in the new state: they are not to be merely physically compelled to work in a mine, but also compelled through fear of, and perhaps love for, the new state. The internal life of the citizen is brought into being by the investigation not only into behaviour, but also into intentions; what one thinks is as important to who one is as what one does. Contemplation is no longer otium, it is not relegated to the private or spiritual realm; instead, it has become an essential part of the negotium of the state.104 Words themselves lose their power 'over here.' From the unnameable violent and fearful wilderness of Maldon, to the distracting place of externalized violence of chivalry, we now notice a "shift from epic exploits toward common daily tasks" (Auerbach 121). At first, the daily tasks are those of a prison warden. The tasks will become increasingly banal until, eventually, the reams of documents produced by the conquest of Mexico are eclipsed by the voluminous response to a biscuit dipped in tea. Before we can engage in such contemplative luxuries, however, both biscuit and tea must be fought for: the recognition of the everyday is, for Lazaro de Tormes, a matter of life and death. 133

Chapter 3 Narrative Community of Self in Lazarillo de Tormes At first glance, Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) may appear out of place in a dissertation dealing with texts tending towards the grandiose. As we have seen, because it was more interested in promoting community cohesion, and because more individualized narrative structures were not as fully developed, medieval epic tended to be highly suspect of individualized textual expression, which it rejected, maligned, or restricted. Amadis allows for a certain measure of individuality by requiring exploration of the self for complete membership in the collective. This exploration is strictly managed, rehearsed, and is eventually performed publicly. Compliance with these requirements effectively pre-empts meaningful exploration of individual difference, which, as a figurative or actual form of violence, threatens the sovereignty of the king and the beloved. The cartas of Hernan Cortes, for their part, reveal the extent to which a self engages in potentially illegitimate activities, and then employs rhetoric to give those activities a veneer of-legitimacy. The individuality of Cortes—the obvious self-aggrandizement of his text—is limited; he cannot completely break free from the structures he requires as rhetorical support. His failure is as much narratological as it is military and political. Through a realtime narrative (written relatively close to the events described), he attempts to assert the physical presence of the empire he endeavours to represent in an uncooperative environment, which includes the others that populate it. Due to the temporal constraints that exacerbate his illegitimacy, Cortes is not sufficiently distant or detached from his subject. In addition to the questionable authenticity of self-representation, time constraints prevent him from imposing the empire he desires, for empires (like religions, nations and even, up to this point, selves) are always built backwards, never in the moment.106 Because empire is Cortes' goal, he is blind to the possibilities of living in the moment. He may, indeed, be relatively adept at adapting new realities to his desires due to his textual training, as Todorov has controversially stated, but not adept enough. He is skilled at identifying types among the Mexica, which helps him discern political and theological weaknesses, but he is unable (or unwilling) to move beyond them into a new understanding. Such an understanding would endanger the rhetorical structure on which he depends.

Lazarillo comes at the problem of being in the world in an entirely different way: one that is far more interested in updating the present by shaping the past to conform to a vision of the 134 future (Taylor's 'and then' put into practice). The text's success is precisely due to its relative lack of grandiosity. A more humble goal allows for a more powerful achievement; by eschewing a top-heavy superstructure, the project is more likely to remain intact. As a personal and social exploration, Lazarillo is far more flexible: it adds to our understanding of the Early Modern self, and it reminds supposedly modern readers of what can be lost to the seductive view of literature as a closed and narcissistic discursive system that only refers to itself. In addition to the other markers of literary modernity (adoption of first person, relative cohesiveness, verisimilitude, characters who grow),107 the personal nature of Lazarillo suggests an alternate means of community building that is either unavailable or overpowered in the other texts studied here. This alternative hinges on the treatment of the other. Amadis repeatedly unhorses his enemies; and Cortes gags them by filling their mouths with his own words (as in the case of Montezuma's speech of surrender to Castilian authority, explored above, page 106). Only in Lazarillo is there a complex and textured attempt to see the world from another point of view. Indeed, in Lazarillo, the other comes close, perhaps as close as possible, to speaking for himself.108 This speech-giving is enabled by the complex relationship between the author, narrator, and narratee: an anonymous author (the identity of whom continues to attract scholarly attention), a narratee almost as veiled, and a highly unreliable narrator, who is a self-serving scoundrel by his own admission. The interaction between the different narrative levels suggests another—the implied author/reader—that brings together all three in a way that reveals the text's simultaneously worldly and otherworldly performance. Not only does the text strive to construct (or, at least, offer a model for the construction of) truly interpersonal communities, it also attempts to undermine existing structures posing as portals to the transcendent (the Church and the state that employs and supports it). This challenge to structure opens up the possibility of a more fundamental connection with the transcendent, which, it turns out, is impossible without an altered view of the mundane; all hierarchy is challenged here, including the idea that Heaven and Earth are radically distinct spaces and times. The rogue's voice, speaking within a legalistic- moralist framework around a given issue (el caso), is not only a moment of empowerment for the downtrodden; it is also an opportunity for those closer to the centre of the legalistic framework to see themselves as rogues, even more depraved for their own "good fortune." The entire system is corrupt, not simply individuals—others—on the margins. By opening systemic corruption to view, Lazarillo promotes social reform. Policy makers enlightened by the text, instead of pursuing reforms that simplistically legislate against and police the poor and the desperate 135 according to inherited norms of virtue, might initiate a practice of caring for their entire society, a practice of self-policing based on the model of a narrative text.109

Anonymity ® Us The extant version of Lazarillo de Tormes, y de susfortunas y de sus adversidades appeared in 1554, the same year anonymous works were prohibited by the Inquisition (Torres- Howitt 121). Since several editions appeared in the same year, it is logical to assume that there was at least one printing before the ban. Neither the date of the first printing nor the date of composition are known, and both remain hotly contested, particularly by those interested in proposing a particular historical figure as the author. The possible date range of composition, based on historical events mentioned in the text, is wide—1532-1552—and many candidates were active within it. The work's anonymity continues to engender controversy, up to the present debate between Rosa Navarro Duran and Valentin Perez Venzala over the former's (questionable, but not original) -contention that the text is the work of Alfonso de Valdes. Critics have suggested alternative authors over time, only to have their candidates remain suggestions; there are far too many unknowns for an airtight proclamation.110 Rhetorical similarities with other works merely suggest the obvious: that the author was someone with a certain level of education and access to widely known texts, neither of which narrows the field sufficiently to identify the author definitively. The most compelling arguments either in favour or against particular authors revolve around the ideology of the text. Marcel Bataillon's claim for the traditionalist nature of the text and his wholesale rejection of the text as Erasmian is countered by Navarro's staunch defence of the text's Erasmian tendencies, necessary to her case for Valdes' authorship. The text criticizes general corruption among clergy and parodies the sacrament of confession, both of which are in line with Erasmian thinking, but which may also be more mainstream or conservative. The Council of Trent was also critical of clerical corruption and sacramental practices insofar as these did not conform to orthodoxy. Others, such as Thomas Hanrahan, see in Lazarillo a stance even more radical than the Erasmian. For Hanrahan, the text is the product of an early Lutheran reformer: the author of Lazarillo rejects the orthodox doctrine of opus operatum, the intercession of the saints, the efficaciousness of vocal prayer, and the validity of indulgences. All of these criticisms and beliefs are quite consonant, natural in fact, for someone who held a doctrine of justification similar to that of the early Reformers. They manifestly point to a mind and will well along the road of doctrinal independence from Rome. (Hanrahan 338, emphasis added) 136 What these critics have in common is an assumption about the nature of text: a text is an indication of "a mind and a will" of a historical individual. In other words, the text expresses a distilled individuality, the essence of an individual. Detached from a name, to which identity is irrevocably wed, our image of this individual is troublingly incomplete. Exacerbating this anxiety is the general problematic nature of the text: its ironic, playful stance denies us the opportunity to be sure of anything it represents. Thus, any statement regarding the essential "mind and will" behind the text remains conjecture. When we assume that the individual self is the base unit of civilisation-—i.e., that society is formed by freethinking individuals cooperating with or attempting to overpower one another—we require every social artefact (e.g. text) to be the product of an individual. Under this assumption, anonymity is merely an extension of the individual mind-will, and produces theories explaining it in terms of an imaginary biography: the author needed to conceal his identity in order to avoid prosecution or personal scandal, but felt strongly enough about the issues discussed to publish them all the same; or, the text is a personal attack, the victim of which is concealed from public view, but which would have hit home nonetheless; or, the author hoped to make money that may have been seen as disreputable coming from an author with a certain reputation to uphold; or, the author was a converso resentful at being forced to practice a religion of hypocrites. Were we able to inscribe, with a degree of certainty, a name to the cover of the text, we would be able to make a convincing case for any one of these motivations, or for a combination of them. We would be able to call the text a product of: a) an Erasmian, and thus mid-sixteenth century Spanish Erasmianism, b) a Lutheran, c) an embittered converso, or d) a Counter-Reformer. As it stands, the text is anonymous, and we must take it to be so deliberately. However broad his intentions, the author did not want to be identified. Rather than hobbling interpretation, however, anonymity enhances it; by removing his personality from the text, the author has produced a text that is able to stand in for an individual, to become an individual in its own right.111 The author's anonymity provides a window on the nature of self, and how it is produced within a narrative tradition. To the relative ideological certainty of epic, through the didacticism of Amadis and the ideological pretensions of the Cartas, Lazarillo adds layers of complexity. With Lazarillo, text is no longer sidelining individuality, nor is it managing the exilic nature of the individual back into the fold of an idyllic civic collective {Amadis) or a Utopian imperial project of self-realization {Cartas). Instead, individuality is embraced through irony; it is detached without the fantasy of absolute exile; it engages with its surroundings knowing it is complicit in them as a product of them. The text's anonymity forces the creation, 137 1 1 7 in the mind of the reader, of an implied author. We can choose to tag onto the implied author data that individualizes the actual author; or we can choose to examine how this implied author interacts with its characters, narrator(s), and narratee(s). We can analyze how the implied author's interactions speak to a contemporary type in the hope of building for ourselves a literarily historical character exemplary enough to stand for a view of how we interact with and through texts. We can search out a new literary hero, not one designed to elicit admiration, envy, or obedience, but one who is a more holistically mimetic representative of the Early Modern self as a narrative being. Any attempt to formulate a view of individuality across time runs into the problem of accurately capturing how a text would have been received in a way that avoids cross- contamination of the past historical reality with the critic's present. Let us examine, as a brief case study, how some critics interpret the individuality of the text and the main character of Lazarillo. For Anthony Close, sixteenth-century readers would not have been as serious (i.e. as political) in their appreciation of the text as today's literary critics. In the face of the characterization of the text as a precursor to the novel (see page 134 above, and note), Close claims that Golden Age readers tended to see Lazaro's career as a loose assembly of this funny material [traditional and popular proverbs, tales, etc.], and Lazaro himself as more function than personality: tricksy agent of burlas or naive victim of them. (16) To extrapolate, the text's unity is read into it by modern critics intent on detecting in it embryonic signs of the modern novel.113 The initial readership of Lazarillo would have read Lazaro no differently than an epic hero who is more of an aspect or element of discourse than the driving force of discourse.114 Of course, we cannot separate Close's point from its own context: Lazaro-as-function and Lazarillo-as-fo\k compilation are used to make a point about Don Quijote's having moved past such characteristics to claim its anachronistic place in modern fiction. In focusing on menudencias, he {Cervantes] opened up a whole new zone of the real world as an object of fictional representation, distinctively different from the kind of "realism" in which picaresque novelists specialized, and in dramatizing the interplay between menudencias and idealizing fantasy he discovered a major theme [...] of the European novel from, shall we say, 1800 to 1930. (Close 28)

The distinction is puzzling, and speaks more of a distinction to be made between Don Quijote and Mateo Aleman's Guzman de Alfarache (1599-1604) than of a distinction between Don Quijote and Lazarillo. Interplay between reality and fantasy is certainly a major part of Don 138 Quijote, but Lazarillo is no less aware of the represented nature of the world; the entire premise of the novella is the very need to re-represent the world in a light more favourable to its protagonist.115 Apart from their respective length, density and ambition, Lazarillo parts company with Don Quijote in one important respect. Cervantes humorously dissociates himself from the narration through the intermediaries of a translator and the author of a found manuscript; however, he still tenaciously clings to his work through his (brilliant) reaction to the false second part.116 No doubt, this is a question of intellectual property, and Don Quijote is among the first brands of the modern world. No mere function, Don Quijote is a true personality to be protected from libel; and, no mere pastiche of folk tales and jokes, Don Quijote is an 117 expression of the originality, the individuality of the authorial mind. In Lazarillo, there is no authorial presence to which we can cling. Although other authors published sequels (1555 and 1620), the original author did not come forward to reclaim the character as his own property, either because he could not (having died), or because he would not (still in a position to suffer the consequences of identification, or else standing by his original decision as an ethical and literary one). Nevertheless, in Lazarillo, there is at least a protagonist with the potential for full literary individuality. For Jorge Garcia-Gomez, both Guzman and Lazaro are such "genuine individuals": they are neither characters whose structure is merely confirmed in action nor names serving as symbolic devices to refer to a meeting point of operative forces and eventuating life-episodes. The genuine rogue is a "human incarnation" giving himself shape along the way of living; in fact, in doing so, not only does the rogue discover himself for what he really is, but he also makes a beginning in that direction by means of his commerce with others, even to the point of becoming "a watchtower from which to contemplate human life," a moment and an achievement where the path going from individuality to generality in human life loops the loop. (146) This "genuine rogue" described by Garcia-Gomez does not fully apply to Lazaro; instead,

no it is a type that begins (in Castilian literature) with Lazaro and culminates in Guzman. As such, much like the problematic category of the picaresque with which it participates,119 this characterization is tainted by the will of the critic who has ascended his own watchtower from which to contemplate literature. In spite of the cultural generalizations of the prologue, Lazaro does not ascend a "watchtower." The life self-generated in Lazaro does not enjoy completion; revolving around the caso, it does not aspire to such generalizations, but remains unfinished. In this way, Lazarillo is not as susceptible to the criticism Cervantes indirectly levels at Guzman through his characterisation of Gines de Pasamonte, the galley slave who is caught in the 139 conundrum of narrating his biography before his life has ended, and whose account, he claims, will outdo that of Lazarillo (1.22). Lazaro's project is to safeguard a position of relative respectability and prosperity. What is More, through Lazaro's textual interaction with the narratee, Vuestra Merced, the text runs counter to the production of any "watchtower"; indeed, I will argue that it is attempting the very opposite. Rather than one step in an endless loop from the particular to the universal, Lazarillo attempts to establish a balance between them. Governed by real ethical issues of poverty and social mobility, the text employs narrative to deliberately descend from the watchtower and circulate among the downtrodden. This is only possible if the author steps back and resists the urge to imprint his own personality on his characters. In Lazarillo, he does this masterfully, by making the deceptively simple move of practically disappearing into an implied presence. The text's anonymity relies on a sense of individuality strong enough to withstand its own effacement. The lesson sought is not a universal, but particular, and more human(e), as the following discussion reveals.

Lazaro: Individual, Exemplum, Dispropriated Voice We must assume the divisions of La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes: y de sus fortunas y adversidades to be as metatextual as the title page; that is to say, they are the result of editorial intervention. The text takes the form of a letter, a perception that is not strayed from within the text, and as such, identifying and setting apart a "prologue" from chapters (or tractates, tratados, as they are referred to in the text) would be counter to an otherwise rigorous pretence. To make discussion easier, we will adopt the divisions adopted by the editor. The text, then, consists of a Prologue, in which the narrator, Lazaro, addresses the otherwise unnamed Vuestra Merced (Your Grace) followed by seven chapters, or tractates {tratados), of variable length. Whereas the first tractate deals both with the early part of Lazaro's life and his time with his first master, a blind beggar, tractates 2 through 5 deal effectively with one master each: a parish priest (2), a squire (3), a Mercedarian friar (4), a pardoner (buldero, bulero) (5). Tractate 6 quickly dispatches with a painter of tambourines ipintor de panderos)no and a chaplain (for whom Lazaro peddled water); and Tractate 7 deals with the final transitional figure of a sheriff before ending with the Archpriest of Sant Salvador (a parish of Toledo), for whom Lazaro sells wine, and to whose maidservant Lazaro is married. 140 Since Lazaro associates his work for the Archpriest to be (indirectly) work for God and his Vuestra Merced, we can only assume the latter to be the Archpriest's superior, likely a diocesan bishop. An initial plot-level reading would have the caso be the questionable relationship of the Archpriest with his maidservant, Lazaro's wife. Rumours have evidently reached the ears of Vuestra Merced, who, more or less discreetly (we do not know whom else he has asked), asks the alleged cuckold directly about the rumours' veracity. Lazaro writes in reaction to this request: "escribe se le escriba y relate el caso muy por extenso, paresciome no tomalle por el medio, sino del principio, porque se tenga entera noticia de mi persona" (9).1' The particular nature of the caso remains a mystery until the end of the text; in Tractate 7, the rumours are described, and the members of the alleged sexual triumvirate swear themselves innocent of the charges. The delay in finding out about the caso is thus a direct result of Lazaro's own conflation of the caso with a complete report on his person, from the beginning (i.e. his birth). This has been read as far more than a mere premise for the writing of an autobiography, and becomes emblematic of a self-justifying approach to literature: "Lazaro escribe para explicar el caso; el caso explica que y como escribe Lazaro" (Rico 1982, 36). That is to say, the end justifies the means: the means, the end. The critical focus thus strays from the content of the text and its referential relationship to society (i.e. Lazarillo as an expose of power relations in mid-sixteenth-century Castile), and focuses instead on the form: the novel as a new way of seeing, as a new way of confronting the world rather than as a particular confrontation with a particular issue. For Rico, this new way of seeing—"the novel as submitted to one point of view"—sets Lazarillo apart from its medieval antecedents.121 In contrast to some epics, Amadis, and the Cartas de relacion, Lazarillo is less of an attempt to impose a view of the world than an example of a life as process; it is less an imperial view from atop a watchtower (or a peak of national, moral, and aesthetic superiority) than a path, an experience, that is told, revealed, and

1 00 travelled from beginning to end by both the author and the reader. Alternatively, interpretation focuses on the content. By describing a life of successive service of various masters representing different classes and areas of social activity, the text is an example of what it takes to survive in a hypocritical society. Lazaro inherits and/or learns his moral corruption from his environment. His parents, products of the same environment, play a minor role in this corruption: the father, who confesses to "bleeding" some sacks of grain waiting

"en el cual el dia de hoy vivo y resido a servicio de Dios y de Vuestra Merced" (129). * "You write [in your letter] that I should write to you and that I should tell you about the situation in great detail. [So,] it seemed proper not to start from the middle, but rather from the beginning, so that you should have complete information regarding me." 141 to be processed at the mill he operated, was sent to the galleys, leaving the mother, Antona, to fend for herself and her son. Without a husband in a decidedly male-oriented world, Antona is forced to rely on all of her domestic and sexual skills to survive. A relationship develops between her and a Moorish groom who provides for his mistress and their son (Lazaro's half- brother) by stealing from his employer. The theft and the sexual and cultural transgression produce even more difficulties for the family: Antona is whipped and forced to move away. Eventually, Lazaro is entrusted to the blind man, who pledges to teach him and enable him to make his own way. Family is torn apart by poverty, which produces desperate acts, which brings down the wrath of laws designed to protect the property of some by denying it to others. All of Lazaro's masters perpetuate this system of poverty, which Lazaro eventually learns to manipulate to his advantage. La cumbre de toda buenafortuna ('the summit of all good fortune') from which he writes is the realization of this ability. At the same time as Lazaro learns to exploit the system to his benefit, he learns, in the act of producing a text about himself, to manipulate the discourse he will use to defend his new domain. Because discourse is being manipulated in a text by a self-described opportunist, and because the text is in response to, and therefore in dialogue with, a centre of authority, both discourse and authority are as corruptible and corrupted as Lazaro. The moment the rogue puts pen to paper and takes control of his own life by becoming its author, he exposes the authorities (the centre(s) of control manifested through authoritative discourse) to criticism according to their own expressed ethical standards. In this light, the scandal of the caso pales in comparison to the scandal of a society that condemns a strategy of survival while at the same time producing the peril that makes such a strategy necessary. The significance of the caso radiates ever outwards—from Lazaro's cuckolding, to the Archpriest's hypocrisy, to all that is represented by Vuestra Merced and his circle of influence—staining all involved with the ink/blood they have shed. Some have attributed this critique of authority as an admonishment of kings and bishops to perform in a more Christian manner, and thus an expression of an Erasmian sentiment. Indeed, a similar playful inversion practiced in Lazarillo is common in Erasmus: the Turk becomes a reflection of European Christendom's decadence and lack of virue in De bello turcico, and the Turkish threat a "physic to the soul" that must lead Christians (especially Christian princes) to shedding their obsession with worldly and misguided values of honour in order to embrace "things that are real, eternal, unchangeable, and authentic" {Enchiridion 142). 142 The parallels between Erasmian thought and the theological position ofLazarillo are undeniable, but are insufficient to allow us to categorize the text entirely under an Erasmian banner. Fernando Lazaro Carreter makes a more sustainable point: el Lazarillo aparece tocado por la onda de irradiation erasmista, hasta el punto de que, sin la aficion al relato en primera persona (y, en el piano semantico, el gusto por lo lucianesco y el anticlericalismo) que aquella provoca, seria muy dificil justificar su nacimiento. (47-48, emphasis added)

The work is a product of a Lucianesque, anticlerical environment reacting against the excesses of chivalric and sentimental fiction and tending towards a more "realistic" mode of discourse of which autobiography is a key example due to its use of first person narration (47). Lazaro Carreter's approach provides a more satisfying mode of interpretation that combines both form and content. The lack of a definitive author more readily permits a reading of the text as a product of its times; the text is produced out of a time period (for the date, like the author, is not definitively knowable), and in concert with the "waves" (ondas) of its intellectual and political climate. This more holistic approach allows for a vision of how the text's different and not always distinct layers interact with one another. Lazaro's first person autobiography and defence of his innocence with regard to the caso is directed not only towards the narratee, Vuestra Merced, but also towards the public at large. The experience each of these narratees takes away from the text drives my interpretation in directions that are sometimes complementary, and at other times, contradictory. In light of the importance the Prologue places on its public audience, restricting our interpretation to that understood by Vuestra Merced would be woefully incomplete. In fact, the caso is only mentioned in the last paragraph of the Prologue. The first pages of the text are intent on saving from the tomb of oblivion (la sepultura del olvido) an account of these supposedly important or special events (cosas senaladas) that will bring pleasure, or better yet, some measure of edification to a wider audience (3-5). There is also a utilitarian motive: the effort involved in writing requires more recompense than the single reader of a private letter can impart. The Prologue is careful to deny the requirement of monetary compensation; on the contrary, the narrator compares himself to a soldier, for whom praise and recognition are ample reward for throwing himself into the breach (6). This claim swiftly transforms into a criticism of empty praise upon which existing elites survive, elites that no doubt include Vuestra Merced as well. Both of the text's missions are encapsulated in the final sentence, the first section {regarding the caso) is -quoted above (page 140), and bears repeating in its full context: Y pues Vuestra Merced escribe se le escriba y relate el caso muy por extenso, paresciome no tomalle por el medio, sino del principio, porque se tenga entera noticia de mi persona; y tambien porque consideren los que heredaron nobles estados cuan poco se les debe, pues Fortuna fue con ellos parcial, y cuanto mas hicieron los que, siendoles contraria, con fuerza y mafia remando salieron a buen puerto. (10-11)*

This passage reveals this text's appeal for the modern critics. Not only is the text a first person narrative, "realistically" written from an individual point of view,123 but it also lauds the self- made man, the antithesis to the morass of decadent feudal nobility out of which the modern individual has so triumphantly emerged. Moreover, this individual is not the elite hero of Jacob Burckhardt's Renaissance, but the Everyman, risen from the oblivion of poverty to perhaps the highest summit of good fortune possible within his despotically traditional surroundings. Lazaro, in other words, is really stickin' it to the Man without losing the authenticity that accompanies a never-ending struggle to maintain a marginal, albeit a marginally improved, material and political situation. Lazaro is more than this, however, and we must take care lest he be misappropriated by a single, and singular, political vision that is the cult of the individual. Lazaro is not a mere type nor is he a polemically designed caricature typical to Erasmian Lucianesque satire; rather, he is a true literary individual, on par with Don Quijote for his ability to live outside the confines of his text and for his ability to become a template against which other literary individuals are measured.124 Lazaro is perhaps less liberated that Don Quijote; the orphaned son of a petty criminal whose has lived through great material lack is not as free as a petty noble who chooses the luxury of books and a world view almost entirely out of sync with practical realities of food, drink, shelter, and family. Not taken to quixotic flights of fancy, Lazaro is painfully aware of the authorities to which he finds himself subject. He continues to be a servant, but he has learned to better himself by changing the nature of his service through discourse. In Tractate 7, he serves many masters at once, rather than a series of masters in succession, as in Tractates 1 through 6. By taking control of his own tale, Lazaro realizes a multiple subjectivity: by becoming an author, he engages more effectively with authority and the authorities. This engagement does not assert absolute control; indeed, in the face of his subjection, he is unable to become a truly

"You write [in your letter] that I should write to you and that 1 should tell you about the situation in great detail. [So,] it seemed proper not to start from the middle, but rather from the beginning, so that you should have complete information regarding me, and so that those of noble estate might consider how little [of their estates] they are entitled to [because of their own effort]. Fortune has been partial to them. How much more is owed to those to whom Fortune has been unkind, and yet who, with stubborn force have rowed themselves into a decent port." 144 independently conscious subject. Lazaro realizes the power of discourse and attempts to add his voice to the discourse surrounding his personal situation. Without the intervention of his voice, this discourse could easily see him back on the streets praying on others' behalf for change, or worse. The persistent threat to his survival belies any absolute sense of empowerment or independence in taking on the discourse, which remains borrowed, but that is adapted to realize personal goals within a system rather than a wholesale revolution of the system. Lazaro writes from within a power structure in order to manipulate that structure so that it favours him more than it would if he were to remain silent. Opting out of the system is not an option, for it would merely encourage continued oppression, continued dependence, poverty and exploitation. Whether he realizes it or not, Lazaro's motives are as utilitarian (he wishes to dispel the rumours surrounding the caso and thus protect his precarious position) as they are political: he is "the empire writing back to the centre,"125 which implicitly acknowledges the currency of empire by using that currency to assert a personality that has been irretrievably altered by its engagement with the market that gives the currency value. To write back to the centre is an admission of surrender at the same time as a counterattack. This is perhaps clearer in Lazaro's case, in comparison to the clashes between more distinct and traditionally colonial others. In Lazaro's case, there is no historically contrived pre-colonial past that could be used to posit an independent by blending victimhood with empowerment. Such a mestizaje is pre-existing within Spain, the colonial enterprise of which is merely an extension of an internal empire of class, race, and nationality. The voiceless vagrant is just as absent as the massacred millions that fell under Spanish guns, germs and steel, all brutally simplistic extensions of the colonial Spanish narrative self. A far subtler and potentially more effective strategy: engage the culturally hegemonic self as a subdivision of it, an element comprising it, and perhaps, to some degree, affecting its course. Lazaro's independence as a conscious subject is troubled the moment he becomes the subject of a tale that is inscribed into a relationship of being subject to those more materially, politically, spiritually and discursively powerful than he is. Thus, engagement through narrative makes problematic even the use of the term "subject" in its ideal philosophical sense; because the term's various meanings contradict one another, we require another that can better convey a sense of interdependence. "Self," for the same reasons that distinguish it from "individual," is such a term: amorphous enough to allow for a sense of this mode of being that is interdependent with its environment, while not shutting out the idea of corporeal unity explicit in "person." One is less a self than one has a sense of self as part of a network of self-communities. In this way, 145 we can at least begin to think of selves on a variety of levels, involving various numbers of self-units (to avoid the term "individual" as far as possible): there are national selves, class selves, community selves, and selves proper. Lazaro's eruption out of silence is so compelling it threatens to drown out another level of exploration inherent in the text. In part, the relative silence of this alternate voice is due to the text's deliberate anonymity. In spite of efforts to pin the author down, we are not given the luxury of evoking a particular historical figure in our imaginations as we read. The author as personality or as a character eludes us. As a result, Lazaro takes over as the dominant voice. Perhaps the author concealed his identity for political reasons: the anti-establishment tone, in a Counter-Reformation and Inquisitorial context may indeed have endangered the author's social position, or even his life, were he ever identified with the work. It is also plausible, however, that anonymity was used to heighten an artistic mission. Lazarillo was warmly welcomed by readers, especially Humanist readers, who were fed up with the contrived implausibility of chivalric and pastoral romance, yet who nevertheless did not want to abandon all fictional experience for more austere histories. Erasmian readers in particular were on the lookout for new narrative forms more "advantageous" (provechoso) for readers that did not fall completely into the didactic austerity of the likes of Vives and Venegas (Lazaro Carreter 31). Lazarillo fits the bill very nicely. Not only is it engaged with "real life," not only is it engaged with the down and the dirty; it also refrains from speaking down to its audience. The text does not moralize as much as it uncovers the immoral. Instead of speaking down, it speaks up—a convenient idiom for conveying both Lazaro's re-appropriation of voice as well as the author's removal of his own voice, a (appropriation of voice to effect a novel kind of didacticism.126 Rather than teach by telling, i.e., by adopting an authoritative first person narrative voice removed from and in judgement of third person characters, the text teaches by showing. From a Humanist perspective, the project as conceived on Lazaro's level is already an exemplum, albeit not one that stimulates virtue, but social advancement {medrd) along more mundane lines (Yndurain 477). As revealed in the Prologue, born poor and raised badly, Lazaro exemplifies the achievement, by his own labours, of stability and material success. This lesson also extends to those who have not been born in similar circumstances and who have not had to face the hardships faced by Lazaro: those who fail to apply themselves as industriously to improving their own lot and to living up to the wider social responsibilities that are part of their birthright. The exemplum extends also from another level, one that is deeply integrated with the dispropriation of voice. Because the author is absent, or has obfuscated himself, we are left to project onto the text an alternative personality hiding behind Lazaro the narrator: the implied author, defined as "the governing consciousness of the work as a whole, the source of the norms embodied in the work," (Rimmon-Kenan 86) or, alternatively, as "the author's second self (Booth). The category of the implied author is often problematic, and is seen as an artificial and unnecessary anthropomorphism of the relationship between the real author and the narrator;127 however, in the absence of a real author, such a construct is necessary in order to begin to interpret the work from a place of relative stability. Chatman's conception of the constructed nature of the implied author by the implied reader potentially reduces to insignificance the distance between the two, with telling results. We must release the requirement that such representative tables of narrative behaviour be completely balanced: simply because every author has a reader, and every speaker an addressee, does not mean that a construct such as the implied author needs an implied counterpart. In abandoning this requirement, we overcome the confusion caused by the choice of name and by the implicit and false assumption that, because every narrator must have a narratee, these figures can only adopt one function at a time. Lazaro, in responding to Vuestra Merced's letter, is immediately both a narrator and a narratee, as is Vuestra Merced. Similarly, the implied author is both a construct of the reader and a projected second self of the author. The specifically noble reader, to whom this text has been partially marketed, is meant to see himself in the picaro. The readership is wider than this, however, and includes the likes o/Vuestra Merced, not simply the character to whom the text is addressed, but also the type128 that Vuestra Merced represents: someone with ecclesiastic authority and, likely, a Humanist-tinged education, much like that of our elusive author. The implied author/reader is thus an extension of the narratee, Vuestra Merced, and a reader with so much in common with both the narratee and the author that they combine into a single entity. The latter is both a creative force behind the work and the creative force interpreting it. Vuestra Merced, or someone like him, is writing to himself a tale of self- discovery in the voice of the other—a tale in which self-discovery is revealed as this selfsame ability to see through the eyes of the other and to feel charity for the other. This implied presence travels the same learning curve as Lazaro; together, they learn about themselves and learn how to reform themselves in meaningful ways that do not entirely depend on existing authoritative structures. The work is simultaneously political and epistemological. Lazarillo de Tormes neatly navigates a continuum integral to the novel, making it a prototype of the genre: it vacillates between the public and private. As a published work, a novel is meant to be distributed, and is designed to appeal to readers by virtue of a combined ability to entertain and enlighten. At the same time, it is a highly personal project into which the author has poured a great deal of him- or herself. Banal questions persist regarding the relationship between events portrayed and "real" events or people in the author's past, and their answers lack conviction. The fiction-reality relationship is fundamental. It produces discomfort not because the author fears s/he has been falsely representing reality, but because of the fallaciousness of the fiction/reality divide, which is as endemic to the modern mind as the mind/body split responsible for modern disenchantment.129 The self that emerges from the novel extends beyond that of the individual author; this is why others bother to read it. In this way, Lazaro and the authorial presence behind him are perhaps more right than they know when they cite Pliny: "no hay libro, por malo que sea, que no tenga alguna cosa buena" (4). There is no book, even one about the worst element of society, that cannot edify the reader, that cannot show the reader what s/he is, and how to be. Suffering as/for the Other In addition to the intertextual lessons provided by the likes of Pliny, several contextual and intratextual areas inform the stance and didacticism of the novel. Perhaps most important at the outset of the text is the trope of blindness. Halfway into Tractate 2, Lazaro's mother is finding it difficult to keep her children once she and her lover have been punished and forcibly separated. Suffering "mil importunidades" while working in a tavern (el meson de la Solana), she manages to raise Lazaro's half brother, and Lazaro begins to contribute by running errands. When a blind man comes to the tavern and suggests Lazaro become his guide, the mother jumps at the chance. She claims her son is of good stock, the son of a war hero (rather than of a convict who had died serving time in the galleys), and desires that her son at the very least not come out worse than his father. An association with the blind man, it seems to her, is a way of ensuring this. The blind man promises to take care of him and treat him as a son, and, eventually, they are on their way. The mother departs with the following advice: "Criado te he y con buen amo te he puesto; valete por ti" (22).

"I have raised you and placed you with a good master. Make the most of it." Leaving Salamanca, the servant and master cross a bridge on which there stands a large stone bull. On the blindman's suggestion, Lazaro places his ear up to the statue in order to hear a great noise (gran ruido). Yo, simplemente, llegue, creyendo ser ansi. Y como sintio que tenia la cabeza par de la piedra, afirmo recio la mano y diome una gran calabazada en el diablo del toro, que mas de tres dias me duro el dolor de la cornada, y dijome: —Necio, aprende, que el mozo del ciego un punto ha se saber mas que el diablo. Y rio mucho la burla. Paresciome que en aquel instante desperte de la simpleza en que, como nifio, dormido estaba. Dije entre mi: «Verdad dice este, que me cumple avivar el ojo y avisar, pues solo soy, y pensar como me sepa valer.» (23)

This is the second time Lazaro has narrated a sense of interiority with a formula he will repeat many times: "dije entre mi."130 The first utterance is also in response to a shock, but one not that is directly Lazaro's. He relates the story of Zaide, the mother's Moorish lover, who frightens his own son, Lazaro's brother, who mistakes his father for a bogeyman (coco) due to the colour of his skin. Of which Lazaro reports: "y dije entre mi: «Cuantos debe de haber en el mundo que huyen de otros porque no se veen a si mismos!»" (18)" Although it is placed before the blind man's lesson in the story time, this scene lacks a sense of lived immediacy to be an authentic awakening; it is the observation of a mature mind, more like an inherited or learned maxim than the genuine bemused stance of a young man. Here, the voice of Lazaro crowds out the voice of Lazarillo. The cornada administered by the blind man is far more shocking, and evokes a more genuine response. In light of the promises issued by the blind man to the mother, this lesson/trick is doubly cruel, for it is suddenly apparent to Lazaro that he is a servant, not the blind man's surrogate son. As a result, real servitude proves far less than the ideal of a master who cares for the servants that take care of his needs. Physical pain has awakened Lazaro's powers of observation. Whereas before the cornada he is (allegedly) equipped with the means to take lessons from the missteps of others, as with his brother, now he is forced to look at his own

"[And] I, in my simplicity, approached, believing what he said [to be so]. And when he sensed that I had my head close to the stone, he hardened his fist and gave me a great wallop, hitting my head against the damned bull, so that the pain from my goring lasted three days, and he said to me: "Idiot! Know this: the servant of the blind must stay one step ahead of the devil himself!" And he laughed greatly at the joke. It seemed to me that, in that very instant I awoke from the simplicity in which, as a child, 1 had been sleeping. I said to myself: «This one tells the truth, and it behooves me to open my eyes and quicken my wits, to think how I might make the best of things, for I am alone.»" t "and I said to myself: «How many [people] there must be in the world who flee from others because they do not see themselves!»" life. The lesson drawn is as sobering, and as bewildering, as the pummelling: he is alone, and responsible for the outcome of his own life. The final fruit of this awakening is the text that relates this scene, to an extent that makes both events—the telling and the told—albeit separated by a significant period, synchronous, and replete with meaning. The pain suffered by his body has delimited it, given his person definition. This awareness transforms the text into an impassioned attempt to indeed make the most of his life, valersepor si—to take care of himself, to give (or fabricate) for his life a sense of worth, to earn for himself a place in a society that would otherwise run him down like a crazed bull. Before he can come out the other side of his awareness, Lazaro must hit the depths of this internal space. After a dramatic departure from the blind man—he avenges the drubbing that inaugurated the relationship by tricking his master into jumping headlong into a stone pillar— Lazaro is taken in by a parish priest. With the latter, hunger rather than direct physical injury is the rule; the priest zealously guards all the food brought to him by his parishioners by locking it in a chest {un area). Lazaro gets only onions and scraps from his master's table, except during funerals, when he eats well, and thus resorts to praying for others to die: "jamas fui enemigo de la naruraleza humana sino entonces. Y esto era porque comiamos bien y me hartaban. Deseaba y aun rogaba a Dios que cada dia matase el suyo" (52-53). Resorting to the type of subterfuge developed during the time with his previous master, Lazaro obtains a spare key; but, because the priest keeps tabs on the contents of the chest, Lazaro must control himself. He takes only small amounts so that the theft is blamed on phantom vermin: mice and a snake. Thus begins the la comedia del area: the priest begins to fix "mouse holes" that Lazaro continually refashions, until the chest is all but destroyed. Lazaro's hunger has reduced him to the status of an animal; not only does he pray for the death of others, but he is compelled to steal a mouse's portion from the plenty jealously guarded by someone who is supposedly a follower of Christ. The corruption of the church denies the poor the charity that the Christian is supposed to provide. In addition, because base bodily needs are not fulfilled, the sacred is also denied. The chest, el area, is in part a stand-in for the Ark of the Covenant (El Area de laAlianzd), and thus the contract between God and Israel that has been extended, through Christ, to the Gentiles, and which must include charity. Area also suggests a coffin, an even more confining interior space that mirrors that of the priest's quarters, which Lazaro rarely leaves. When he obtains the spare key from an "angelic" tinker, Lazaro notes he has become the basest of idolaters: "Cuando no me cato, veo en

"Never was 1 more an enemy of human nature than at that time. And this was because we ate well [at these funerals] and I gorged myself. I wished, and even prayed, that God might every day kill one of His own." 150 figura de panes, como dicen, la cara de Dios dentro del arcaz" (55-56). He calls the area his "paraiso panal" (56); and, to console himself at one point, he begins to worship the bread: "Yo, . por consolarme, abro el area, y como vi el pan, comencelo de adorar, no osando recibillo [...] Lo mas que yo pude hacer fue dar en ellos [los panes] mil besos" (58)/ Of course, bread, colloquially referred to as "the face of God," is also, when consecrated into the Eucharist, the body of God. Perhaps here is another Erasmian and Reformation critique of transubstantiation: an obsession with the physical aspect of the bread threatens to negate the spiritual significance, the ritual importance of communion with God. In any case, the proprietary behaviour of the priest—he pretends to ownership of the bread rather than being a conduit of bread in both sacred ceremony and temporal charity—denies Lazaro even the remotest contact with the divine. After nibbling at the bread to simulate a mouse, Lazaro is given the end of the bread the "mouse" had eaten: "Comete eso, que el raton cosa limpia es," says the priest, not deigning to eat that which has been corrupted by a supposedly clean animal. To fend off the mice, the priest begins to scrounge the house for nails and shims of wood with which to repair the chest: this "solicito carpintero" (attentive carpenter) perverts once again the model of Christ, also a carpenter, to tasks antithetical to Christianity. The house is being taken apart as all efforts, all attention, focus on the chest; the priest's proprietary instinct matches the corporeal instinct of the hungry servant, and despair escalates as salvation and sustenance are denied. The "mice" continue to attack the chest, and the priest steps up his offensive by setting traps with cheese; it is not enough merely to "defend" the bounty from those most deserving of it, he must now place instruments of death alongside it. The industriousness of the "mice" (they eat the cheese without setting off the traps) forces the priest to reconsider the situation, and, on the suggestion of a neighbour, he decides that his enemy is a snake instead. The poor are thus not only reduced to the status of vermin and locked out of their sacred right, but they are further relegated to the status of the Serpent: more astute, perhaps, than a mouse, but also more a categorically evil invader of the "paraiso panal." . Unsure of the safety of his key's hiding place, the straw of his bed, Lazaro places the key in his mouth. When he sleeps, this makes a whistling sound the ever-attentive priest mistakes for that of the snake, who, in his eyes, had curled up next to Lazaro for warmth, which earns the boy a beating far worse than anything meted out by the blind man. With Lazaro unconscious, the

"When I am not mindful, I see in the shape of the bread, as they say, the face of God inside the chest." t "To console myself, I open the chest, and upon seeing the bread, begin to worship it, not daring to receive it [...] The most I dared do was to give the bread a thousand kisses." 151 priest finds the key, and claims to have found both the mouse and the snake (68-69): "«E1 raton y culebra que me daban guerra y me comian mi hacienda he hallado»" (emphasis added). In a final act of sacrilege—he claims that the mice and the snake had been eating not only the bread, but himself and everything he owns {me comian mi hacienda) —the priest incorporates the bread to himself: the body of Christ, the face of God, the sustenance reserved for the faithful and especially the poor, has been appropriated by the priest. After three days of unconsciousness, and twelve or fifteen more of recovery, Lazaro is put out on the street. To top off his departure from his sacred duties, the priest crosses himself as if to ward off a curse ("santiguandose de mi") (71): the poor have become a curse to the custodian of their spiritual well being. The descent into interior space achieves its nadir in Tractate 3. Here, Lazaro serves the squire, a counterpart to the priest. The priest, sworn to uphold and promote charity, instead enforces temperance to the point of starvation. The squire, whose religion is honour and virtue, fails to recognize the responsibilities normally inherent in such a system, and focuses on the material trappings of an office he has yet to obtain; when Lazaro meets him, he has not been able to find a post corresponding to the status of his birth. After his wounds have healed and begging is correspondingly more difficult (he is told by passers by to find a master to serve), Lazaro seems to have found a master truly worth serving: "topome Dios con un escudero que iba por la calle con razonable vestido, bienpeinado, su paso y compas en orden" (72). Lazaro cannot believe his luck to have found someone who, by his dress and bearing, appears capable of filling all of his servant's needs (73), a master he had assumed had not even been created.132 The squire tells Lazaro to follow him, and they begin a long trek through Toledo. As they pass by market stalls full of food, Lazaro assumes that lunch will soon be provided; but the squire never lingers long enough to buy anything. Lazaro shifts his assumption: he thinks the house must already be well stocked. When they come to the house, Lazaro notes that it is dark enough to frighten anyone entering it: "tenia la entrada obscura y lobrega de tal manera, que paresce que ponia temor a los que en ella entraban" (74).^ Those who are frightened by the gloom of the entrance do not include Lazaro, yet; those entering are abstract and general third persons (los que en ella entraba) whose observation and experience are superficial. Lazaro still hopes for a beneficial

"God had me meet up with a squire who went about the streets reasonably dressed, well groomed, and with an orderly step and measured gait." t "The entrance [to the house] was dark and gloomy in such a way that it seemed to put fear into those who entered." 152 outcome to this new relationship, convinced from the start that this squire, with his manners, dress, and bearing, is exactly what he appears to be: a relatively wealthy hidalgo in need of, and with the concomitant ability to support, a servant. The squire's careful regard to hygiene shores up Lazaro's initial impression: hands are meticulously washed and the cloak carefully shaken to remove the dust collected from the street. Expecting a much longed for meal, Lazaro responds to the squire's inquiries into his origins in a way that conforms to his impressions of his new environment: "yo le satisfice de mi persona lo mejor que mentir supe, diciendo mis bienes y callando lo demas" (74-75). In what proves to be a mise en abyme of the text as a whole, the good that he wishes to take from his situation requires that he fashion his persona to conform to it: he feels compelled to lie by highlighting his positive attributes and suppressing his negatives ones. Slowly, Lazaro comes to suspect the obvious: there is no food, nor any sign of activity that would normally correspond to whom the squire appears to be, Nevertheless, Lazaro is not quite ready to let go, and transfers his suspicions to the house itself: "ella parescia casa encantada" (75).^ The entrance instils fear; the house enchants. Lunch is put off, as the squire claims to have eaten earlier (before 8 o'clock, when he met up with Lazaro). Lazaro does not believe this, but continues to fashion himself out of hope; he claims to be taken to moderation (76), of which the squire approves wholeheartedly, which in turn forces the realization that this is merely another in a line of masters taken to starving their servants "for their own good": el hartar es de los puercos y el comer regladamente es de los hombres de bien" «Bien te he entendido!—dije entre mi—. jMaldita tanta medicina y bondad como aquestos mis amos que yo hallo hallan en la hambre!» (77)+

By veiling his hunger behind the rhetoric of moderation, Lazaro forces the squire's hand; the squire upholds and advances the rhetoric and exposes the fashioned nature of his own self. Especially after his time with the priest, Lazaro -truly understands hunger, as well as the emptiness of rhetorical attempts that transform suffering into salvation. Those who effect this transformation are those who do not suffer because of their ability to transfer their own suffering onto their inferiors. When successful, they enchant their lessers into thinking that suffering has long term benefits; however, when unsuccessful, they merely compound that suffering and evoke

"I satisfied him with [an account of] my person, lying as well as I knew how, by recounting my assets, and silencing the rest." f "It [the house] appeared to be enchanted." * "Bingeing is for pigs, but regulated eating is for the upstanding man. «I understand you all to well—I said to myself—Curse the physic and virtue these masters of mine find in starvation!»" 153 disenchantment. Under the priest's "tutelage," Lazaro's internal suffering through hunger is externalized, culminating in a savage beating that scars him: his body is marked, overwritten, and the spell is brutally broken. The squire, on the other hand, does more than simply advocate temperance. Unlike the priest, whose own bingeing comes at the cost of Lazaro's imposed temperance, the squire masks his own suffering. His careful regard for appearances, in spite of his hunger, is cause for a grudging admiration: ^Quien encontrara a aquel mi senor que no piense, segiin el contento de si lleva, haber anoche bien cenado y dormido en buena cama, y aun agora es de mafiana, no le cuenten por muy bien almorzado?" (83)

This admiration is qualified, however: enchantment is a skill that could be put to use for more truly noble, spiritual goals. Lazaro comments, in a way that betrays the implied authorial presence for its spiritual overtones: "«[...] jOh, Senor, y cuantos de aquestos debeis Vos tener por el mundo derramados, que padescen por la negra que llaman honra lo que por Vos no sufriran!»"(84)t In spite of the transparency of his efforts, the squire continues to promise change, which Lazaro initially believes in, but which eventually proves just as hollow as the first promise. In the face of increased hardship, the promises must become ever greater. When he brings home some money for the first time, the squire claims they will be looking for a different house. The old one is blamed for their suffering, and from being enchanted, is now cursed: decidedly disenchanted. Y mas te hago saber, porque te huelges: que he alquilado otra casa y en esta desastrada no hemos de estar mas de en cumpliendo el mes. jMaldita sea ella y el que en ella puso la prirhera teja, que con mal en ella entre! [...]; mas, jtal vista tiene y tal obscuridad y tristeza! (95)+

Denial of the internal, both body and spirit, in the interests of austerity and a false, externalized righteousness have transformed the internal into another external to be re-fashioned or abandoned. The space itself is blamed for the lack of food within it. The space does not provide, and must be exchanged. Lazaro, once locked out of his "paraiso panal," is now locked into a

"Who, upon meeting with that master of mine, would not think he had dined well last night, slept in a fine bed, and, now that it is morning, who would not count him among the well breakfasted?" * "Oh, Lord! How many of this type do You have spread around the world who suffer for the wickedness they call honour what they would not suffer for You!" * "And what's more, I tell you so that you mind find joy in it: 1 have rented another house, and we will not have to remain in this ill-starred one past the end of the month. Damn this house and those [he and she] who placed the first shingle on it, for misfortune accompanied me when 1 entered it. What a sight it is! Such obscurity! Such bitterness!" 154 breadless hell; his own labours only seem to prolong his suffering. True to his pursuit of honour at all costs, and in blaming the internal space, the squire blinds himself to the need for honest work. His blindness even extends to his allusion, for what kind of house replaces the foundation or the corner stone with a shingle, one of the last things to go onto a house? For the moment, Lazaro is incapable of penetrating this latest enchantment, and takes the money to go shopping. On his way to buy provisions, Lazaro meets a funeral procession, which forces him against a wall as it passes. From the procession, he hears the cry of the widow: her husband, she complains, is taking her "!A la casa triste y desdichada, a la casa lobrega y obscura, a la casa donde nunca comen ni beben!" (95) Lazaro's panicked response is to run home, lock the door, and prevent the dead body from being brought to his house, to which he assumes the widow refers. The squire gets a great laugh at Lazaro's expense. Lazaro's misreading of a commonplace (the funeral procession) betrays a persistent childlike state, but the mistake is telling. Once again, Lazaro is the victim of a dark joke that will illuminate him and that reveals a deeper meaning in the text. He is not managing, as the blind man first tried to teach him, to keep one step ahead of the devil; death now stalks him. The analogy between the house and either the coffin of the dead man and the latter's lifeless destination is less humorous than the cornada for its obviousness, and there is no physical humour to lighten it. This is indeed a house of death: disenchantment has brought with it a view of death as simply lack, as an extension of the suffering rather than its termination or eternal recompense. Spirituality has left the world. Having become a luxury in the face of starvation, the narrative of faith is overshadowed by a narrative that seeks to fill a material void.134 The shock of the funeral procession is quickly followed (after an accelerated gap in the narrative) by the squire's account of himself, which emphasizes a pessimistic and temporal- material view of self: un dia que habiamos comido razonablemente y estaba algo contento, contome su hacienda y dijome ser de Castilla la Vieja y que habia dejado su tierra no mas de por no quitar el bonete a un caballero su vecino. (98)^

"To the sad and ill-fated house, to the dark and gloomy house, to the house where one never eats or drinks!" ' "One day, after we had eaten reasonably well and he was somewhat content, he told me of his estate, and said he was from Old Castile and that he had left his hometown for not having tipped his cap to a gentleman neighbour of his." 155 A "reasonable" amount of food produces sufficient contentment to stimulate an account of self that is based in the material and that continues to yearn for a more than reasonable amount of resources. Not only does the squire tell of his estate, i.e. the land he holds by virtue of his status as hidalgo, but of his hacienda; what he owns (or claims to own) is closely bound to the essence of his self.135 The squire's account to Lazaro presents a second mise en abyme of Lazaro's account to Vuestra Merced. Whereas Lazaro speaks "up," the squire is speaking "down." Both narrators need their interlocutors to give them something: Lazaro, to be left in peace to enjoy his "good fortune," the squire, to have his good fortune recognized even for lack of evidence, and to reaffirm his social superiority over the servant who has been providing him with sustenance in contravention of the traditional master-servant relationship. True to character, however, the squire has reportedly left his home over a trifle: unwilling to always tip his cap first to a gentleman of higher rank than himself, he has avoided the situation completely. (He does not object to the tipping, merely to the fact that the other has apparently always waited to be saluted first, before returning the courtesy.) He adds to his infamy the question of verbal salutations, having insulted an artisan (un oficial, one rank below that of escudero, squire) for saluting him with a "Mantengaos Dios" rather than a "Beso las manos de Vuestra Merced" (100), preferring the latter for its currency at court to the former for its less sophisticated, less cultured ring (100, n.131). The fixation on the appropriateness of verbal salutation reflects the materiality of the squire and the society he represents. Salutations often shed their literal meanings with extensive use. "Adios," for example, in spite of its obvious etymological link to "Dios," does not necessarily mean "go with God" for the speaker or the listener; rather, it is one way of several used to end a conversation without offence. "I acknowledge you," it says, "but I believe this exchange is over. I am leaving now, but this in no way means that I reject you." Similarly, "mantengaos Dios" ('may God preserve you') may not necessarily mean exactly what it says beyond the implication of respect through the use of vos; however, the rejection of "mantengaos Dios" and its replacement with "beso las manos de Vuestra Merced," reawaken the literal meanings of both statements. When Dios is replaced by Vuestra Merced, the speaker's personal submission to a temporal authority eclipses the evocation of Grace and the good wishes this implies; God is being removed from interpersonal relationships along with the any sense of basic equality even between social unequals, which grants far larger jurisdiction to those already in power. This apparently insignificant and ridiculous preference of the squire reflects the 156 (mis)direction of his discipline in pursuit of honour rather than in pursuit of spiritual realization. At the same time, however, this increased sensitivity to the exactness of one's verbal and physical performance opens up the performance to the critical eye; in the context of a constant struggle for material (corporeal) survival, attention to the materiality of words and the materiality of interpersonal relationships reveals the dynamics of a struggle between spiritual and temporal power. Lazarillo's general pessimism suggests that this struggle is being won by the temporal/physical/material. Five of Lazaro's masters are directly connected with spiritual institutions, and are exposed for their part in the corruption of the values they are supposed to represent. To this quintumvirate we must add the blind man, whose trade in incomplete prayers and blessings represents the commercialization of faith, the value shift and restriction of the meaning of "redemption." Tractate 3 shows what happens to society when the keepers of the faith use their spiritual authority for personal gain, abandoning the fundamental Christian value of charity: spiritual energy is redirected towards the practice of honour and the jostling for a position of relative influence. The recipe for success advocated by Lazaro's unfortunate mother—"animate a los buenos"—reflects this shift: "el bueno de los buenos," the goodness of the good, is determined not by Christian values, but their ability to assert themselves within a system of temporal power and influence, by their ability to accumulate, control, and distribute goods. The squire's approach to service is revealed in detail following his assessment of the state of verbal salutations. He has been disappointed in his search for a master appropriate to his aspirations and abilities: vine a esta ciudad pensando que hallaria un buen asiento, mas no me ha sucedido como pense. Canonigos y senores de la iglesia muchos hallo, mas es gente tan limitada, que no los sacaran de su paso todo el mundo. Caballeros de media talla tambien me ruegan; mas servir con estos es gran trabajo, porque de hombre os habeis de convertir en malilla, y, si no, «Anda con Dios» os dicen. Y las mas veces son los pagamentos a largos plazos; y las mas y las mas ciertas, comido por servido. (103)*

The squire is not prepared to serve merely for the chance of a meal or for some used clothing (104), which Lazaro would be happy to receive from his master. Service is conceived of in one

* "1 came to this city thinking to find a good post, but things have not turned out as I thought. I find many canons and church officials here, but these are so cheap that they would not change their ways for all the world. Lesser gentlemen wish to hire me, but to serve these is very difficult work: instead of a man, they treat you as a jack- of-all-trades, or simply send you on your way. And, more often than not, payments are few and far between; you are more likely to be paid simply when you are fed." 157 direction only: upwards. The focus is on achieving success by associating oneself with someone of higher rank, at the expense of being a good master to one's own underlings. The basic needs of servants are barely taken care of, and nothing beyond mere physical sustenance promises to give value (i.e. honour) to their work. The squire's difficulties are no doubt caused by a similar attitude in those he would serve. This upward focus has changed the nature of service, articulated by the squire's projected service of the hypothetical worthwhile master (un sehor de titulo) he dreams of serving: Si con el topase, muy gran su privado pienso que fuese y que mil servicios le hiciese, porque yo sabria mentille tan bien como otro y agradalle a las mil maravillas; reille ya muchos sus donaires y costumbres, aunque no fuesen las mejores de el mundo; nunca decirle cosa con que le pesase, aunque mucho le cumpliese; ser muy diligente en su persona en dicho y hecho; no me matar por no hacer bien las cosas que el no habia de ver; y ponerme a renir, donde el lo oyese, con la gente de servicio, porque pareciese tener gran cuidado de lo que a el tocaba. Si rinese con algun su criado, dar unos puntillos agudos para le encender la ira, y que pareciesen en favor de el culpado; decirle bien de lo que bien le estuviese y, por el contrario, ser malicioso mofador, malsinar a los de casa y los de fuera, pesquisar y procurar de saber vidas ajenas para contarselas, y otras muchs galas de esta calidad que hoy se usa en palacio y a los senores del parecen bien, y no quieren ver en sus casas hombres virtuosos, antes los aborrescen y tienen en poco y llaman nescios y que no son personas de negocios ni con quien el senor se puede descuidar. (104-06)

Everything in this model of service is based on appearances, and just as nothing of substance is passed down to servants by the "canons and church officials," nothing of substance is passed up to this master of rank. Most importantly, all those beneath one's station are worthy only of disdain and mistreatment. The investigations (pesquisas) which form a major part of the servant's labour are merely to advance oneself at the expense of others, rather than on one's own merits. The only reason to attempt to understand someone else is to exploit a weakness in that person for one's own benefit.

* "If I were to find such a man, I would be his right-hand man and would do him a thousand services, for 1 would know how to lie to him as well as any other and flatter him wondrously. 1 would laugh at his jokes and sayings, even if they weren't the best in the world. I would never say anything that annoyed him, even if it were to his benefit. In his presence, 1 would be very careful with my actions and words; but I would not put myself out to do well those things he would never see. Within his hearing, I would put myself to scolding the servants so that I would appear greatly concerned by all that was in his interest. Were he to scold one of his servants, I would spur him on and excite his ire with comments that would appear to be in the servant's favour. I would applaud all that he liked, and, on the contrary, I would maliciously mock and slander both those of the house and those outside it. I would investigate and come to know the lives of others so as to recount them, among many other activities of this sort that are used in palaces and that are looked upon with favour by lords. Lords do not wish to have in their house virtuous men; they loathe such men, disrespect them, and say they are stupid and without utility, people whom a lord cannot trust." 158 Despite its condemnation of this negative type of service, Tractate 3 also offers a reawakening of charity. Lazaro becomes the most faithful of servants. Of course, he began by offering lies to the squire about his own history, but these are not quite on par with the squire's prospective flattery and double-dealing. When they first meet, and after Lazaro's expected meal has been delayed and then cancelled, he takes out three pieces of stale bread. Before he can eat, the squire (who has supposedly eaten) takes the largest, and wolfs it down (77-78). Later on, however, Lazaro's charity is more voluntary. Lazaro goes out to beg in the style taught to him by his first master: Con baja y enferma voz e inclinadas mis manos en los senos, puesto Dios ante mis ojos y la lengua en su nombre, comienzo a pedir pan por las puertas y las casas mas grandes que me parecia. (87)

He also manages to get a cow's foot and some tripe from an offal-monger. When he returns home with his winnings, he shows them to his master, who says (again) that he has already eaten, and wishes him bon appetit. Senteme al cabo del poyo y, porque no me tuviese por gloton, calle la merienda. Y comienzo a cenar y morder en mis tripas y pan, y disimuladamente miraba al desventurado senor mio, que no partia sus ojos de mis faldas, que aquella sazon Servian de plato. Tanta lastima haya Dios de mi como yo habia del, porque senti lo que sentia, y muchas veces habia por ello pasado y pasaba cada dia. Pensaba si seria bien comedirme a convidalle; mas, por me haber dicho que habia comido, temiame no aceptaria el convite. Finalmente, yo deseaba aquel pecador ayudase a su trabajo del mio y se desayunase como el dia antes hizo, pues habia mejor aparejo, por ser mejor la vianda y menos mi hambre. (89)^ Following the squire's model of performance and pretence, Lazarillo controls his eating so as not to appear gluttonous. This "quietened'.' repast {la merienda callada) is accompanied nonetheless by the observation of its effect on the squire. Lazaro cannot overcome his knowledge that behind the pretence of the squire (that he has already eaten) lies a true and deeply felt hunger, with which Lazaro can immediately sympathise due to his own extensive experience

"With a low and sickly voice, my hands placed downwards on my chest, with God in front of my eyes and my tongue on His name, I start to ask for bread at the largest doors and the largest houses I could find." t "I sat on the edge of the bench and, so as not to appear a glutton, made my eating calm. 1 started to dine and bite into my tripe and bread, all the while looking, with sidelong glances at my unfortunate master who would not tear his eyes from my lap, which at that time served me as a plate. May God have as much pity on me as I had on him, for I felt what he was feeling and had many times passed through the same, and continued to day after day. I thought it would be good to offer to share, but since he had said he had eaten, I feared he would not accept the invitation. Finally, I wanted to help that sinner save himself through the fruits of my labour. I wanted him to break his fast as he had done the day before, as the situation was improved: the meat was better, and my hunger less." 159 with hunger. He is compelled to share his food with the squire, on whom he has taken pity; however, he cannot share the food directly, for this would impugn the squire's honour. The squire must be fed in a way that allows him to save face; his claim to have already eaten must not be openly contradicted. Having become a master of pretence himself, Lazaro understands the centrality of performance to the squire's identity. Lazaro's experience of suffering has also prepared him for sympathy. He can "read" the other from the other's point of view by projecting his own experience onto that of the squire. He imagines what it is like to be the squire by remembering what it is like to suffer; the individual body/text that has been scarred by experience becomes the template for reaching out to others and for establishing a communal body/text. The articulation of this community is hobbled, however, by another facet of the community, one that is equally imagined (constructed), and equally real: the hierarchy that has produced the otherness that is being traversed. Compassion cannot be allowed to completely overturn the order that makes compassion necessary.136 Lazaro skilfully manages to satisfy both demands by overlaying the experience of eating for sustenance with an aesthetic experience. The squire observes the grace with which Lazaro is eating. Lazaro, in turn, claims that the quality of the food produces this refinement in his behaviour ("el buen aparejo hace buen artifice"). Thus praised, the food sheds some of its sustenance value, and gains artistic and social value. Food of this sort, the squire can eat in spite of his supposed lack of physical need; the squire partakes, not to satisfy his hunger, but to participate in a pleasurable, communal experience. Master and servant share comments on the quality of the sauce, transforming the most basic of meals (bread and cow's hoof) into a banquet (90). Thus, the breaking of bread becomes a complete experience that not only responds to physical needs, but also to communal, creative, and spiritual ones. The same balance of values goes into the articulation of the self. Following this charitable experience, Lazaro reflects on the "disaster" of his situation: he, the servant, is maintaining the master. A further revelation is necessary for him to develop a philosophical-theological understanding to complement his charitable drive, expressed in the sharing of his food scraps. When tidying up the sleeping quarters, Lazaro happens upon the squire's chronically empty purse: "halle una bolsilla de terciopelo raso, hecho cien dobleces y sin 160 maldita la blanca ni senal que la hobiese tenido mucho tiempo" (91). He comes to a logical, yet necessary, conclusion: «Este—decia yo—es pobre y nadie da lo que no tiene; mas el avariento ciego y el malaventurado mezquino clerigo, que con darselo Dios a ambos, al uno de mano besada y al otro de la lengua suelta, me mataban de hambre, aquellos es justo desamar y aqueste de haber mancilla.» (91-92)'

This master, concludes Lazaro, is poor. Unlike previous masters, who had starved him out of avarice, this master does so because he cannot do otherwise: he himself does not eat. The squire, in spite of being of higher rank, is reclassified among "the least of these," the proper treatment of whom is the mission of the Christian (Matthew 25:40).137 Notably, "mancilla," which I have translated in the note as "compassion," is more accurately defined as the wound that moves to compassion. As the diminutive of the words for "stain" and "blemish," "mancilla" is the recognition or reading of an indicator of suffering and the assumption of that suffering that would have the reader share the Passion with the sufferer.138 This assumption of suffering is done through the imagination, more readily by the interpretation of the scar that leaves the body with oppression's imprint. A greater leap of imagination is required for assuming the other's internal suffering, which lies on a continuum from the physical to the psychological; the knowledge of the other is predicated on the capacity of the individual to imagine (and thereby come to know) himself (Garcia-Gomez 165-67). Lazaro's hunger allows him to feel the squire's; his discovery of the empty purse, however, awakens a psychological compassion that he can only obtain through the practice of narrative. In the process of producing a narrative, Lazaro has become empowered to see the mechanism of narrative. As a result, he penetrates narrative's exaggerations, not in order to eliminate them, but to understand the drives behind them and to practice them in a new way: e.g. in the giving of charity in the guise of a socio- gastronomical experiment (the feast of cow's hoof). In sharing the proceeds of his begging in such an artful way, Lazaro exhibits a level of Christian-inspired sociability that is profoundly at odds with his initial appearance as an unscrupulous rogue who is simply trying to maximize his own standing at the expense of others. Begging in the name of God may be a faithless rhetorical performance to induce pity in others,

I found a crumpled purse of shiny velvet and without a damned cent in it, or any sign that it had contained anything in a long while." * "This one [the squire] is poor, and no one gives of what he does not have. But the avaricious blind man and the accursed miserly cleric, [both of whom] received [provision] from God, one via hand-kissing and the other with his quick tongue, nevertheless starved me to death. It is just to despise those two; this one here [the squire] deserves compassion." 161 but the redistribution of what this begging (and therefore what God) has gotten him invokes, through individual Acts, that which cannot be invoked through hollow prayer. The idea of a righteous beggar also responds to the author's apparent concern with misguided efforts to control vagrancy through legislation rather than dealing with the cause of vagrancy: systemic poverty.139 Of course, it is possible that I am conflating the implied author with the narrator, or, that the Humanist-tinged Christian values of the implied author intermingle with those of Lazaro in his search for material stability and peace in a way that makes their distinction possible. Any frustration of attempts to definitely separate the two voices is deliberate, and replicates the sympathy of Lazaro and the squire by reversing its direction: just as Lazaro finds an element of commonality with the squire that gives him the ability to care for the squire's needs, the implied author makes the same sympathetic link with Lazaro. This effectively makes up for the squire's blindness to the charity and grace he has received; Lazaro's loving deceit that enables the squire to preserve his honour is too subtle for the squire to acknowledge. So caught up in his world of performance, to the extent that his world is performance and nothing more, the player cannot discern when he is being played. The much-admired realism of Lazarillo is the imposed naivete of the narration: Lazaro narrates the story of himself from his earlier self s point of view. In spite of the fact that the text is being written from the perspective of the last instalment, Tractate 7, Lazarillo still progresses through his retold life in ignorance of what Lazaro, the narrator, knows will happen. While there are passages that could be interpreted as editorial, these are relatively well concealed. For instance, during the blind man's cornada joke/lesson on the bridge, Lazarillo does not appear to know the outcome due to his shock when it occurs. He is, however, immediately adept at interpreting the meaning of the incident as part of the awakening and enlightenment trope offered by the blind man as guide. Just as the implied author invades Lazaro's narration in Tractate 3, Lazaro invades Lazarillo's experience from the beginning. It is difficult to determine when and with which narrative level the probing of internality begins because it is not meant to be distinguishable. Lazarillo's stumbling and being beaten to his senses, Lazaro's obsequious and audacious appeal to a higher authority, and the higher authority's investigation of the nature of its power and its accompanying responsibility are evidence of a narrative community of self. All of these activities lie on a continuum of self- understanding in which each level is dependent on the others without being inherently superior to any of the others. 162 Inscribed Community The essential communal nature of the self is solidly expressed in Tractate 7. Before we can reflect on this, however, a brief comment on the intervening tractates is necessary. Between Tractates 3 and 7 lies a quick succession of masters that confirms the importance of the first three for Lazaro's self-formation. The remaining masters are obstacles to be overcome as rapidly as possible in order to get to the culmination of the text, the caso, and Lazaro's self- realization: the end, as the point of view through which everything else is focalized, is also the beginning. The contrast between the relative detail of the first three tractates and the lack of detail in the next three (Tractates 4 through 6), Andree Collard observes, produces in the latter "narrative acceleration and psychological deceleration." From now on, a rapid succession of masters greatly accelerates the narrative pace and creates the illusion of progress on the material plane of action by shifting from the theme of Lazaro's hunger to that of his ambition to become an hombre de bien. (263)

The critique of the material perspective and the affirmation of charity that build until the end of Tractate 3 seem to be swept aside as Lazaro begins to practice what he has learned from the squire's attention to dress and social performance. Lazaro's mission appears as the acquisition of some trappings of success, followed by a torrent of words (the text itself) that serves to affirm a change in status. The absence of an actual cumbre de toda buena fortuna is less important than his behaviour; if he can act as if he were at such a peak, actual success will follow in the form of favour bestowed upon him by prospective masters. For this performance of success to become a successful performance, Lazaro needs to dress the part, and the intervening tractates are, in part (although not to the extent suggested by Collard), a narrative of the collection of garments.140 Tractate 5 resists somewhat the idea of narrative acceleration due to its length: Tractates 4 and 6 take up barely a full page of text, whereas Tractate 5 occupies seven or eight full pages.141 This section tells of Lazaro's time with the pardoner. As with Tractates 4 and 6, the narrative of suffering is minimized.142 If we accept that individual tractates serve a central purpose—Tractate 1 is enlightenment and an introduction to roguery, Tractate 2 highlights suffering and religious hypocrisy, Tractate 3 focuses on secular rank and the possibility of charity, and Tractates 4 and 6 are interested in the obtainment of clothing for the attainment of secular rank-—Tractate 5 (pp. 112-125) is an entertaining anecdote that reinforces the power, importance, and dangers of performance. As such, it interrupts the narrative acceleration, but does not instead involve increased psychological exploration. Lazaro is a peripheral participant 163 to the events he recounts of the pardoner's successful duping of whole communities with false miracles. The Tractate is thus not in the least an exploration of Lazaro's psyche, nor is it a brief obstacle to the realisation his status as an hombre de bien, insofar as this status is achieved by clothing alone. Tractate 5 focuses on the other type of "clothing" that Lazaro must adopt in order to realize his ambitions: an authoritative text of self-representation.1 3 Supposedly from the pen of the Pope himself, a Bull is supposed to represent the will of God as expressed in contemporary context, something even Scripture finds increasingly difficult as the distance increases between biblical events and the present day of the reading experience.144 Nevertheless, the very idea of a pardoner, who is really a bull-driver or bull-monger, speaks to the crisis of authority at all levels of society.145 To be personally successful at his trade (note the shift away from spiritual and communal success to vocational, i.e. individual success), the pardoner must add value to the documents he peddles (rather than simply presenting naturally authoritative texts). At this, Lazaro notes from the beginning of the Tractate, his new master is very successful: fue un buldero, el mas desenvuelto y desvergonzado y el mayor echador dellas que jamas yo vi ni ver espero, ni pienso que nadie vio, porque tenia y buscaba modos y maneras y muy sotiles invenciones. (112)

Upon arriving at a new town, the'pardoner would ply the ecclesiastic authorities with gifts, so that they might favour his attempts to have their parishioners accept the Bull.1 When this did not work, he would resort to threats and tricks, one of which becomes the focus of the Tractate. The sheriff (alguacil) of one town immediately begins to insult the pardoner and his Bulls. As a result, the people, many of whom had sided with the sheriff in his estimation of the pardoner as a liar (falsario), attend the mass at which the Bull is to be presented while grumbling their dissent. The sheriff, the Bull's greatest opponent, tries to further discredit the pardoner by claiming to have been approached with a bribe intended to facilitate the Bull acceptance. After an impassioned prayer at the altar by the pardoner, the sheriff falls to the ground in a stupor, and foams at the mouth. The cure is group prayer combined with the placing of the Bull document on the sheriffs head. The result is predictable: the Bull is accepted by all: "Y a tomar la bula hubo tanta priesa, que casi anima viviente en el lugar no quedo sin ella: marido y mujer, y hijos y

"He was a pardoner, the most self-assured and shameless pusher of Bulls that I had ever seen or ever hope to see, or that anyone has ever seen, for he had and constantly developed ways and means and very subtle contrivances [to promote his Bulls]." 164 hijas, mozos y mozas" (122); also, the pardoner does not even need to preach in the surrounding areas, for the reputation of his Bull precedes him, and all are eager to accept it (123). Lazaro only realizes the planned theatricality of the episode towards the end of the chapter, and comments piously: «jCuantas destas deben hacer estos burladores entre la inocente genre!» (125)t147 The miracle attributed to the Bull is a crude imposition of the authoritative power of documents when combined with popular superstition. By engineering a situation in which they are accused of being exactly what they are—a liar (falsario) and a thief—the pardoner and the sheriff appear to be the opposite. They confirm the people's suspicion of the authority of the Bull and the pardoner, and then slyly flip the suspicions by exploiting that which persists in the people's belief system: they believe there is a God, but are increasingly suspicious of those who act as if they had divine authority. Notably, the pardoner does not inflict the stupor directly, but instead appeals to God to deliver an appropriate sign of the righteousness of his cause; he asserts his authority by seeming to eschew it. Paradoxically, he evades the label of a liar by giving into it. In this context, the trappings of un hombre de bien (i.e. clothes and speech/writing) are recognized as such; Lazaro is under no illusions of actually being a gentleman, and the rogue's confession he writes to Vuestra Merced is a testament to this. This does not remove the importance of performing (i.e. dressing) as if he were a gentleman. In a world of pretenders, it is important to play along, and only children and disempowered innocents admit that the emperor in fact has no clothes. Lazaro reaps the benefits of an illusion while avoiding all accusations that he is deluding himself and others. Likewise, his text—a frank and tell-all account written by an admitted scoundrel—negotiates the same balancing act: its falsity is its truth, and its performance

1 4R is its substance. Even the cynical pardoner understands the importance of community. Communal superstition is not only something to be exploited, but is also something he requires; at least in a limited way, the pardoner and the sheriff s celebration of their success of such superstition is the affirmation of an even more intimate community. The sheriff and the pardoner constitute a community that employs existing value structures to create something that serves their needs. Here, we can see the sermon of the pardoner serving as another mise-en-abyme to Lazaro's letter

"And there was a great rush to accept the Bull, so that almost no soul went without it: husbands and wives, sons and daughters, as well as all servants." ' "How many of this type must there be playing such tricks on the innocent folk!" 165 in which Vuestra Merced, although on one level akin to the audience being duped into sharing, is an accomplice. Just as the sheriff challenges the pardoner during the service and enables the "proof of the power of the indulgence and the authority of its preacher, Vuestra Merced, with his inquiry into the caso, calls the text we read into being. Despite this text's indulgent nature, it is quite unlike the false indulgence sold to the gullible victims of the pardoner; this text is far from a physical relic able to evoke the curative powers of the divine. Lazarillo evokes something far subtler, yet potentially even more powerful that the theatrical and entertaining falsities behind which it hides: a sense of community that transcends the bonds of social status. In Tractate 7, Lazaro finally describes the matter of the caso that drives and permeates this text. Part of his newfound position oipregonero is to sell wine on behalf of clients, one of whom is the Archpriest of Sant Salvador, who takes note of the young man and arranges Lazaro's marriage to his housekeeper. With the archpriest, Lazaro finds all that was missing in his previous masters; rather than starvation and menial, dishonest, or dangerous work, here Lazaro finds "todo favor y ayuda." He has gifts of food and clothing, a house right next to his benefactor and his wife's employer, and meals at the master's table; all of this "on top of (allende de) having a good woman (buena hija) and a diligent servant (diligiente servicial) as a wife (131-32). There is only the matter of the caso that disturbs this bourgeois triumph: "Mas malas lenguas, que nunca faltaron ni faltaran, no nos dejan vivir, diciendo no se que y si se que de que veen ami mujer irle a hacer la camay guisalle de comer" (132). Wagging tongues, the same type of credulous folk taken in by false pardoners, see Lazaro's marriage as a sham, designed to conceal the inappropriate relationship between the priest and his housekeeper. Lazaro has confronted his wife and the Archpriest regarding the rumours. In the wife's presence, the priest denies their veracity, and suggests that it is in Lazaro's best interest to pay them no attention: —Lazaro de Tormes, quien ha de mirar a dichos de malas lenguas nunca medrara; digo esto porque no me maravillaria alguno, viendo entrar en mi casa a tu mujer y salir della. Ella entra muy a tu honra y suya. Y esto te lo prometo. For tanto, no mires a lo que pueden decir, sino a lo que te toca: digo a tu provecho." (132-33).*

"But malicious tongues, which have never nor will ever be lacking, do not let us to our lives, saying I don't know what and I do know, having noticed my wife's comings and goings to make his bed and prepare his food." * "Lazaro de Tormes, he who pays attention to the sayings of malicious tongues will never improve his station. I say this for none of these stories would surprise me, as she has been seen entering and leaving my house. 166 Still in his wife's presence, Lazaro gives more details of the rumours: he has been told that she has borne three children before marrying him (133). This sets off the wife: Entonces mi mujer echo juramento sobre si, que yo pense la casa se hundiera con nosotros; y despues tomose a llorar y a echar maldiciones sobre quien comigo la habia casado: en tal manera, que quisiera ser muerto antes que se hobiera soltado aquella palabra de la boca. (134)*

Lazaro manages to calm her down with promises that he will never mention this again, and that he is no longer worried about her comings and goings, no matter the time, for now he is convinced of her virtue. "Y asi quedamos todos tres bien conformes." (134).^ The wife's outburst in the face of the allegations proves remarkably effective in silencing rumours and ensuring that a communal situation beneficial to its members will persist. Lazaro appears to have learned from this, and applies it to interactions with those who would have him doubt his wife's virtue again: cuando alguno siento que quiere decir algo della, le atajo y le digo: Mira, si sois mi amigo, no me digais cosa con que me pese, que no tengo por mi amigo al que me hace pesar. Mayormente, si me quieren meter mal con mi mujer, que las cosa del mundo que yo mas quiero y la amo mas que a mi, y me hace Dios con ella mil mercedes y mas bien que yo merezco. Que yo jurare sobre la hostia consagrada que es tan buena mujer como vive dentro de las puertas de Toledo. Quien otra cosa me dijiere, yo me matare con el. Desta manera no me dicen nada, y yo tengo paz en mi casa. (134-5)+

Here, Lazaro appeals to his hypothetical friends on several different levels: to their friendship (for friends do not intentionally hurt friends); to the depth of commitment to his marriage ("what God has joined together let no man put asunder"); to the intervention of God's grace, paralleled by the favours his wife bestows on him; to his willingness to swear upon the most sacred substance possible, the Eucharist; and, ironically, to a threat of murder-suicide that contradicts the first level of appeal. This passage also contains a representative sample of Lazar-o's strategy of "distinctionless egalitarianism in which he can justify his own conduct as no more and no less

She enters much to both your and her honour. And this 1 promise you. Therefore, pay no heed to what people might say, but rather look to what concerns you; I mean, to what is to your advantage." "So then my wife burst out with oaths so fervently that I thought the house would collapse on top of us. After this, she took to crying and cursing he who had married her to me, and this to such an extent that 1 wished I had died before having let those words leave my mouth." * "And in this way all three of us were satisfied." * "When I feel that someone intends to say something about her, I cut him off and say: "Look, if you are my friend, do not offend me, for I will have no friends who would do so. What is more, if you want to cause difficulties between me and my wife, she whom I love more than anything in this world even myself, she with whom God has blessed me more than 1 deserve. I will swear on the Holy Eucharist that she is as honest as any woman within Toledo's gates. I will kill, along with myself, anyone who would tell me otherwise." In this way no one tells me anything, and I have peace in my house." 167 defensible than that of others"; in his suggestion that his wife is just as good as any Toledan woman, he "degrade[s] by general contamination" (Shipley 45) and thus pre-empts any moralistic opposition. The over-exuberance of this oath underlines, of course, Lazaro's untrustworthiness, and reflects badly on the wife's oath defending herself against the charge of adultery. Both impose silence, a suspicious and stopgap kind of peace, by sheer rhetorical weight, by the force of the performance rather than the substance of the words. The same strategy is applied to the caso; Lazarillo is a text-oath that performs away the complications of the allegations, and their threat to the peace of a mini-community that is the alleged menage a trois, this "household of three." As soon as it is explicitly brought up, the caso is sworn away in a flurry of oaths from the priest, the wife, and then Lazaro himself. The low insidious murmur of malas lenguas and of the authorities that would act on their accusations is repulsed by a violent flurry of words, then by a threat of homicidal and suicidal violence. Silence reigns, and the structure of his life, like that of his house, remains secure. But, is it love? It is far easier to be cynical than to be hopeful or positive. Ironically, skepticism of the authenticity of the bond between Lazaro, his wife, and their benefactor is upheld only by a highly romantic standard of love that the cynic constructs in order to decimate. Of course, Lazarillo does not help to alleviate scepticism in any way; written in the voice of a rogue by an anonymous author, it is designed to challenge every authority, even its own. Nevertheless, if we tear ourselves away from the need for trusting the narrator, it is possible to see the work globally, as a struggle for influence between narrator, narratee, and the types they represent. This requires focus on the phantasm of the authorial voice, the absent presence that prefigures and guides the reading experience. Without this focus, we are led to sympathise merely with the protagonist- narrator, and the world through his eyes is indeed a menacing place where the only true hope is one constructed out of small mercies. Tractate 3 reveals the deeper meaning of the text: rather than a simple biography (a study of self), as the subtitle exclaims, it is a study of self-making that can only come through understanding the other. The more "other" the other is, the better; and Lazaro makes a noble start by managing to feel sympathy for the squire, who should instead feel sympathy for Lazaro. Accompanied by an exploration of the power of rhetoric and public performance to exploit mass superstition (Tractate 5), this sympathy is what empowers Lazaro to continue. After the discovery of the other in Tractate 3, Lazaro appears to retreat, back into self. His tale, as it picks up speed, portrays him as more of an observer. He -continues to suffer, and he continues to fall under the spell of less than savoury characters, but he is far less a victim than 168 before. His charity towards the squire empowers Lazaro with something he can add to his arsenal of theft, subterfuge, and insincere prayers: a story of one's experience, which, like a crust of bread, can sustain life.150 Lazaro does more than share his earnings, he shares his narrative space; the squire is the only character, besides the narrator, about whom we learn anything substantial. As the recipient of narrative charity, the squire enables us to envision the text as the exploration of otherness and the search for community. Just as Lazaro cedes some space to the squire, so does the authorial presence to Lazaro. Since the authorial presence is similar if not equivalent to Vuestra Merced, the empowerment of Lazaro depends on the withdrawal, disempowerment, and depersonalization of the author, the transformation of the author into the reader. The author is listening so hard to his character that he practically disappears. Rather than blind us to the truth with a flurry of words, he has chosen to allow the tempest to blow itself out. Taking the text at face value as the letter of a pregonero to an ecclesiastical elite, Richard Hitchcock asks why Vuestra Merced should care to hear such an extended account. For Hitchcock, Vuestra Merced's inquiry into the rumours about the archpriest's sexual impropriety is part of a broader investigation. Lazaro's lengthy response is either excessive self-defence (he is reducing his culpability by placing it in the context of his life), or the result of a vanity tickled at being addressed from on high (264-66). Alternatively, if the rumours are true, we should ask why should Lazaro care to defend those responsible for cuckolding him. There is, of course, the question of his own material and social advantage, articulated by the archpriest's remark (133, cited above, p. 165). After a life of punishing starvation, it is expected that Lazaro should protect the only master who has provided for him. If there has been an agreement between the concerned parties to conceal and enable a controlled promiscuity, it is made possible not only by the priest being as good as his word, but also by Lazaro's promotion to a partner in an agreement. Existing norms governing servant-master relations having consistently failed him, he now has the opportunity to help construct a new norm that serves his interests, and that binds him to a household that has at least a chance of defending all its members. Material conditions alone cannot ensure the survival of this micro-community. Only once basic needs of individuals are met can communities hope to survive; however, food, shelter and clothing are not sufficient to hold the community together. Furthermore, if a community is not held together, if it is not relatively stable, the future supply of basic needs is in peril. Charity, in both its material and its narrative forms, helps to redistribute basic needs and to establish connections between people, but there are other values to be considered and employed as well. Understanding the other's pain, suffering, triumph, and story is only the first step towards community, and must be followed by the welding together of disparate narratives into a master- narrative (or, more specifically to this case, a master-servant-narrative that meets the needs of all participants). Charity implies sympathy with difference, an ability to overlook it; however, very few are capable of pursuing this ideal to its natural, self-effacing conclusion. Differences must also be accepted, and embraced, through love. Lazaro gives very little detail about his wife. She is introduced as "una criada" (130), and, once the marriage is finalized, she is described as "buena hija y diligente servicial" (131). The initial impression is that this is a marriage of convenience; for Lazaro, it is part of his trajectory of self-advancement. His mother had led by example in her attempts to "arrimarse a los buenos," which for her meant cooking and cleaning for students. For Lazaro, the office of pregonero is definitely a step up; so is the marriage, which he does not enter into out of attraction. Neither the wife's physical attractiveness, nor the practicality of a domestic relationship are mentioned; rather, the person to whom Lazaro wishes to associate himself is not the woman, but the priest making the offer: "de tal persona no podia venir sino bien a favor" (130-31). The only positive trait Lazaro deigns to mention is that she is not one to engage in rumours; interestingly, her virtue is still only maintained by the priest: "allende de no ser ella mujer que se pague destas burlas, mi senor me ha prometido lo que pienso cumplira," (132)t which is followed by the priest's denial (cited above, p. 165). The lack of an explicit and direct denial of the adultery from Lazaro himself may suggest that he is hedging his bets; perhaps he is trying to avoid displeasing either his master by openly condemning him, or his master's master by refusing to divulge important information. I cannot accept that the lack of an outright and impassioned denial is a tacit substantiation of the rumours. In the first place, since Tractate 3, Lazaro has become increasingly detached from the events of his biography. As he emerges from victimhood into empowerment and as he assumes the posture of an active member of society who is as self-serving as any other member is, he also adopts a tone more appropriate to the writing situation. He is addressing a superior with a view to mitigating accusations levelled against those closest to him and instrumental in his elevation out of poverty and suffering. Since these accusations may result in legal proceedings that would disrupt his life, he assumes the role of a moral advocate. His biography effectively shows that,

"from such a person nothing could come but good and profitable things." t "In addition to her not being a woman involves herself in such childish banter, my master has given me his word, and I think he will be true to it." 170 while he is responsible for pulling himself out of poverty by establishing important social connections, all of his dishonesty has been the product of a cruel and hypocritical society. In the context of a life of suffering and a society that enables such suffering and persecution, the caso, based as it is on malicious tongue wagging, is relatively unimportant. The alleged impropriety of the archpriest is nothing compared to the fundamental hypocrisy of the priest of Tractate 2, who observes the letter of his ecclesiastic responsibilities without regard for the fundamental Christian values he is supposed to represent. Another reason why Lazaro would refuse to engage in an impassioned denial of his benefactor's indiscretion or a passionate representation of his wife is linked to the legal ramifications of adultery in Early Modern Spain. Lack of charity, as a non-action, although it can be morally condemned, cannot be temporally prosecuted. In a fallen world full of sinners, people who do not rise above the general level of imperfection cannot be criminalized as easily as those who intentionally and efficiently excel at imperfection and corruption. All societies assert a hierarchy of criminality, and determine punishments according to this hierarchy. In Early Modern Spain, theft and murder were individual crimes. Murderers and thieves were, in today's parlance, "bad apples"; the rest of the barrel could be salvaged once they were removed. On the other hand, for Spanish authorities, sexual impropriety carried widespread social implications. In his study of Early Modern Viscaya, Reanto Barahona finds that cohabitation was regarded a public sin with the capacity to corrupt the society at large, and, as a result, became a lighting rod for moral crusaders. Part of the Tridentine campaign was an attempt to address the alarming frequency of clerical involvement in such cases: as many as one third of cases involved clergy in Viscaya (which we may assume is representative of Spain in general). In addition, non-clergy, "malas lenguas," would use the general anti-cohabitation attitude to settle personal scores through spurious litigation, to which outsiders, such as Lazaro, were particularly vulnerable (Barahona 96-118). As an attempt to counter the litigation that might easily arise from the caso should the authorities (i.e. Vuestra Merced) find the rumours credible, Lazaro/Lazarillo attempts to invert the hierarchy of criminality: crimes involving property and bodily injury are signs of general social and spiritual corruption, whereas sexual impropriety, if discreet, is relatively unimportant and personal. Lazaro's father and mother, as well as her lover, commit crimes of property and sexual impropriety out of a need to survive. At the same time, those in authority (e.g. all of Lazaro's masters) hoard resources acquired by morally suspect means that are nevertheless sanctioned by the same society that would prosecute those who transgress out of necessity. 171 Not only is there a hierarchy of crimes, but those convicted of such crimes are also treated in disparate ways. In recognition of spurious litigation, there are restrictions on false accusations (resulting in fines), which is offset by the possibility of prosecution for the most serious offenses (e.g. sodomy and bestiality, both of which incur burning at the stake) with mere accusation by anyone, i.e. without "perfect evidence" (Cowans 200, 202). There are also fines for men found guilty of public concubinage. For being the concubine of a clergyman (a law with its own section), the woman is fined and exiled, even given public lashes for repeated offences, the accuser receiving a portion of the fine (200). Cuckolds have power of life and property over the adulterous pair, with certain limitations (201), but, a servant in a relationship with another servant in his master's house is also punished by public lashes and exile (202).151 The actual enforcement of these laws was not uniform, especially with regards to sexual relations involving priests and monks, who were not, in practice, subject to secular law before the fourteenth century (Ruggiero 85). In Renaissance Venice, women began to be prosecuted in greater numbers for adultery (including with priests), an indication that women were increasingly viewed as agents in control of their sexuality. There were more "serious" crimes that involved sexual relations between Jews and Christians, and men with nuns, but the main criteria that influenced prosecution was the public nature of the crime. Once the sexual crime became known through an unconcealed pregnancy or jealousy-inspired violence, then it became criminal; it was the public nature of the relationship that turned into a crime against God and general decency (Ruggiero 70-88). Thus, we can safely assume that one person would bear the brunt of a successful prosecution of the caso: Lazaro's wife. If his marriage and his relationship to the Archpriest were merely of convenience, Lazaro would be less inclined to defend them; as the cuckold, he could extract some profit from the adulterers. The likely disproportionate punishment of his wife, which would involve a crippling fine, a public beating, and possibly years in exile, lead me to believe that he wishes to protect both of them from this fate. Lazaro's connection to his wife is far more than an economically inspired relationship that provides cover for priestly indiscretion in exchange for gifts of clothes and food. Of course, evidence of a truly romantic and passionate love relationship does not appear in the text; however, such evidence would be out of place in a letter from apregonero to an ecclesiastic authority, and, as I have said, would not conform to the more detached tone Lazaro adopts in the latter half of his missive. The text does provide another model from which to extrapolate a meaningful, affectionate connection between Lazaro and his wife: the aborted relationship between Lazaro 172 and the squire of Tractate 3. Having learned to see in the other a reflection of his own suffering, Lazaro was moved to a kind of charity that eventually results in his social betterment and that serves as the model for the establishment of mutually edifying and supportive community. Able to sympathise and love a vain and irresponsible member of the privileged class, it is reasonable that he could reach such an understanding with his wife. They have in common fundamental experiences. The wife is, indeed, a mirror of Lazaro's mother: a hardworking woman willing to compromise an imposed morality for the purposes of supporting her family. Like Lazaro, the wife has likely had a difficult time before landing in the relatively stable and beneficial position of the archpriest's housekeeper. In the service of the archpriest, who has engineered their community, the couple has finally found a situation where they are able to realise themselves in a way that would have been impossible without him. The exile of his wife and the sanction of the archpriest would completely destroy this accomplishment. Even if socially imposed sexual boundaries are being crossed, the archpriest provides for his servants. Once charity and love have cemented community together, provisional walls are drawn around it: a manifestation of hope. At the end of his narrative Lazaro articulates this statically, as obtaining peace in his house. The peace that has been obtained by steamrolling over malas lenguas is ensured (at least, one expects, this is Lazaro and the phantasm-author's hope) by linking this peace to the triumphal entry of Carlos V into Toledo to hold court. In a move diametrically opposed to that of Cortes (who attempts to impose empire on himself and his surroundings), Lazaro builds the empire from the ground up. The hope of a unified Christendom and a unified Europe against the malicious tongues of Reformers and Counter-Reformers and the dreaded military threat of the Turks, Carlos V is a grand, if abrupt, conclusion to Lazaro's (rhetorical) achievement of peace. This peace is the main component of Lazaro's good fortune, and it has only been made possible through the application of narrative. Narrative has enabled him to see the other from the other's point of view and thereby establish a community; and narrative is also the means to his empowerment and the means by which those who would threaten his community are silenced, at least for the time being. The latter point suggests, of course, that community-building is not peaceful. The hopeful wall surrounding the community often serves to include people against their will; these are the voiceless, who are not given nor do they claim a say in how the community is constructed. The wall can also exclude; it can serve to deny charity and love to others who may care to join, or be ambivalent; or, the wall can serve as the springboard for violence and conquest, collective assertion beyond the Pale. The chapter on Cortes has shown what can 173 happen to the self in the latter case. As a discovery of voice and/or an empowerment of voice (it depends if we take Lazaro or the author as the primary mover), Lazarillo also exposes a possible suppression of voice. On their different levels, the authorial voice, Vuesta Merced, and the Archpriest have all provided Lazaro with the means to self-empowerment: not only work, food, lodging, marriage, and a modicum of respectability, but also a premise on which to speak (the caso), and the voice (or pen) necessary to respond. Of course, in the process of empowering the poor and neglected son of a dishonest miller and a whore, the wife and women generally lose both the control of their bodies and their voices. Only Lazaro's mother has a name; the wife, whose vocal presence is summed up in an emotional outburst, has none, in spite of the affection we must assume Lazaro has for her. Clearly, the community as practiced through the narrative of Lazarillo de Tormes has managed to cross the class boundary. It has also penetrated the psyche of character in a way that enables the authorial and reading self to engage with the most essential element of selfdom: the other. The richness of this experience is undermined by the text's inability to go beyond male otherness, but it remains a bold step in that direction.

I have chosen to emphasize the narratological, accompanied by immediately relevant historical context in order to advance a holistic interpretation of the text that eschews the limits imposed whenever one chooses to approach a text from one narrative level at the expense of another. In other words, I have tried not to analyze the text as if it were an actual biography, nor as if it were the solely a fictional and ironic expose of Early Modern Spain from a particular ideological perspective. Rather, I have tried to show how the production of a verisimilar (and yet necessarily fictional) biography is as inextricable from a general cultural ideology as it is hostile to how that ideology is practiced. Preceding modes of fiction (e.g. the pastoral and the romance), were not without their ideology, and cannot be viewed as "mere" escapism, as I hope my study oiAmadis has communicated; however, these modes were not as responsive to the needs of Early Modern fiction readers and critics as they might have been. Lazarillo is a response to shifting storytelling needs: it connects with real issues more directly than the chivalric romance in a way that is more palatable and more widely relevant than the conquest cartas. In the new mode of storytelling, there are still power struggles, heroes and villains, but the world in which they circulate is much more similar to the one actually experienced by readers. The focus of interpretation has also shifted from what things represent, to how they represent. This shift is partly due to the nature of the text (the characters and surroundings move from the fantastical to 174 the typical), and partly due to the stance of the critic (imbued with a culture of critique in which empirical knowledge of how things function is privileged over less "scientific" pronouncements about what things mean). There are several other angles from which to study the development of self in Lazarillo de Tonnes, the most significant of which is the text's relationship to a genre of far wider scope than the picaresque: biography. Since, from an Early Modern perspective, Augustine's Confessions inaugurate biography, there is also the connected perspective of the relationship of Lazarillo to a confession. A complete understanding of Lazarillo is impossible without some appreciation of these generic relationships; others have already engaged this subject, and it is beyond the scope of this study to attempt to add anything new to the discussion. Nevertheless, since these studies complement what I have attempted here, it is necessary to briefly outline the issues they raise. For David Gitlitz, Lazarillo is the expression of a general psychological outlook produced by the presence of the Inquisition. Lazaro's narrative is simply one example of the type of discourse all Spaniards had to be prepared to give; at any time, they might be "ordered to lay out in the form of a caso the most intimate details of [their lives]" (54). As a result, the Spanish self develops "ingrained rhetorical techniques of disclosure and evasion, strategies of self-promotion and vindication, and habits of incessant self-monitoring with their associated hyper-consciousness of one's identity as a reportorial voice" (54-55). In other words, the institutional apparatus produces a sense of self as a verbal (oral and/or written) performance. This opposes Edward Friedman's more general cultural explanation for the rise of autobiography, which includes but is not limited to the threat of compelled confession: the advent of "an autobiographical impulse, which unites confession (and confessional literature), an acknowledgement of the representative nature of the individual, and the self-consciousness (and self-confidence) of the narrating subject" (120, see also Dominguez Castellano n. 22). Both Gitlitz and Friedman explain how social and psychological factors influenced the development of autobiography. Other scholars investigate biography from another direction: how autobiography affects, rather than how it is affected by, the sense of self. Georges Gusdorf, in his seminal essay on biography, explains how the practice of putting one's life into words imposes "logical coherence and rationalization" onto otherwise disparate events. Thus the original sin of autobiography is the first one of logical coherence and rationalization. The narrative is conscious, and since the narrator's consciousness directs the narrative, it seems to him incontestable that it has also directed his life. In other words, the act of reflecting that is essential to conscious awareness is 175 transferred, by a kind of unavoidable optical illusion, back to the stage of the event itself. (41)

In other words, discourse dominates story. One does not become conscious of a self that has been predetermined by the events of one's life; rather, the very act of becoming conscious of one's life determines the selection, and perhaps even the order, of the events that supposedly define that consciousness. In any case, the coherence and unity of the self is produced or performed during its articulation—the narrative process (Garcia Gomez 163). This has interesting implications for the supposed modernity of Lazarillo, which has been deemed modern by virtue of the cohesiveness of the events presented: events are presented as leading up to the present, as having explanatory power in regards to the caso (i.e. for Lazaro himself). The modern self as a consciously self-articulated unity runs into difficulty, however, if we take into account the aspect of the text that is not Lazaro's voice, but that of the authorial presence. The latter model of self is the polar opposite of the cohesive self. By empowering the voice (and the consciousness) of the other, the authorial presence consciously withdraws; it refuses to impose a self-conscious order, and substitutes an other-conscious order. This, for the de-articulated self, is tantamount to disorder, a revolutionary act required for the imposition of an alternate, and more just, order. There is always tension: between articulation and silence, between being in the world and transcending the world, between imposing one's own vision and exploring the possibility of adopting another's vision.153 However, each articulation of self and other is also a hope for community. As St. Athanasius recommends: let us treat each other with compassion, and let us bear one another's burdens. Let us examine ourselves, however, and those things we are lacking -let us hurry to complete. And may this remark serve as a precaution so that we might not sin: Let us each one of us note and record our actions and the stirrings of our souls as though we were going to give an account to each other. [...] Let this record replace the eyes of our fellow ascetics. (72-73).

This is the function of fiction, of which Lazarillo de Tormes is a prime example: it is the "as if that "stands for" our self as we struggle to commune beyond our self in a volatile gesture of love and violence, friendship and indifference, justice and oppression. 176 Conclusion

A central assumption to this dissertation has been the importance to the self (or, the self- importance) of story and its relationship with the web of stories called history. Each text has been treated as a self under the corollary assumption that fundamentally (for society's literates), self is text. Once the authors of Amadis, the Cartas, and Lazarillo put pen to paper and then press to paper, they carved out a space from time. As they arranged the events that would constitute the lives and realities of their characters, they also placed their text as a whole in relation to a tradition—their choice of genre, person, and voice—which in turn articulated (at least to themselves) their own selves, the arrangement of their own set of events and their views on reality. Genre, person and voice choices continue to be critical today. The decreased importance (i.e. popularity) of events and narratives that, in another time, would have been central is reflected in a profoundly altered notion of heroism. In his article "Attack of the Superzeroes," Thomas de Zengotita, exposes a profound anxiety among historians attached to great monuments in the United States. The historical narratives attached to the sites have to compete with more spectacular fictional narratives provided by technologically advanced and financially intensive movies and television. A movie provides a more "real" representation of a moon landing that the actual, shaky footage. Historical reality can no longer compete with represented reality, and the heroes of history are replaced by actors: performers of heroism pretend to sacrifice themselves better than narrated heroes actually did (or, the fictional performance saves us from making the imaginative effort of placing ourselves in another time). The performance seems truer because the performers are more like us, they are as real as us, the superzeroes. There is "a fusion of the real and represented, a culture of performance that ultimately constitutes a quality of being, a type of person—the mediated person. [...T]his type of person doesn't have heroes" (39). Could Augustine be our first such mediated person? It is tempting to see in Augustine the beginnings of a modern relativism in which our imagined communities are shrinking to include only those representations that reflect our own individual images back to ourselves. Taken out of context, the last books of the Confessions are adaptable to a more permissive reading strategy; Augustine demonstrates that it is possible to achieve substantially different (but not necessarily irresponsible) readings from the same passage-of supposedly authoritative text. Nevertheless, for Augustine the existence of a core of meaningfulness is fundamental. He realizes that he is reading a temporal text of temporal words inscribed by temporal men that only 177 imperfectly communicate the nature and will of God; however, in the course of his inward- looking regimen, the words themselves lose their importance in the face of the incorruptible Word, perfect and eternal, a language beyond language in which a Latinized North African can speak with an ancient Hebrew without a translator. It is within me, within the chamber of my meditation that the Truth speaks; not in Hebrew, nor in Greek or Latin or any outlandish speech, without lips, without vocal organs, without the sound of syllables he would say, 'Moses speaks true.' {Confessions 11.3.5) You in return say to me that you are my God. You speak in your servant's inner ear, shattering my deafness and crying, 'O man, what my Scripture says, I say; Scripture speaks in temporal terms, but my Word is not subject to time, but stands fast with me in an equal eternity. What you see through my Spirit, I see; just as what you say through my Spirit, I say. And just as when you say them temporally, I do not say them temporally, so when you see them temporally, I do not see them temporally.'(13.29.44)

Augustine's is no postmodern heterodoxy, but it is easy to see where he might be appropriated into such a system. Orthodoxy is dependent on words being channelled through the Holy Spirit, which is accessed through inward contemplation. The decision, as to which words are sourced from the Spirit, and which from the temporal, is the crux of the interpretative exercise. Augustine, bolstered by a sense of community, was perhaps less concerned; his anxiety over his personal reasons for writing is ultimately resolved in community. To whom am I telling all this? It is not to you, my God; rather it is from within you that I speak to my own kind, to my fellow-men, however few may come to read these words of mine. And why do I do so? So that I and any reader of mine may reflect upon the depths from which we must call upon you. For what is closer to your ears than a heart that confesses you, and a life lived by faith. {Confessions 2.3.5)

Augustine remarks, on several occasions, that although he is confessing to God, an all-knowing omnipresent God has no need of such a confession. Augustine's performance is therefore a model: "Rather I raise up towards you my mind and those who read all this, so that together we may say: Great is the Lord and worthy of high praise" (11.1.1). Paradoxically, whereas God is accessed via intense personal (i.e. private) contemplation ("/raise up towards you my mind"), the self ultimately belongs to a community ("together we may say"). The self-importance that threatens the radical contemplator with sin and an incorrect grasp of the truth is only preventable through a connection to community, where the results of contemplation are put into practice—a valuable lesson for any pathological loner, especially the academic. Practice, however, is full of pitfalls. Reflecting on the etymology of reflection (cogito), Augustine links it to cogo, 'to herd'. Likewise, 'to act' (ago) is related to agito ('to shake up') (10.11.18). Inner reflection, then, "herds" fragmented pieces of divinely inspired memoria, just as the Shepherd herds his sheep, and the Bishop, his ecclesial flock; however, the moment these reflections are acted upon, voiced or written, they become "shaken up." The voiced reflection is severed from its source, only a trace of the Spirit is transferred through the temporal, and within each listener, aided by community, the process of herding must begin again. This does not remove the need to act, but merely implies that temporal and spiritual activity must exist in dialogue; the two are in constant tension, with their locus in the self. The fundamental difference between "superzeroism" and the Augustinian approach is not, as we might first assume, merely one of faith; rather, the difference lies in the attitude towards performance. Whereas Zengotita's historians fret over the degree to which customers consume their museum displays and grand monuments, and whereas the narcissistic consumer wanders from pool to pool in search of a brief tryst with an adequate enough portrait of himself, Augustine performs his own story. It is his performance, in which he is engaged, through which he gives himself voice. This is made possible by his belief that there is someone there to hear his voice: maybe God, but most immediately a community of others who, like him (but also unlike him), are trying to get through life in the best possible way. Perhaps it is history's reliance on text (or, a particular view of text as frozen or closed) that has produced the disconnect exacerbated by consumer culture. Another model of social discourse needs to be brought in to revitalize our relationship to texts. Unlike history, which is traditionally concerned with how things actually were or how they actually happened, discourse around issues of social justice cannot even pretend to rest on an image of how things "really were" because the "real" issue is the terrible inequalities or persecutions or devaluations occurring right now. For the political activist, self may be text, but what is also needs to be is voice. Voice is the cornerstone of the modern Western culture of rights. Those with voice speak for those without. Those with power are those with the means to express themselves to a greater number, those with a greater access to media. Media are managed, messages are formulated and messengers admonished to "stay on message" so as to avoid the confusion of "mixed messages." The oppressed are said to be "silent," and due to their silence, "forgotten." The great crimes and tragedies of the past are likely to be repeated unless they are constantly retold, and other heretofore ignored crimes are "brought to light" in order to "raise awareness" of their current 179 implications for the biological or systemic descendents of victims. For this reason we have Remembrance Day, Holocaust museums, Black History Month and other movements and rituals that reinforce and/or revise the history that informs our sense of being. These movements and rituals are institutionalized (placed on the calendar, given a building) and presided over by a new kind of historian, less of an undertaker and more of a priest. Such movements testify to the power of history to define (or imagine) community, and they are prime examples of the variety of voices that jostle to be heard within the community/history. This is a never-ending process, for within every sub-community is a voiceless group whose silence is reinforced whenever a section of the sub-community speaks for the whole. Furthermore, the need for constant re­ iteration is a sign of the mutability of all identity, as Judith Butler notes in "Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in the case of sexuality: If heterosexuality is compelled to repeat itself m order to establish the illusion of its own uniformity and identity, then this is an identity permanently at risk, for what if it fails to repeat, or if the very exercise of repetition is redeployed for a very different performative purpose? If there is, as it were, always a compulsion to repeat, repetition never fully accomplishes identity. That there is a need for a repetition at all is a sign that identity is not self-identical. It requires to be instituted again and again, which is to say that it runs the risk of becoming de- instituted at every interval. (24. Cited in D. Hall 104)

Self is not only a text. It is also a performance, and a voice. What self is not, or not yet (at least in the texts and the period covered by this dissertation), is an object to be fixed in space and time under the dispassionate gaze of reason. While it sometimes depends on the clarity of a master narrative, the latter remains a structure against which the self can rest awhile or use to propel itself into meaning. Self remains a subjective process. By inserting this dissertation into the master narrative suggested by Taylor, I have replicated this master narrative around a temporally tighter cluster of texts in the ultimate hope that master narratives be seen as an essential part of an endless process rather than as the culmination of a process. Suspicious of individuality, medieval epic deploys characters who are mainly externalized, and any expression of inner, private, personal consciousness is done so within the frame of a ritual prayer or declaration of loyalty. Amadis reveals a more complex relationship to the individual self. The knight is encouraged to wander into the woods, and the violent and romantic encounters that occur there become a right of passage into adulthood and social acceptance. Self becomes a creative process by which the individual manages his private motivations and his public duties into a workable balance. 180 Cortes' cartas reveal a further development. Whereas Amadis is a third-person creation of a didactic narrator, Cortes is both narrator and hero. America, a wilderness of actual Others is not a place of withdrawal and growth, but a place of opportunity. Instead of merely using his exploits in this space to improve his status among his master's retainers, Cortes attempts to build a replica of his master's castle. He must not only create himself as an ideal servant, he must also become a stand-in for the King. Cortes manages this by creatively exploiting all the discourse at his disposal: a rhetoric of empire, kingship, and vassalage; a practice of interrogation and punishment; a process of textual mapping that takes into consideration the abstract needs of the imperial bureaucracy and the particularities of his actual experience on the ground; and a practice of psychological policing and government. More than any of the previous texts, Cortes is also aware of the consumer value of the textual artefact he is producing. He addresses an audience that is as multiple as the means he exploits to construct himself. Thus, at the same time as we obtain an actual individual in control of the narration of his own life, this individual becomes fragmented by the multiplicity of strategies he must use to communicate himself on a multitude of levels. Lazarillo takes this fragmented self and places it into a similar kind of didacticism to that of medieval epic, with one essential difference: the self being sacrificed is the authorial voice itself. The violence done by and to the thegns on the shores of the Blackwater is stripped of its glory when such violence translates into the economic and psychological violence suffered by the poverty-stricken of Early Modern Spain. The anonymous author of Lazarillo is likely historical counterpart to the epic authors: all are educated in the literary and political norms of their societies, and all likely benefit to some extent from the economic arrangements of coerced servitude. The important difference is that the author of Lazarillo chooses to bite the hand that feeds him. With deft irony, he turns the privileged reader's disgust for Lazaro and the subsistence thievery upon which he and his fellow paupers depend into a disgust for a system that creates such desperation. In terms of genre studies, Lazarillo is retroactively inserted into the master narrative called the picaresque, which takes on its "completed" form, for Garcia-Gomez, in Mateo Aleman's Guzman de Alfarache, where the narrator refers to his own text as "Atalaya de la vida humana" (Aleman 70).154 The genuine rogue is a "human incarnation" giving himself shape along the way of living; in fact, in doing so, not only does the rogue discover himself for what he really is, but he also makes a beginning in that direction by means of his commerce with others, even to the point of becoming "a watchtower from which 181 to contemplate human life," a moment and an achievement where the path going from individuality to generality in human life loops the loop. (146)

For Garcia-Gomez, Guzman's achievement is a new moral framework, "a reasoned denial of worldly honor," that enables him to see (or is the result of his being able to see) humanity as if from a great height, able to take it all in with a glance (148). Northrop Frye appears to agree on Garcia-Gomez's conception of successful self- creation: the crowning act of self-identity [is] the contemplation] of what has been made, including what one has recreated by possessing the canon of man's word as well as God's. As Wittgenstein said a generation ago, in a much misunderstood aphorism, in such an act of possession there are no more words, only the silence that marks the possession of words. {Secular Scripture 188)155

Of course, Wittgenstein rejects the very idea of self in language as a logical impossibility. This is closely linked with the idea that philosophy itself, knowledge about the true facts of the world, is profoundly problematic. Bertrand Russell explains in his introduction to Tractatus Logico- Philosophicus: Mr. Wittgenstein maintains that everything properly philosophical belongs to what can be shown, to what is in common between a fact and its logical picture. It results from this that nothing correct can be said in philosophy. Every philosophical proposition is bad grammar, and the best that we can hope to achieve by philosophical discussion is to lead people to see that philosophical discussion is a mistake. [...] The object of philosophy is the logical clarification of thoughts. Philosophy is not a theory, but an activity. (10)

Further, Russell defines Wittgenstein's "fundamental thesis": "it is impossible to say anything about the world as a whole, and that whatever can be said has to be about bounded portions of the world" (17, emphasis mine). And, because for those in the world there are no perceivable boundaries that would make the world, we can only hold the solipsistic view "that the world is my world"; however, for Wittgenstein, this view "cannot be said, it can only be shown" (18)—the ultimate indicator of this boundary being silence. By holding a knowing silence, I show (at least to myself) that everything in my perception of the world is the product of the words I have for worldly things, words that I recognize as inadequate. Thus, Frye's talk of "crowning acts," his musing on teleological wholeness, and the very idea that there is a meaningful canon of any sort are either "bad grammar" or hubris, the sin of which can only be forgiven by a quick adoption of humble silence. Understood as a constructed fact or truth as in Wittgenstein's philosophy, the modern self becomes a process or activity, an endless series of re-creations. Any moment of contemplating one's self-creation produces the . 182 realization that what has been created is incomplete, fundamentally flawed. God's creation is followed by restful contemplation, a full "day" of silence. Man's self-creation can never reach this ideal silence; he can never fully "possess the canon" of creation because the canon itself is part of creation and can thus never permit a view of creation's boundaries, essential to possession. If he should nevertheless attempt such a possession, the best he can do is to try to objectify himself in order to appreciate his arrogance. The would-be possessor of the world and/or of himself is too much of the world to be able to rest in the world; he is "like the troubled sea, when it cannot rest, whose waters cast up mire and dirt" (Isaiah 57:20). Lazaro/Lazarillo is not "on the way" to a crowning moment, he/it has found it, become it, among the wretched of the earth. The role of the scholar is as a priest of social justice: our role is not the provision of comforting platitudes and assurances. Our role is to trouble the clarity, the epic thinking that can lead to violence and injustice, even when this violence seems to protect our own interests (Maldon, Beowulf, La Chanson de Roland, El Poema de Mio Cid as the "War on Terror" and the annihilation of the "Axis of Evil"). Our role is to inject the wandering, omphalocentric romantic with a sense of moral urgency (Amadis as an example of self-indulgent withdrawal to an Ivory Tower, a land of Art for Art's sake). Our role is the study of the purveyors of violence, not to merely condemn, but to understand how and why categories are constructed and acted upon (Cortes as the exile from the Ivory Tower, intent on colonizing the world with his superior understanding and extracting from it the means and the meaning from which he can live comfortably, surrounded by admirers). Our role is to search out examples of de-categorization, of deliberately muddied waters (Lazarillo as the practice of engineered humility: learning in the service of justice, of the removal of the ego). Our role, our mission impossible (if we choose to accept it), is to talk our way into a silence so edifying and terrifying, our only recourse is to begin again... 183 Appendix A: Published editions of chivalric romance 1500-1650

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1 "[...] we may say that self-fashioning occurs at the point of encounter between an authority and an alien, that what is produced in this encounter partakes of both the authority and the alien that is marked for attack, and hence that any achieved identity always contains within itself the signs of its own subversion or loss" (Greenblatt, Self-Fashioning 9). 2 My conception of liminality is informed by the definition offered by Aguirre, Quance, and Sutton: "a limen constitutes a passageway across a border and [,„] 'liminality' designates the condition ascribed to those things or persons who occupy or find themselves in the vicinity of the threshold, either on a permanent basis or as a temporary phenomenon" Aguirre (6-7). I disagree, however, that liminality can be thought of as permanent, for permanent liminality would simply define new borders around itself and become marginality. The necessarily transitional nature of liminality is dependent on its source, as revealed by James Hall: the ethnographic work of Arnold van Gennep, whose Rites of Passage (1909) identifies three distinct phases in tribal initiation ceremonies: separation, liminality (i.e. transition), and incorporation (or aggregation) (cited in J. Hall 34). Hall uses this definition as a basis for a psychological process, in which "the liminal identity is one that involves a shift of identity from the usual sense of self toward an identity that is known to be different from the persona, is feared to be the shadow, and actually moves, if successful, toward a more comprehensive dominant self-image than the one transiently abandoned in the liminal state" (J. Hall 40). 3 Reiss provides an accurate synopsis of Juan-Luis Vives' "La Education" {Didlogos 131-38), where Grinferantes comes to the wise man Flexibulo on the instructions of his father, so that he might become as well-liked ibienquisto) by the townspeople (ciudadanos) as the wise man. In this dialogue, Flexibulo teaches Grinferantes the difference between outward signs of humility, such as those practiced among nobles at court, and actual humility in the formation of fostering a good opinion of oneself. "Entonces <>,tu quieres ser senor de todos y amigo de ninguno?" asks Flexibulo, once Gorgopas, Grinferantes bullish companion enumerates the things that qualify his master to be called "senor" rather than as "amigo" and "hijo," especially by the wise man: many servants and the battle stories of a grandfather. Grinferantes gives an outline of his education thus far, that which makes him a senor to all (but his father) and a friend to no one: Cuanto al dinero, he de ser liberal; cuanto a la honra, tacano. Y tambien cortes y atento, por lo que conviene que yo y los de mi calidad saludemos a los demas, les hagamos en la calle lugar por donde pasen, los acompanemos al entrar en casa y al salir, nos quitemos el sombrero haciendo reverencia, y no porque merezca nadie que yo me conduzca asi, sino porque tal es el modo de ganar el afecto y favor de los hombres, y el aplauso del pueblo, y de acrecentar la honra que tenemos en los labios y en el corazon. (132) Indeed, Grinferantes' motivation for coming to see Flexibulo is for some sort of mystery (cosa ocultd) that will help him add to his families honour and nobility. Flexibulo attempts to show his student that actions such as the tipping of a hat are outward signs of an inner humilty. That which distinguishes man from beast is "razon y entendimiento." Whereas Grinferantes sees his court-inspired behaviour as proof of good education and nobility, Flexibulo explains that goodwill is only obtained when actual and not feigned honour is shown and done towards others "la buena voluntad de los demas se aquista por la honra que a ellos se les hace, y no porque se les honre para que a ti te tengan por mas noble y cortes" (134). There is only one way for Grinferantes to achieve what he desires (the goodwill of the people): "que seas cual quieras ser tenido de los demas" (134). A pot does not boil over a painted fire, and nothing is cut by a knife on canvas. Luego no es lo mismo fingir modestia que sentirla. Lo fingido, alguna vez se descubre o manifiesta; lo verdadero permanece siempre. Fingiendo modestia, alguna vez en publico o en privado haras o diras inadvertidamente—que no siempre seras dueno de ti mismo— 186

algo con que declares el fingimiento, y cuantos lo conozcan te aborreceran tanto y aim mas cuanto antes te amaran. (135) One can only remain modest "Si estas siempre persuadido—lo que es verdad—que los demas son mejores que tu" (135). After listing off the good qualities possible among the masses, Flexibulo asks: ^Que sabes tu de todo esto? /,En cual de estas cualidades te ejercitas? <<,Cual practicas? En verdad, en nada, salvo aquello de «nadie es mejor que yo porque soy hijo de buenos padres». (137) Once the student realizes his error, the master gives his prescription: Para que cuanto te dije se grabe bien en tu animo, retirate a tu casa y piensa a solas, repasandolo y meditando bien, que cuando mas lo repasares, mas cierto entenderas que es. (137) The greatest important lies in the study and practice of virtue, a side effect of which is being well- liked by the people. The main effect is that, in such behaviour, one pleases God. 4 The complete citation by Spence: So, when, sometimes, from my adoration of the beauty of the house of God, the multi­ colored magnificence of the gems has caused me to withdraw from material cares, and suitable meditation has persuaded me to pause and consider (progressing from the material to the immaterial) the diversity of holy virtues, I seem to see myself dwelling as if in some foreign territory of the universe, which is neither lodged wholly in the muck of the earth nor completely in the purity of heaven, and that with God's help I can be carried over from this inferior realm to that superior one in the anagogical way. (Spence 52; emphasis added) Suger's original Latin of the whole citation by Spence reads as follows: Unde, cum ex dilectione decoris domus Dei aliquando multicolor gemmarum speciositas ab exintrinsecis [extrinsecis] me curis devocaret, sanctarum etiam diversitatem virtutum, de materialibus ad immaterialia transferendo, honesta meditatio insistere persuaderet, videor videre me quasi sub aliqua extranea orbis terrarum plaga, qua? nee tota sit in terrarum feece nee tota in cceli puritate, demorari, ab hac etiam inferiori ad illam superiorem anagogica more Deo donante posse transferri. (Suger 62, 64) Panofsky's translation is slightly different (the section that corresponds to that which I have cited of Spence's citation is in italics): Thus, when—out of my delight in the beauty in the house of God—the loveliness of the many-colored gems has called me away from external cares, and worthy meditation has induced me to reflect, transferring that which is material to that which is immaterial, on the diversity of the sacred virtues: then it seems to me that I see myself dwelling, as it were, in some strange region of the universe which neither exists entirely in the slime of the earth nor entirely in the purity Heaven; and that, by the grace of God, I can be transported from this inferior to that higher world in an anagogical manner.. (Suger 63, 65; emphasis added) ' That the transition from earth to Heaven is anagogical for Suger would seem to support Spence's interpretation of this process as textual, since 'anagogy' refers to "mystical interpretation" or, "spiritual elevation or enlightenment" in regard to the understanding and reflection on mysteries. By extension, 'anagogical' is "of words and their sense: mystical, spiritual, having a secondary spiritual sense, allegorical" (OED). Notably, the second meaning of 'anagoge'—"Mystical or spiritual interpretation; an Old Testament typification of something in the New"—implies a bridging, through interpretation, of 187

distinct, yet interconnected realms (as in earth/Heaven, Old Testament/New, body/spirit). For Spence, Suger sees men in general and himself in particular as crucial to this bridge: Through questioning inherited hierarchies, Suger creates a situation which places man at the juncture between the visible and the invisible, and suggests that his unique qualities are his abilities to mediate positively between the two. (Spence 52-53) 5 Having told his men to dismount and go to the battle on foot, Byrhtnod inspects and instructs his troops on horseback (11. 2-3, 17). He dismounts and integrates himself among "his household companions" (1. 23-4). We might assume that the Vikings waiting on the other side, who is able to direct his words directly at "you who are the richest man here," have noticed Byrhtnod on horseback, and that his horse is mounted with a highly decorated saddle, standard for a great lord. The horse that Godric steals is said to have "trappings" (1. 190) (see Owen-Crocker for a discussion of what these trappings might have been and what they may have meant). 6 "The Hawk in the hands of Offa's kinsman is, then, both an evocation of the traditional Germanic heroic world and simultaneously an authentic reflection of fashionable, upper-class life in the late tenth century" (Owen-Crocker 22) 7 According to Sennett, by the Periklean age the Greeks had developed the habit of silent reading [...] Yet the Greeks did not have the modern, abstract experience of a "text": the Greek reader would have thought he heard the voices of real people speaking even on the page, and to revise a written text was like interrupting someone talking. Only when the body was alone, neither speaking nor reading, did its powers grow cold and sluggish. {Flesh 43) 8 The modern French translation gives this as "II sait bien parler et convaincre par ses discours," which indicates the nature of 'rendre', which can mean either 'give' or 'make', pointing to the creative and performative nature of rhetoric, that has replaced the tragic performance of Roland. (For a more detailed exposition of the relationship of chivalric violence and legalism, see chapter VII, "The Trial and Punishment of Ganelon: A Conclusion?" of Vance's Reading, 81-93.) 9 Reiss, of course, continues to have reservations as to when this new order finds an approprate mode of expression: With that language (but much later) would come new politics, new histories, new forms of analysis, new selves: at present, as Bynum observed against Hanning, they identified themselves as communal. The tensions adopted familiar patterns, corresponding still to (now hiearchized) circles of person. (287) 10 « La societe feodale, dans laquelle s'enlise l'Eglise entre le IXe et le Xf siecle, fige la reflexion historique et semble arreter le temps de l'histoire, ou, en tout cas, l'assimiler a l'histoire de l'Eglise.» [...] « Autre negation de l'histoire par la societe feodale, l'epopee, la chanson de geste, qui n'utilise les elements historiques que pour les depouiller, au sein d'un ideal intemporel, de toute historicite » (Le Goff 54). 1' "Le mouvement de la vie—comme celui de l'histoire—est fait de plus de chevauchements que de successions tranches" (Le Goff 26). 12 According to Jacques Lacan's renowned theory, the mirror stage stimulates the objectification of the self, which in turn stimulates the subjectification of the self (1-2): "the /is precipitated in a primordial form, before it is objectified in the dialectic of identification with the other, and before language restores to it, in the universal, its function of subject" (2). It must be noted that language is the universalizing force, and that vision (the observation of the image that becomes the self) is that which brings about the alienation. For Lacan, language is that which reintegrates; language is the tool by which the self asserts the universal, by the which the self, alienated from itself by the fragmentation on the visual plane, reduces the anxiety its self-awareness has brought about. This self-alienation is inextricable from 188

the visual: it requires a mirror (itself a technological development insofar as today's mirrors are capable of reproducing a more or less 'exact' image of the objects within the viewing subjects reflected field of vision). McLuhan would argue that the visual is itself stimulated by writing, particularly by print; the overcoming of the aural field by the visual reduces the communal and produces introspection. Lacan assumes that the mirror stage is universal to human experience, that the visual is the primordial means of self-development. This stage only occurs around the six-month mark, and proceeds through the eighteen- month mark. Even at six months, the child has language, although he is not capable of producing language meaningful to those around him. By eighteen months, the child is capable not only of making signs, but has an extensive vocabulary, mostly in tune with his needs for food and attention, but also a vocabulary associated with external things and not directly linked to need or desire: "dog," "book." Whereas I am prepared to accept the importance of language for an appreciation of the self, I would resist the assumption that this is in any way universal. It must be emphasized that I am discussing a cultural phenomenon, and not a biological one (assuming, of course, the two can be severed). I owe this metaphor for the practice of comparative literature to a talk given at the University of Toronto by Haun Saussy in 2007. The reference is to the sport of curling, and was given as one of the many possible meanings of the word "hack" as potentially appropriate to all areas of "inter-" or "multi- disciplinary" studies, which can often be seen as improvised, or even destructive, in the face of more established "disciplines" such as those of national language departments. In modern curling, the hack is normally a permanent, rubber-lined hole; in its less-developed or informal manifestations, the hack can be an actual indentation cut into the ice surface. Rocks (stones with handles) are propelled towards a target of concentric circles at the opposite end of the rink, called the "house." I have taken the liberty here of renaming the target "home." Some will challenge my use of 'state' to characterize the political collectives of pre- and early modern society. Sanchez Leon characterizes this opposition as symptomatic of the assumption that 'state' speaks exclusively of the unit brought into being by liberal revolutions. In this logic, 'state' is only what modern liberal movements pursue: a bureaucracy and parlimentary run system. For Sanchez Leon, however, 'state' refers to the "principle of institutional coordination, an ultimate reference point in the political arena from which the principles of social order emanate" regardless of the "heterogeneous and decentralized" character of pre-modern social orders. Full citations: "Pues en todo sistema politico, por muy heterogeneo y descentralizado que este se presente, existe un principio de coordination institucional, un centro ultimo de referencia en la arena politica desde el cual irradian los principios de orden generales de una sociedad." estado como "una herramienta para cualquier cientifieo social interesado por la historia de las formas politicas" (298-99). Since texts cannot be isolated from their context, I choose to wear my context more obviously. At least in the North American post 9/11 climate, patriotism has become the guarantor of submission, a positive spin on a negative emotion: fear. To be unpatriotic is to be placed in a category not unlike that of the Maldon Danes and cowards: unpatriotism is an attitude that threatens to bring down civilization, to hand the management of our lives over to the minions of the Prince of Darkness. Far better to be haplessly led by the inefficiency of current administrations that skilfully equate their survival with that of the world order as we know it and as it serves our own material self-interest. "Homelandishness" is a poor pun on the "outlandishness" of the Department of Homeland Security, a centralized organization overseeing all aspects affecting American national security that was spawned by President George W. Bush after the World Trade Centre attacks. This is yet another distinction, or simplification, in the name of making an argument: texts deemed epic contain scenes of wandering, and texts labelled romance eventually engage in teleology. Of course, epic had always been a popular form, stemming from the popular culture and diffused orally from performers to audiences. Romances such as Amadis are more "popular" for their exploitation of literary markets brought about by the printing press: these texts could be diffused across a 189

wider area in less time. A personal physical connection between performers and audiences became more of a virtual connection between authors/producers and readers/consumers. 18 "When Chretien de Troyes proudly contrasted his achievement as a narrator with the unskilled, rambling efforts of story-tellers who did not know how to construct a narrative out of 'tales of adventure', he made it clear that the purpose of poetic composition as he saw it was to give meaning an coherence to amorphous matter. His most subtle and most effective method was an analysis—sometimes simply an explanation—of the characters' motives and feelings" (Vinaver 68). 19 These claims are directly lifted from Auerbach's Mimesis: Homeric style "represents] phenomena in a fully externalized form, visible and palpable in all their parts, and completely fixed in their spatial and temporal relations. Nor do psychological processes receive any other treatment: here too nothing must remain hidden or unexpressed" (6). Legend, in contrast to our "complex" and intertwined understanding of history, "runs far too smoothly. All cross-currents, all friction, all that is casual, secondary to the main events and themes, everything unresolved, truncated, and uncertain, which confuses the clear progress of the action and the simple orientation of the actors, has disappeared" (19). See also my brief discussion of literary modernity on page 2 of the Introduction. 20 The distinction between early modern and medieval attitudes towards language (as conceived through an early modern Humanist lens), is best illustrated through Erasmus' translation of the New Testament term logos in John 1.1 as sermo rather than the traditional verbum: [F]ollowing Augustine, Erasmus associated verbum with the inner activity of the soul struggling to extricate itself from the world, while sermo signified for him a notion of divine oratory as colloquial fraternalism in Christ, expressed not only through the inner man but through the institutions of national grammars as well. (Vance 319, cites Boyle) Verbum is the material word through which the mind engages with the Divine, whereas sermo sacralizes the word, making contact with the Word into contact with the divine itself (Vance 329). In other words, the Divine is no longer something to which one ascends, but rather that which occurs, in the act of reading, in the "heart's eye" (Boyle 83). Augustine's path to transcendence is essentially the reverse of epic, but in the same spirit: whereas the first accesses the transcendent authority of God, the other imposes its authority on a particular society. Of course, Erasmus' sermo has no less authority; however, what interests me here is the shift in the conception of where the attribution of meaning takes place, not on Whose authority. The Church's general resistance to Erasmus and his appeal for scholars today is founded on the threat to orthodoxy posed by this shift; once the locus of divine intervention is the individual rather than the Holy See, an important step is made towards relativism, for the authority of the text is surrendered to a significant extent to the reader. In spite of the seemingly oral nature of sermo, it is at its core the product of an engagement with text. 21 My idea of mass is related to Said's conception of "thickness" when dealing with the oscillation that is fundamental to Auerbach's Bible. Auerbach posits the problem of the interaction and seeming contradiction between the Old and New Testaments. The solution arrived at, according to Auerbach, is the notion that the Old Testament prophetically prefigures the New Testament, which in turn can be read as a figural and, he adds, carnal (hence incarnate, real, worldly) realization or interpretation of the Old Testament. The first event or figure is "real and historical announcing something else that is also real and historical." At last we begin to see, like interpretation itself, how history does not only move forward but also backward, in each oscillation between eras managing to accomplish a greater realism, a more substantial "thickness" (to use a term from current anthropological description), a higher degree of truth. (Said 23) 190

References to Amadis will usually include the book, chapter, and page number of the Catedra edition by Cacho Blecua. "1.10: 328" thus refers to book 1, chapter 10, page 328. This reference from the prologue is an exception, where only the name of the section and the page number are given. 23 "E yo esto [la salvacion de las almas] considerando, desseando que de mi alguna sombra de memoria quedasse, no me atreviendo a poner el mi flaco ingenio en aquello que los mas cuerdos sabios se ocuparon, quisele juntar con estos postrimeros que las cosas mas livianas y de menor substancia escrivieron, por ser a el segiin su flaqueza mas conformes, corrigiendo estos tres libros de Amadis, que por falta de los malos escriptores, o componedores, muy corruptos y viciosos se leian, y trasladando y enmendando el libro cuarto con las Sergas de Esplandian su hijo, que hasta aqui no es en memoria de ninguno ser visto, que por grand dicha parescio en una tumba de piedra, que debaxo de la tierra en una hermita, cerca de Constantinopla fue hallada [...]" (Prologo 223-24). There is a claim that the "original" author of Amadis was in fact a Portuguese, Vasco Lobeira. The three-book version, possibly translated from Portuguese (though this remains speculative), was circulating in Castile before 1379 (Place 521). The extant version, however, is sufficiently reworked by Montalvo (although the previous versions are missing) to credit Montalvo with authorship with only slight hesitation. 24 "puesto que es mejor ser loado de los pocos sabios que burlado de los muchos necios, no quiero sujetarme al confuso juicio del desvanecido vulgo, a quien por la mayor parte toca leer semejantes libros" (1.48:484). 25 Once upon a time, therefore, education could "refine" literary tastes rather than engaging in the "damage control" decried by today's purists unable to cope with the dynamism of a popular culture and its access to relatively uncontrollable and "democratic" media. 26 "pocos generos nos exigen un conocimiento de la historia, de la mentalidad, de la cultura de una epoca como la narrativa caballeresca" (Merida 22). 27 My conflation of the writers and readers of these texts opposes the distinction made by Fuchs, wherein the clergerie (clerkliness) of the narration is opposed to chivalry of the protagonist (40-41). In Chretien's Erec andEnide, Fuchs notes, Gawain, after having killed the white stag, is confronted with a dilemma of kissing the most beautiful woman at the court. The problem of making the decision as to who is most beautiful is an example of "the individual flaws that will endanger chivalric culture in the future" because it is in opposition to decisive knightly action (41). The knight is infected with the legalistic reflexivity of the clerk, and the power of the knight is pushed into ethereal nostalgia; the lance tip is blunted by fantasy through the discourse of bureaucracy that is taking centre stage. On the other hand, Keen notes that "knights and clerks sprang from the same stock and understood each other's worlds, better than is often allowed for" (Keen 32). The literature of chivalry was the result of a process of constructing mythic origins for noble families, done by educated servants of noble houses. Where the clerk was himself not part of a noble household (a younger brother, for example, who was not to be an heir to the family fortune), he was at the very least in the employ of such as household, and likely shared his employer's values. The separation of clerks from knights merely on the basis of their immediate occupations (pens or swords) simplifies a complex interdependent relationship. We can see evidence of this change in the tournament, which began as a chaotic affair, after which it became so strictly controlled as to require specific infrastructure (e.g. a stadium and stands for spectators), and then evolved towards being a sport or an art practiced for its own sake and judged according to its own norms. A technological shift in the use of cavalry is linked to the transition of the tournament to the corrida de toros. Shorter reins and stirrups (the estradiota was replaced by the jinete) were developed in response to demand for better manoeuvrability, and the lance and sword were replaced by carta and the rejon, whose function is restricted to bull-fighting (Fallows 16-17). In modern times, the knight faded further into the background in his relation to this sport, becoming a picador, an assistant to the matador with the often considered cowardly job of cutting the bull's neck with a lance from an armoured horse in order to prevent the bull from lifting or tossing its head and untowardly injuring the matador. 29 Os Lusiadas by Camoes may be suggested as an exception to Parker's rule. Clearly basing his text in historical events, Cam5es attempts to associate the glory of Rome and Greece with the daring exploits of Portuguese sailors. However, Os Lusiadas fails to completely mask the heavily mercantile impulse behind the voyages around the Cape of Good Hope in the description of competition with Muslim traders in the area. Perhaps the historical proximity of the events prevents Camoes from engaging in a full-blown portrayal of heroism as classically conceived. 30 The implicit misogyny is not exclusively Montalvo's, and was likely present in the "primitive" version. The decadence and destructive power of matrimony is not an intensification of misogyny, but rather a change in emphasis. According to Juan Bautista de Avalle-Arce (1993), the original, or "primitive" Amadis (the story, known across Europe, and adapted by Montalvo, albeit only surviving today via Montalvo) had the consummation of the Amadis-Oriana love interest result in parricide, regicide, and suicide (10). 31 Amadis has 133 chapters and amounts to 1 549 pages in the Catedra edition (including footnotes). Esplandidn has 183 chapters and 713 pages in Catedra (including footnotes), with a larger font and wider margins. The difference in the ratio of pages per chapter (11.65 in Amadis to 3.90 in Esplandidn) is a significant to a different style in the sequel: more episodic and interested in moving the action along rather than dwelling on events too extensively. 32 There is a touch of irony here, of questionable intentionality. In chapter 7 of his Menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea, Antonio de Guevara lists the salero de corcho as one of the characteristic possessions of the villager that for its very lack of adornment and practicality makes the simplicity of village life far superior to the costly and yet worthless trappings of court living: jOh cuan dichoso es en este caso el aldeano, al cual le abasta una mesa liana, un escano ancho, unos platos banados, unos cantaros de barro, unos tajaderos de palo, un salero de corcho, unos manteles caseros, una cama encajada, una camara abrigada, una colcha de Bretana, unos paramentos de sarga, unas esteras de Murcia, un zamarro de dos ducados, una taza de plata, una lanza tras la puerta, un rocin en el establo, una adarga en la camara, una barjuleta a la cabecera, una bernia sobre la cama y una moza que le ponga la olla. Tan honrado esta un hidalgo con este ajuar en una aldea como el rey con cuanto tiene en su casa. (181, emphasis mine) 33 In employing the breakdown of the text into Dialogue of Counsel and Description of Utopia, I am indebted to J.H. Hexter's Biography of an Idea. However, in placing order of production over order of presentation (Hexter proves that the Dialogue was written after the Description) Hexter becomes distracted from the global meaning of the text, which is lost in his pursuit of an idea, something that can only very problematically be given a biography in that it is inseparable from the text in which it appears. Seeing as everything else is "only words," I suggest that we must attempt to remain true to the text as we know it; it is the only constant in all the commentary about it. Re-conceptualizing its order can only lead us astray. Thus, the Description should be seen to be on a lower diegetic level to the Dialogue (i.e., the Dialogue frames the Description). It is on this foundation that a discussion of the meaning of this order can begin. 34 The Chelsea house itself, as Chambers describes it, was "small patriarchal monastic Utopia" (178). 35 Of the crown: "el rey que en su cabeca la pusiere sera mantenido y acrescentado en su honra." Of the mantle: "conviene este manto mas a muger casada que a soltera, que tiene tal virtud, que el dia que lo cobijare no puede aver entre ella y su marido ninguna congoxa" (1.29: 521). 192

In De bello turcico, Erasmus uses the ever-present threat from the Turk as a means to unify Christendom in a way the Church has failed to do. Here, he leans heavily on the promise of particular rulers (Carlos V, Henry VIII, Francis, Ferdinand II of Aragon) to cure the 'mob' of its collective illnesses, effectively represented by 'Turkish' tyranny, greed, and bloodlust. In the Enchiridion, exhorts the individual Christian to employ the Turkish scourge as a "physic to the soul (143) that will put him on "the road to the spiritual and the perfect life consists in gradually accustoming oneself to be weaned from those things that do not really exist but appear partly to be what they are not, such as base pleasure or worldly honour, and are partly in a state of flux, hastening to a return to nothing, and let ourselves be carried away to things that are real, eternal, unchangeable, and authentic" (142). 37 The teleological, discourse with an end (from telos, 'end' and logid), is contrasted with the dialogical, discourse as continuous process, as conversation (from dia, 'through' and logid). Indeed, discourse itself is derived from the Latin discursus, 'running to and fro,' which does not in itself imply a destination, but a process. 3 Foucault neglects to see the Classical period as the "old man" to his own Renaissance youth, when the latter was engaged in a process-oriented adventure in text, between texts, and between texts and their distinct periods. 39 "Never on the way or in hostel, have a companion long without asking him his name, for by the name one knows the man" (Chretien de Troyes, The Story of the Grail, 11. 558-65; cited in Morris 137). 40 For Simmel, women are confined to passivity (by novels of love): they tend to receive love as a gift rather than conquering for themselves (195). In the woman of romantic chivalry, then, the dual nature of self is not as present as in the male. Outside the pages of such texts, the implied agency and submission of erotic adventure is confined to one gender only at our peril. The highly stylized form of chivalric eroticism, as structured and denatured as it appears in Montalvo, is indicative of a patriarchal attitude rather than an actual reality. 41 "Liminal" and "marginal" are defined above (see the Introduction page 5 and the accompanying note). Because Amadis' self-reflection does not exclude him from participation in the social, but rather prepares him for it, it is liminal and not marginal. There is always a way back in. 42 Haidu links the absence of the sovereign in literature to a political reality in which there was widespread use of "the lieu-tenant, one who holds a particular place (of power) in the absence of another, one who holds that other's place. It is on this possibility of governance in absence, that the twelfth century capitalized, (re)inventing a form of governance different from the face-to-face polity of the Greek polis, the face-to-face dominium of the fortress, and the tributary distances of the Roman Empire." Literature plays an important role since "the necessities of distantiated governance make of the state a violent semiotic state" (162). In 1.21, Amadis overcomes many adversaries in order to learn of the contents of a covered carriage and the accompanying story (the carriage contains a statue of a king with his head and crown split down the middle, accompanied by two ladies). After a further struggle at the ladies' castle, during which the younger lady eventually rescues him by having lions released into the courtyard and enabling him to rescue everyone, he earns the right to hear the story behind the monument: the treachery of Aviseos, who murdered his brother, took over the kingdom and disinherited Briolanja, the rightful king's daughter (460-68). After learning of the treachery, Amadis is compelled under the rules of-chivalry to offer Briolanja succour, which is to be delayed one year in order to coincide with the treachery of Barsinan against Lisuarte that brings the first book to its climactic close. When Amadis is taken to his room by Briolanja's lady-in-waiting {donzella), the maiden reveals that, on Briolanja's orders, it was she who released the lions. Understandably, he reacts favourably: Amadis se maravillo de la discrecion de persona de tan poca edad y dixo: —Cierto, donzella, yo creo qui si bive, avra en si dos cosas muy estremadas de las otras, que serian ser muy hermosa y de gran seso. 193

Amadis dixo: —Cierto, assi me paresce, y dezilde que yo gelo gradezco mucho, y que me tenga por su cavallero. —Sefior —dixo la donzella—, mucho me plaze de lo que me dezis, y ella sera muy alegre tanto que de mi lo sepa. (469-70) [Amadis was amazed by such discretion in one so young and said: 'Certainly, maiden, I believe that if she lives, she will have two exceptional and distinguishing characteristics—great beauty and great wisdom.' Amadis said: 'Certainly, this is how I . see it, and tell her that I thank her very much [for what she did] and that she may consider me her knight.' 'Sir,' said the maiden, 'what you say pleases me greatly, and she will be very joyful as soon as I tell her.'"] Commenting on Briolanja's beauty and good sense, in thanks for her intervention, and under obligation to right any wrong he comes across, Amadis offers to be her knight. "Oido esto por Oriana, veniendole en la memoria que con tan gran aficion la licencia Amadis le demandara, dando entera fe aquello que le enano dixo, la su color tenida como de muerte y el coracon ardiendo con sana, palabras muy airadas contral aquel que en al no pensava sino en su servicio..." (1.40: 606) "apartandose con mucha esquiveza, todo lo mas del tiempo estava sola, pensando como podria, en venganca de su safia, dar la pena que merecia aquel que la causara; y acordo que, pues la presencia apartada era, que en absentia todo su sentimiento por scripto manifiesto le fuesse, y fallandose sola en su camara, tomando de su cofre tinta y pargamino, una carta scrivio que dezia assi: [...]" (2.44: 676) Thanks to Jill Ross for suggesting the idea of "mimetic transference" in relation to this episode. For Foucault, whereas a Utopia is unreal, a site "with no real place" and only an imaginary relationship with society, a heterotopia is a "counter-site" that exist in and interact with a subsequently fragmented real world. The Utopian mirror reflects my shadow; the heterotopian mirror has my shadow walk among us (Other Spaces 24). Utopian language is story, existing beyond the actual world; heterotopian language is discourse, actively shaping the world and exposing its contradictions. The insola Firme takes on the aspect of the ship depicted by Foucault as the "heterotopia par excellence, a space unto itself, "a place without a place, that exists by itself, that is closed in on itself and at the same time is given over to the infinity of the sea" [...] "In civilisations without boats, dreams dry up, espionage takes the place of adventure, and the police take the place of pirates" (27). Amadis and fifteenth-century Europe are certainly not without boats, but Amadis can certainly be seen as a dream for those unable to engage in their own adventures. The Insola has the advantage over a boat as being the "perfect" heterotopia, for unlike a boat, it remains connected to the mainland in a way unavailable to the ship. The latter is adrift on a sea that is as imaginary and disconnected as the Utopia as Foucault conceives it. After the Pena Pobre incident, the Insola becomes even more of a counter-site to society with the addition of a place of personal worship to supplement the more publicly oriented administrative structures and the romantic sites. 48 The characterizations of romance and epic are Nohrnberg's (9-11), the contents of which can summarizec in the following table. EPIC ROMANCE hero shadowed by the divine hero shadowed by the daemonic contest between 2 leaders contest between 2 "magics" "simplified and sustained" "complicated and digressive" purpose: glorification, politics purpose: entertainment "purposeful" "dilatory" "an endless fable argues a distracted poet" Note that the comparison inspiring these characterizations is a result of the Tasso vs. Ariosto opposition. 194

According to Haidu, the peripatetic court was a sign of transition from local to central rule, from the chdtellenie (castle-based local governance by a lord with a band of knights) to the principality, and eventually to the state (161). Errantry, then, is always a move away from errantry, and is never a state unto itself, except, perhaps, in the pages of chivalric romance. 50 Whereas the dream might have, for a more "realistic" effect, been inserted more in line with the story order, its presence here contributes to the text's tradition of dilation; it amplifies the significance of events by delaying their resolution by telling them in as many ways as possible. A "realistic" account would not be able to say so much, for its relevance would be questioned, and the reading would be far more tedious. Since the reader immediately knows that the dream has something to do with what has happened and what is about to happen, the dream's description becomes bearable. 51 The second dream, which occurs in the presence of the priest, and includes actual characters (Mabilia, Oriana, and the Donzella de Denamarcha) (2.48: 708), is later interpreted by the priest (2.51: 728). Again, this contributes to the didactic nature of the text. 52 "Let no man deceive himself. If any man among you seemeth to be wise in this world, let him become a fool, that he may be wise. / For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, He taketh the wise in their own craftiness" (ICor 3.18-19, KJV). "I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my cause: / Which doeth great things and unsearchable; marvellous things without number: / Who giveth rain upon the earth, and sendeth waters upon the fields: / To set up on high those that be low; that those which mourn may be exalted to safety. / He disappointeth the devices of the crafty, so that their hands cannot perform their enterprise. / He taketh the wise in their own craftiness: and the counsel of the froward is carried headlong. / They meet with darkness in the day time, and grope in the noonday as in the night. (Job 5.8-14) 53 Montaigne presents the conflation of this idealized Utopia and the ultimate Other in Des cannibales, where society, for its noted lack of structure, reveals the high structure and resulting corruption of ideals of European society. Just as the enemy Other must be either defeated, contained, or absorbed, the ideal Self attempts through discourse to defeat, contain and absorb the actual self: a self- conquest that will become the model for world conquest. I have engaged in a similar exercise here. Within the frame of a distinction between epic and romance, I set out categories of exile. In isolation, lists and binaries are reductive; allowed to interact within discourse, the boundaries between these distinctions become opaque, revealing a complex process of interaction between them. This is what all scholars (and every other category of learners) do when they reduce a complex idea to a simple statement. If it were any other way, the arrogance of a statement such as "Hegel says x" or "Foucault says /' would be impossible for anyone except the greatest genius to justify. The reduction is meant to move on, to allow the idea to keep moving. 54 "besides keeping his soldiers well disciplined and trained, he must always be out hunting, and must accustom his body to hardships in this manner; and he must also learn the nature of the terrain, and know how mountains slope, how valleys open, how plains lie, and understand the nature of rivers and swamps; and he should devote much attention to such activities. Such knowledge is useful in two ways: First, one learns to know one's own country and can better understand how to defend it; second, with the knowledge and experience of the terrain, one can easily comprehend the characteristics of any other terrain that it is necessary to explore -for the first time [...]" (Machiavelli, The Prince, chapter 14: 125) 55 Thoreau the Artist stands where land meets water, "between the eternal and temporal realms. His job is to keep in touch with both spirit and matter" (Porte 101). Porte's observation is inspired by a reading of Thoreau's poem The Fisher's Son (1840), from The Writings of Henry David Thoreau, (vol VII Boston and New York: Walden Edition, 1906, 111-12), part of which reads: The middle sea can show no crimson dulse, Its deeper waves cast up no pearls to view, 195

Along the shore my hand is on its pulse, Whose feeble beat is elsewhere felt by few (qtd. in Porte 102). Thoreau's purpose, then, is to translate the beauty of the sea for those who cannot see it, to connect the distant heart of the "middle sea" to the heart of the land, Man to Nature/God. Fishing is normally a community activity that employs all the latest technology to acquire food. Anglers distinguish themselves by deliberately limiting the use of technology and pursuing fish that are scarce instead of those which are more easily caught, transforming an act of subsistence into a sport (Waterman 16). The transformation of fishing into a noble activity in early modern times bespeaks a move to a more contemplative activity, a change in nobility that de-emphasizes violence that will be the domain of the eighteenth century gentleman-cleric: while hunting was denied to the clergy, angling was granted, and the reason, I'm sure, is that the repeated (and fruitless) action invokes a profound quiescence. And when this state becomes transcendental, just as the clouds are about to part and reveal the face of God, well, then that's when the fish hits. (Quarrington 91) 56 que "descansaba sobre una geografia abierta, la de la aventura" 57 Even if Montalvo is not writing for a particular individual, he is part of and writes for a particular group. Writing can thus be enabled through direct patronage, or more indirectly and pervasively, through the norms, expectations, and values the author shares with his reading public and the authorities that sanction and support printing in general, and the printing of this text in particular. 58 While the election of a monarch would not have been the sort of election we think of today, there remained elective elements of election in the crowning of a monarch. Richard A. Jackson examines the issue regarding sixteenth-century kingship in France. During the coronation ceremony of Henry II in 1547, for example, there is a specific mention of the "people" being asked to accept the sovereignty of the king over them. While this is, as Jackson reveals, the first mention of such a request, "it was not the first time that a consensuspopuli had appeared in the French coronation ordines" (158). In the Spanish context, medieval theory affirmed the right to resist the rule of tyrannical rulers, which gave way to the Divine Right of Kings during the consolidation of power by the Catholic Monarchs: "Medieval monarchy was dependent upon both divine authority and popular mandate. On the other hand, the later view of the Divine Right of Kings attributed to the individual prince the authority which had previously belonged to the monarchy as a whole" (Exum 429). This transition was a gradual one from the time of Alfonso X and was the result of a merging of (and conflict between) Roman Law and medieval law (Exum 429). The controversy surrounding the succession of Carlos I/V and the Comunero Rebellion indicate that subjects felt they had, or should have had, the right to at least approve a monarch's succession. According to tradition, "the kings of Leon and Castile were first elected by the nobility and by acclamation of the people" (Palencia 167; cited in Mackay 199). 59 The self as threefold mirrors the divisions that make up text, understood holistically as a conflation of writer, discourse, and reader. The flesh and blood individual is ultimately inaccessible to those "outside," who can nevertheless access traces or echoes of this individual by interpreting the text he leaves behind. The public persona is this text: that which can be seen by the outside world, and that which can be controlled to some extent from both sides of the communication equation: the writer/individual chooses which material conditions to highlight, and the reader/public dictates on the interpretation of the material presented and potentially the choices made in deciding what to present (that which has been excluded can be just as important, although requiring a more active commitment to the text). The self becomes "transcendent" not only in the face of its God (assuming that life does not end at the public level, and that not everything religious is necessarily political), but also when it enters the general culture, when those not directly involved in the reading cycle (not directly addressed or imagined by the writer) make further interpretations. 196

I am not claiming that the medieval, or any other self for that matter is not a combination of similar elements, simply that the literary negotiation of the public/private divide takes on a different shape for modernity in response to social, economic, and technological changes that distinguish modernity from previous periods: the spread of literacy, the rise of class consciousness (i.e., the changing power structure in which the idea of nobility is transformed as those once deemed "noble" lose influence to another group more adept at exploiting a changing economic reality), developments in printing, publishing and distribution. 61 Dualisms, of course, are artificial, but their artifice is useful, even critical to understanding. I hope the idea of the dualisms about to be explained as lying within the public/private dualism effectively suggests that once dualisms are juxtaposed, even carefully assembled like matryoshki, that the interplay of different elements within and between the various dualisms takes on the appearance more akin to (a less artificial) reality. 62 This moderates assumptions, such as those as Todorov, that it was Cortes Europeanness (i.e. his use of written language) that won the war; under this logic, any European could have done it. It also moderates the view of the conquest as a geographical accident, as proposed by Jared Diamond's best- selling Guns, Germs and Steel. I prefer not to assume that the conquest was a foregone conclusion in 1519 simply because it was an actual outcome in 1521-22. History is not simply the story of great men and the great battles they fight, but individual decisions, talents, and dumb luck (or Fortune or Providence) all play roles that are as important as the general context. And even if one were to assume that individuals in history are mere puppets or identifiable aspects of their "time," (which I, a relatively historical nobody so far, in my own arrogance cannot accept for myself) they are at the very least explanatory aids that are vital to the text of history and our understanding of it. 63 The delegation arrived in Seville in November, 1519, but Spain was on the verge of revolt after Carlos was declared Holy Roman Emperor in June. When they arrived, the King was in Barcelona, waiting for the Cortes to approve funds to allow him to leave for Germany. When the Cortes delegation arrived in Barcelona, Carlos had already moved on. Adding to their difficulties was the impounding of their ships, along with all the treasure (proof of their success) after a Velazquez crony, Benito Marin, had convinced the Casa de Contratacion to do so. 64 "Obedezco, pero no cumplo" (I obey, but do not comply) or variants thereof, were a mantra of colonial administration, and frustrated many well-meant policies for years to come. Because of communication delays due to distance, and since authorities in Spain could not be aware of changes in conditions or simply the impossibility of implementing their policies, agents on the ground could choose to act in the interests of the Crown rather than simply follow policy to the letter. The reforms of the encomienda and the implementation of hard-fought policies in favour of indigenous rights were famously hobbled in this way; governors and, later, viceroys, could not effectively manage their territories without the support, or at least the tolerance, of former conquistadors, who felt entitled to the spoils for which they had risked their lives. 65 My use of "citizen" in this context is not as gratuitous as it might first appear. In Klein's study of Jews in Medieval Barcelona (and what better way to determine what a citizen is that by what it is not), she states that in Perpignan "Jews may not have been called vecini (neighbors, residents), but they shared some of the obligations and rights of the citizens with those who were, and they were occasionally referred to as habitadores (inhabitants)" (193). The citation on page 85 specifically mentions "el procurador y vecinos y moradores desta villa" in a clear attempt to include the entire community in the decision to "elect" Cortes as their capitdn yjusticia mayor. A distinction is suggested by the use of vecino and morador that may imply a difference of rank (if it is not simply a use of synonyms to emphasize the point, not uncommon in these texts): vecinos are those with property (hence, able not only to live next door to one another, but also to own the doors etc.), whereas moradores are merely residents, with no property and fewer rights. Both groups, if they are indeed different, are represented by the procurador, an advocate, and, for the purposes of this letter, the cabildo or council. 197

Like most of the men he commanded, Cortes was an hidalgo with relatively few prospects in Spain that would allow him to maintain his status as hidalgo, which meant exclusion from direct taxation, and which accompanied the right (and responsibility) not to engage in manual labour. To do so would have endangered one's status. 67 Essentially, this is the view propounded by Cicero in De inventione, where he claims that "a great man transformed [the people] from wild savages into a kind and gentle folk." This rhetor-as-creator taught them "to keep faith and observe justice and become accustomed to obey others voluntarily and believe not only that they must work for the common good but even sacrifice life itself (I.ii (2-3)). Words are empowered to do what (the threat of) violence supports in practical experience. 681 am indebted to Dr. Jane Freeman for introducing me to this text. 69 Reacting to the platonic-inspired critique of rhetoric, Lanham argues "We touch here the center of a nominalist view of rhetoric, a new definition of persuasion. One thinks of it as changing the opponent's mind. This is hard to do; this is the philosopher's way. Far easier—here sophist and Madison Avenue are one—to change his self. To redefine him so that he will do what you like spontaneously, hypnotically, by desire. Psychoanalysis does much the same thing, R. D. Laing's analysis of schizophrenia as bad domestic drama being perhaps the clearest case of this. Offer the patient another frame. Cast him in another play" (Lanham 14, emphasis added). Changing a person's mind is no longer based on the "high" idea of "reasonable" discourse that aims to persuade an interlocutor of the essential truth of one's proposition; by such a process, it is assumed that a fixed truth exists and that one person has a greater grasp on this truth than another, or perhaps that, in dialogue, both reach closer to this essential truth by testing each other's ideas in order to determine which ones are truthful, and ought to be preserved, and which untruthful, and rejected. Instead, one taps into a person's desire, a person's self- image, and offers alternatives that will satiate that desire, or change it altogether. Becoming a better self is either to be more complete due to satiated (if created) desires, or to be "healthier" and better able to confront more social and psychological situations due to practice of actually being someone different. 70 Alderete's is a more extreme and encompassing version of a central point of Todorov's controversial La conquete de I'Amerique: their lack of writing made the Mexica (and particularly Montezuma) less capable of adapting to the situation of intercultural contact. I propose to leave to others an anthropological analysis of the untenability of such statements. For the moment, I am less interested in discovering the true nature of the Other that how the Other is used for a conception of self. 711 am exaggerating here. This characterization of rhetoric's reputation is only the most "popular." The term rhetoric might seem to pose a problem, because it has been variously understood as: (1) the affective function of all discourse; (2) argumentative discourse; (3) the art of persuasion, especially in the area of public speaking; (4) the study of style; and (5) a kind of verbal smokescreen ('mere rhetoric'). In this last, popular understanding of the term, rhetoric is usually seen in opposition to the truth, because it is thought to entail deception through the artful use or abuse of language. (Carman Rhetorical 15) 72 In the dissertation upon which Rhetorical Conquests is based, Carman puts more of an emphasis on the "artificial" nature of truth: [for Cortes] discovering, conquering, and writing to the monarch function merely [as] different facets of the same pursuit and defense of the truth. Although the letters reveal that allegiance to the Crown relies as much on artifice as on any allegiance to the truth, Cortes reconciles these conflicting allegiances by maintaining that the truth itself relies on artifice. (Carman Cortes, i, emphasis added) 198

The end of the Introduction to Rhetorical Conquests prevents us from imposing too relativistic an intepretation of the above passage: Cortes claims to be serving the higher interests of the Spanish Empire, that is, a notion of Christian "truth" that supposedly does not change. Christian faith provides the grounding for this notion of truth because the war against the infidel is seen as a war against false beliefs, against those who reject the "true" faith. The ideological justification for Spanish imperialism, not surprisingly, is based on the stable opposition between truth and falsehood. (18)

73 In the words of Richard Kearney, "Without us, no Word can be made flesh" (4). In his stunning reformulation of religious practice, The God Who May Be, Richard Kearney, a student of Charles Taylor and Paul Ricoeur, proposes we do away with the idea of a God who is, and rather, engage the God that is possible. For Kearney, this practice essentially requires the cooperation of an event (e.g. the burning bush) and an effective reader of that event (e.g. Moses). This effectively removes the distinction between a pre-ordained guided universe and the free individual; the divine is inextricable from the human. 74 Here, Latin functions in the same way (for comparative purposes) as the biblical text discussed by Auerbach. Sometime during or after the medieval period, "a change in the environment [and an] awakening of critical consciousness" the Bible becomes more alien: "the Biblical stories become ancient legends, and the doctrine they had contained, now dissevered from them, becomes a disembodied image" (15-16) (cited at length below, page 209). 75 As will become clear in the proceeding section, "inaugural" here is used in the loosest possible sense. This activity marks a beginning (the contemporary sense of "inaugural") for a type of textual activity, the consequences of which will be made clearer in the next chapter. Like its more archaic root, "augur" (the Roman priest charged with interpreting natural phenomena such as the flight of birds), this is also a reading of a phenomenon—a flock of birds could also be a bunch of open books suspended on the horizon—in order to make certain claims about the future (which is also, for this dissertation, the past). The priest reads the signs (the birds) and proclaims their meaning. The conquistador reads the signs and produces his own flock of birds—the cartas. 76 Notably, the name "New Spain" appears in the first sentence {the address sentence) of the second Carta: "Carta de relacion enviada a Su Sacra Majestad del Emperador Nuestro Senor por el Capitan General de la Nueva Espana Uamado Fernando Cortes, en la cual hace relacion de las tierras y provincias sin cuento que ha descubierto nuevamente en el Yucatan..." (R2, 159). Cortes is assuming the title he has requested (or has had requested ) in the Veracruz Carta, just as he assumes the authority (under the proper rhetorical deflections of authority) to name the land after describing it. 77 As an indication of his reverential priorities, Columbus named the first five major islands he came across as San Salvador, Santa Maria de Conception, Fernandina, Isabella, and Juana. 78 In spite of the efforts of the Catholic Monarchs, "Spain" remained a geographic term when it was used at all. The nation that we know today was still a loose union with Castile and Aragon at its doubled centre, held together by force of monarchical personality rather than any true sense of national unity. 79 The Body politic, or the spirit that carries on after death, being permanent and mobile parallels the movements of the idea (and ideology) of "Rome" after the fall: Rome's haloed body will leave her material body, or, as the jurists of a much later period would have put it, will be "transferred and conveyed over from the Body natural now dead to another Body natural." Thus it happened that "Rome" migrated from incarnation to incarnation, wandering first to Constantinople and later to Moscow, the third Rome, but also to Aachen where Charlemagne built a "Lateran" and apparently planned to establish a Romafutura [...]. (Kantarowicz 82-83) 199

It would seem that this transference of spirit is fundamental to all empires. Virgil's Aeneid portrays the foundation of Rome on the ideological fall of Troy, and the Mexica themselves were a hybrid empire, building on and appropriating the gods and cultural structures of the conquered. The modern nation, particularly in Latin America, is itself a mestizaje of indigenous spirit with conquest spirit. 80 The essential wandering self, lauded by romantics in 18'1 centuries and beyond, strains against the normative efforts of empire. The state hopes to control and contain expression by controlling circulation, at the same time as bringing ritual out in the open by providing public spaces. The great churches on central squares are, we must assume, an attempt to 'nationalise' faith practice, to control it by requiring it be exposed and performed publicly rather than in the domestic sphere or among foreigners. Radical Protestant movements, such as the Quakers, promote a less grand style by moving "back" to the domestic space interpreted as being a more "natural" apostolic practice. After all, the Last Supper was not in a ornate banquet all, but in the attic of a Christian sympathizer. Modern Castilian projects that sought to govern not only the political but urban layout of Spanish cities reveal the continued importance of this novel yet ancient civil idea. Witness the nature of the expansion of Barcelona around the turn of the twentieth century: Castilian ideas of squares (plazas), characteristic of its construction of New World cities, were imposed on the planners in Barcelona as they pondered the possibilities of moving beyond their medieval walls along French, Parisian ideas of arrondissements. Thanks to Prof. Robert Davidson for inspiring this fascinating connection. 81 A central motivation for More's text is his own impending decision to join King Henry VIII's service. In spite of the dangers highlighted by his counterpart, Hythloday, More appears to be convincing himself of the importance of well-run institutions, their ability to effect meaningful governance as an antidote to basic human corruption, and the responsibility of educated men such as himself to apply their talents to the maintenance of such institutions. 82 The attention to security in all matters colonial replicates the extremes to which the Casa de Contratacion in Seville had to go to ensure that no one was cheating the system, either by stealing, or by exerting undue personal influence on proceedings (see Schafer Chapter 1, "La Casa de Contratacion de Sevilla como unico organo ejecutivo de la administracion de las Indias" 31-51). 83 An adelantado was similar to gobernador, but the territory governed was either a frontier zone (and thus not yet under effective crown control), or was simply of unknown expanse. To be the adelantado of the Yucatan would have meant a relatively unrestricted license to govern, explore, and extract resources in the name of the king. The restrictions imposed on Cortes and his predecessors in exploring the region were largely a function of Velazquez's own lack of authority to legitimize anything other than exploration; Diego Colon, "gobernador de las Indias y Tierra Firme" and son of Cristobal, already possessed this authority since 1508. 84 Of course, the revamped central administration was also interested in wealth. In fact, it was likely the potential size and variety of the resources that required (from a-centralist's point of view) central administration if they were to be extracted to the benefit of all (in the centre). Added to this dimension of wealth collection, however, is a sense of responsibility for managing not only the resources but the people. However great the importance we place on wealth as a driving force, the sense of responsibility was fostered by Humanism, as expressed by the likes of Vitoria, Erasmus, and Las Casas. 85 "Each individual, even among the lowest of the people, felt himself inwardly emancipated from the control of the State and its police, whose title to respect was illegitimate, and itself founded on violence; and no man believed any longer in the justice of the law" (233). 86 "Adultery, fornication, rape, homosexuality, and other sexual acts labeled criminal threatened the stability and order of family and community. Thus, the rulers of Venice felt obliged to prosecute the perpetrators of these acts not so much because they threatened public morals but because they undermined society's most basic institutions of marriage and family" (Ruggiero 9). 200

It is unclear who is present at this speech, but it does not appear to be widely public. Montezuma uses the term "nuestro senor natural^ Note that Diaz does not report any declaration of vassalage. In addition, the providential aspect of their coming (i.e. "por nuestras escripturas tenemos de nuestros antepasados") is rendered problematic in Diaz. In chapter 89, Montezuma comes to speak with the Spaniards. First, he says that he had received news of two prior expeditions over the past two years, and "now that he had us with him so that he might serve us and give us all that he had, and that it had to be true that we were those of whom his predecessors had spoken—a long time ago, they had said that men would come from where the sun rises to rule over these lands—and that we had to be these men since we had fought so valiantly in Potonchan and Tabasco..." (p. 212). My translation. From the Diaz account, it is not clear that this mention of the prophecy was not merely a polite exaggeration of a type similar to the offer to give the new arrivals everything, or that it is simply an extension of the news received regarding the prior expeditions. It could be, therefore, that Cortes has misunderstood, either willingly or deliberately. Montezuma also attempts to counter the lies he assumes his enemies (once vassals) have told: he emphasizes that the walls are not golden, and reveals his body to prove that he does not claim to be a god. In Diaz, he does not lift his robe, but merely indicates his body (ch. 90, p. 215). 88 The Diaz account is appreciably different. See chapter 94, where "Quetzalpopoca" is a Mexica lord attempting to extract tribute from "friends" of the Spanish. 89 In Diaz, the decision to imprison Montezuma and the pressure not to release him come from the men. Cortes is reported as often being "in council" with his captains (ch. 95, p. 237). Is this a more probable account? Could Diaz not also be emphasizing his role in events? Is it part of any literary strategy to inflate the importance of oneself in the action, one's status as observer being insufficiently heroic? 90 'Barbarism' is used here in the sense that would have been understood at the time, and that fits better than later colonial discourse on 'race' or 'ethnicity' or even 'culture'. Etymologically linked to the Greek term barbaros, meaning a non-Greek speaking, the word expanded in its meaning as successive groups took on the mantle of civilization represented by Athens. Under Roman rule, it came to designate the non-Latin as well as the non-Greek. Nations that aspired to succeed to Roman imperial greatness used the term to mark what was "civilized" from what was not. 91 Diaz does not go so far as to support this meek acceptance, but does confirm the emperor's resignation to his situtation. (ch. 95, p. 237). It is difficult to generalize about which crimes received which punishments due to variations from region to region, the study of which is beyond the scope of this project. In Early Modern Spain, sodomy was sometimes thought to stem from a disease, and its practitioners were flogged (sometimes to death) (Garza Carvajal 1). The more extreme sexual crimes (bestiality, and sodomy) could be punished by burning at the stake (Cowans 200-02), a punishment also used by the Inquisition to deal with the most unrepentant heretics or repeat offenders. Flogging was also used against those found guilty of bigamy, adultery, or concubinage (Burshatin 14; Cowans 200-02), and the latter two could also incur fines. Treason was generally punished by hanging, but those of rank we often beheaded instead. The burning of Qualpopoca, in spite of his rank, might be interpreted as an attempted representation of his treason as a disease requiring extreme elimination. Or, it is a kind of heresy or infidelity: his loyalty is distracted away from the One True Christian God (or Carlos V), and towards a demonic or false god (Montezuma, before his "conversion"). : "Torture was a way to mark the boundary, an effort to allay anxiety and unease" (Reiss 60, paraphrasing DuBois). Plato's Socrates famously likens rhetoric to a routine of flattery that aims not at truth, but at pleasure; at best, it is "the semblance of a part of politics." The modern use of the word 'rhetoric' retains its meaning of 'persuasive speech,' but cannot shake our suspicion; it often appears next to the word 'empty.' 95 Pagden's translation of the execution insists on the public nature of the event: "Thus they were burnt publicly in a square, with no disturbance whatsoever", Of course, the square implies a public event, but this is not explicitly stated. Is it possible the lack of disturbance was due to a lack of audience? Perhaps the Natives were more effectively held back by the acquiescence of their Emperor to the Spanish. 96 Borders have been shifting ever since fellow tribesmen became neighbours. Even the relative stasis of modern borders is illusory: is a map ever completely up to date? How many new configurations of Europe have we seen over the past century? And, of course, territory need not only be represented politically; it all depends on what type of information is being relayed. As for the need for borders to be performed, just ask anyone who has had to show their passport and answer the questions of a customs or immigration official. Without these rituals, the borders would cease to exist. This is true even within states, or in new confederations such as the EU where the interpersonal ritual has been largely eliminated when travelling through member states. There are always signs that one is leaving one jurisdiction and entering another. Even a jovial sign reading "thanks for visiting" or "welcome to" at the side of the road is performing the border, letting the traveller know he is entering a different space in which he is suddenly, if only slightly, alien. 97 Padron, who uses the terms offered by O'Gorman, differs from the latter, who, in his seminal work La invention de America (1958) claims that its was the "discovery" of America that stimulated the world change. Padron claims instead that it was changes in map-making that necessarily preceded the move outwards; Columbus and company, without an abstract and geometric appreciation of space— without the geographic grid—would not have dared venture out, and would not have made their discoveries. Regardless, the change in psyche is the same: "This change, in turn, supports a transformation in Europe's image of itself. Capable now of domesticating the once ominous seas, the European subject discovers his own, Adamic authority over the world and finds in America an object that he can recreate in his own image" (Padron 26, cites O'Gorman 139-52). 98 In an ironic twist, Olid had visited Velazquez before the latter's death, and had been convinced to rebel against Cortes. 99 This project of taming language in the interests of empire is the continuation of that inaugurated by the presentation of Nebrija's famous Castilian grammar to Isabel I: "For Nebrija the question of the letter was not related to the representation of voice—one of Derrida's primary concerns— but to the taming of the voice, crucial for both the constitution of territoriality in modern imperial states and nation-states as well as in the colonization of non-Western languages" (Mignolo 319) 100 discurso mitificador "se define por una conception del mundo y unos modos de representation que resultan en la creation de una serie de mitos y modelos que muy poco tienen que ver con la realidad concreta que pretenderi relatar y revelar" (Pastor iv). 101 Cortes' fall from grace has been attributed to the rise of the bureaucratic state, against which some critics display their indignance. This evaluation of bureaucrats comes from a liberal tradition concerned with protecting the "individual" (as abstract ideological concept) from any social or government interference that, because it is not individualistic and because it is based on compromise, is somehow mediocre. When Elliot reports Cortes triumph at being named "governador, capitan general y justicia mayor de Nueva Espafla" on the fifteenth of October 1522, he betrays his own views on modern government, similar to those of Burckhardt, when the four royal officials appointed to "assist him in government" are said to represent the "stifling" nature of bureaucracy of "private initiative" (xxiii). For anyone who has ever had to deal with a government agency in any country, siding with Cortes in this regard is tempting, if somewhat simplistic. In any event, Elliot's characterization is representative of a continuing desire for heroes capable of leadership, especially when faced with the impersonal complications of the modern government. « En effet, la reponse des recits indiens, qui est une description plutot qu'une explication, consisterait a dire que tout est arrive parce que les Mayas et les Azteques ont perdu la maitrise de la communication. La parole des dieux est devenue inintelligible, ou alors ces dieux se sont tus » (Todorov 82) 103 In Guns, Germs, and Steel, Diamond makes the claim that the shape of the continents contributed to the largely accidental "discovery" and efficacious spread of agriculture and livestock practices across Eurasia, which in turn led to the growth and spread of disease (caused by living with animals) and to the development in Europe of effective warfare and travel technology. 104 This shift appears also in the shaping of modern selfdom, as described by Charles Taylor: the rise in the popularity of individual discipline expressed by mendicant religious orders translates into increasing assumption of individual responsibility in all areas of faith as expressed during the Reformation and Counter-Reformation. This, in turn, translates into the development of the individual with the liberal democracy, transforming the collective in the sum of the greatest numbers of its collective parts (i.e. votes) (Taylor, Modern Social Imaginaries). 1051 refer, of course, to the famous passage near the beginning of Proust's Du cote de chez Swann, the first of seven installments of A la recherche du temps perdu: "Mais a l'instant meme ou la gorgee melee des miettes du gateau toucha mon palais, je tressaillis, attentif a ce qui se passait d'extraordinaire enmoi..." (see pp. 44-7) 106 This extends to present-day empires of self: in spite of modern newsanchor claims to awareness of "living in history," until events are organized into a cohesive historical narrative, we can only experience isolated current events. 107 The adoption of the first person contravenes a central tenet of mimesis according to Chapter 24 of Aristotle's Poetics: "for it is requisite that the poet should speak in his own person as little as possible; for so far as he does so he is not an imitator" (55). For the authorial voice to be authoritative, it must be absent, since the presence of the poet destroys the illusion and the unity of the text, making it not only about the events depicted (which, since they are action, are not those of the poet at the time of production) but about the writing experience. Thus, the adoption of the first person in Lazarillo is part of the novelty of the text (Lazaro Carreter 13). The first person is particularly important in the context of Renaissance Humanism, in which personal experience is increasingly valued as a means of establishing authority (be this actual worldly experience, or direct experience of Greek, Latin, and Hebrew texts in the original language). For Spadaccini and Talens, the Spanish Renaissance is "a historical period of expansion and innovation"; this "necessity to be close to truth accelerated a virtual explosion of writing in the first person" (11-12). The shift towards first person narrative accompanies a shift in ideas of verisimilitude. One aspect of this shift is Lazaro's declaration that he will begin at the beginning, which reflects the practice of history rather than that of poetic fiction, which often began in medias res. This marks the text as more factual for Renaissance audiences, (Yndurain 477-78), and less like the excessive and stylized fictionality found so disturbing by many Humanists (cf. the disdain for chivalric romance in Don Quijote). Accompanying a verisimilar account from a first person perspective is the requirement that the text also be cohesive; it must be limited in its point of view to the narrator, and must progress and build on itself. Cohesiveness is expressed in: the organisation of the material; the ability of characters to remember what has happened to them and apply it to newer situations; the entire work serving a central intention (as opposed to being a collection of episodes); sources (e.g. the folkloric) are adapted and given new contexts and renovated meanings; and, perhaps most importantly, everything is organized around the time of the telling (Lazaro Carreter 65-66). The entire telling finds its centre of gravity in the time and space that is Lazaro of the final chapter (rather than the narrator's younger self, Lazarillo): "El pasado esta supeditado al presente [...] Lazaro, mas que Lazarillo, es el centra de gravedad de la obra" (Guillen Temp 271). An example of cohesion in Lazarillo occurs with the blind man's prophecy (i.e. prolepses): the blind man predicts the outcome of Lazaro's success as being associated to wine (Lazaro Carreter 84). Anthony Close remarks on Lazarillo's success at achieving first person verisimilar cohesion which appears to anticipate modernity: "Despite its roots in primitive narrative forms, Lazarillo is strikingly modern by virtue of the realism, poised self-consciousness, and coherence of its conception of the subject" (19). Another important element of Lazarillo's modernity is the concept of growth, an essential difference that sets it apart from episodic narrative. Whereas the epic hero does not appear to be affected by his adventures, in Lazarillo-Lazaro there is change: "el protagonista es resultado y no causa; no pasa, simplemente, de una dificultad a otra, sino que va arrastrando las experiencias adquiridas" (Lazaro Carreter 66-67). This growth, as Guillen notes, is limited, and Lazarillo is not a full-fledged Bildungsroman; at the time of writing the narrator is fully realized, and is expressing the proccess of that realization (Guillen 271). 1081 refer to the other as 'he' because this text's sense of otherness is not radical enough to extend to the feminine. The small feminine presence in Lazarillo, in the form of Lazaro's mother and his wife, does not entirely preclude a study of an even deeper level of otherness, but this is beyond the scope of this chapter. Nevertheless, I attempt to draw this issue into the discussion in my concluding remarks on Tractate 7 as a means of suggesting a possible extension of the techniques I employ in studying the text. 1091 am not claiming that this text actually altered policy, which would be very difficult to prove in any case. Given the text's ethical imperative and its subject matter, it stands to reason that policy change is one of its goals. 110 Rico's introduction to the edition used here provides a summary of the various suggestions for authorship: Fray Juan de Ortega, Diego Hurtado de Mendoza, Juan de Valdes, Lope de Ruega (an actual Toledan town crier), Sebastian de Orozco, and Alfonso de Valdes. There has even been a suggestion of co-authorship by up to six people (Rico 34-40). 111 The idea of a book as an individual recalls Milton's Aeropagitica, where books begin to take on the legal status of individuals, which cannot/should not be prevented from "speaking" and which can be held accountable for their contents after they have been "born." The Inquisition of Don Quijote's library notes this development in a humorous and biting way. Some of the volumes are honoured for their originality (read: individuality), while others are sent to the flames or the bottom of the well for being merely derivative or simply false. 112 The concept of the implied author has changed since its original coinage by Wayne Booth, where it is described as the author's "second self," or the evoked image in the mind of the reader of an "official scribe" which takes into account the impossibility of ever truly knowing the actual author merely through his work (70-71). Rimmon-Kenan reveals this change by proposing a broader definition: "the implied author is the governing consciousness of the work as a whole, the source of the norms embodied in the work" (86). While this definition essentially de-personifies the category to make it useless to Rimmon-Kenan's conception of "the narrative communication situation" (88), it also re-joins the process of narration (discourse) to its material (story) by being the prime mover of both within a particular social, historical, political and economic context. A text thus speaks its sources (the norms, social and textual, that it embodies) at the same time as it shapes something original to itself. The work is not only a work of "Art" (i.e. a purely aesthetic adventure or a de-contextualized imaginary construct that delights and distracts), it is also a work of "art" (i.e. a human artefact expressing an attempt to cope with actual issues—personal and/or socio-political—by distancing oneself from them in order to re-formulate, organize, and thereby understand them). The worlds of fiction and history are divided at our peril. See Richard Kearney's On Stories for a readable and engaging defence of this position. I develop this more fully in the context of Lazarillo on page 146. Close does not deny the modernity of the novel, but is merely pointing out that this characterization is, at least in part, a product of what the critic needs from the text rather than something inherent to the text or "natural" to the historical context in which it was produced and first consumed (19). 114 This distinction is simplistic and ignores the complexity of epic. Generalizations based on genre should not be taken as definite characterizations, but instead as the attempt to articulate a comparison. As I hope my previous discussions oiAmadis and Maldon have shown, generic discussions are valuable as stepping stones to an understanding of texts that appreciates their interconnectedness and their fundamental similarities, rather than as producers of definitive lists that would enable us to place any text in one camp or another. 115 Close's point circulates around Don Quijote's evocation of a balance between menudencias (i.e. "the stuff of humdrum everyday life") and idealizing fantasy in regards to the comparison evoked in the text by the priest, who admires Tirant lo Blanc for its mention (lacking in other romances) of living detail. The point seems to be that while Don Quijote manages a balance, picaresque novels (e.g. Guzman de Alfarache) merely present everyday detail without the complementary fantasy; or, that Don Quijote manages to balance fiction and "real life" in a way the chivalric romance (and, for Close, the picaresque) cannot. While useful in making a point about Don Quijote's approach to literature, this characterization does a disservice to Lazarillo, in which the genre of the picaresque is born (ahead, of course, of the picaresque's existence as a category). 116 Mateo Aleman also had to deal with a "false" second part to his initial instalment of Guzman. Cervantes' own life continues to govern our interpretations of his work. See Maria Antonia Garces' 2002 Cervantes in Algiers: A Captive's Tale for a revealing account of how author biography affects literary analysis. "The Captive's Tale" of Part 1.38-42 is portrayed as the foundational text to the entire novel, informed largely by Cervantes' own captivity experience. 117 By extension, Don Quijote has also become something to be celebrated across the Spanish- speaking world, an icon of the identity of Spain (Castile) and of the Spanish (Castilian) imaginary. The recent celebrations marking the 500' anniversary of the text are a testament to this. 118 The "interpenetration" of Arabic and Spanish culture was still extensive in the 15th century; indeed, Mudejar literature, "a fusion of Arabic and Gothic [...] represents the first national style of Spain" (Lida de Malkiel 7). The maqama of al-Hamadhani and Haziri, tenth and eleventh century Iberian-Arabic writers, were widely imitated in both Arabic and Hebrew in the twelfth century. These texts, written in a combination of prose and rhymed verse, involve a narrator-protagonist, often a trickster figure, who gets himself into and out of difficult situations (Fernandez y Gonzalez 36-37). The possibility of a link between the maqama and Lazarillo is enticing, but is soundly rejected by Hameen-Antilla (ch. 8, cited by Geries 193). I leave the debate to those better qualified. 119 In the opening pages of her article, Theresa Ann Sears describes the difficulty genre theorists have had with the picaresque: What strikes us in these, and many other, attempts to come to terms with the picaresque is the paradoxical conviction that the genre must exist, while at the same time 'the stronger the theory, the fewer the works it is able to encompass',10 so that the reader must either erase the disjunction between theory and text (a' la Cruz) or embrace it (as in Dunn). (533) 120 "Tambourine" is the main translation of pandero, but there are others. It could also mean "a foolish person who speaks at great length of things of little substance," (ironically in the case ofLazaro, who at first glance is such a person: speaking at great length about his life, which is peripheral to the caso, at least on the surface); "a kite"; or, it is a colloquial expression for posterior, i.e. "bum." The latter is particularly noteworthy considering George Shipley's interpretation of Tractate 4, in which Lazaro receives a his first pair of shoes that he had ever worn out (ostensibly because of the ceaseless wandering of his master, a Mercedarian friar). Shipley reinterprets the used shoes in light of the next sentence, which ends the tractate: "Ypor esto y por otras cosillas que no digo, sali del" (Laz 111). These intriguing "other minor things" about which Lazaro will not speak intimate, for Shipley, a sexual transgression that suggests a broader meaning to the wearing out of "shoes." The sexual interpretation is not entirely discredited by Rico's more traditional interpretation of this passage as a relatively standard ellipsis (Ldzarillo 111-12, n.8); the "otras cosillas" are contributing reasons for Lazaro leaving this master. The gift of clothing is repeated in another suspicious circumstance with sexual overtones: the Archpriest gives Lazaro's wife second hand clothes as well. 121 Another, more classical definition of the novel places this exploration of otherness on a far grander and yet more personal scale: for Ortega y Gasset (Ideas sobre la novela, 1925), the novel is "the kind of literature that produces" an effect of returning to one's own world after having imaginatively inhabited "a world out of communication with our authentic world" (Gilman 2). 122 Of course, there are still elements of discourse from a place of elevation: as mentioned, the entire text is focalized through a situation described at the end of the text, and thus directed, we must assume, from that point. This empire, however, is an empire of one, of the individual. We must also take note that this apparently "modern" point of view is in some ways a throwback to a prior means of perceiving space: in response to the abstraction of imperialisable space, the "medieval" mode of the itinerary is back in the form of a sequential narration centred on the direct experience of an author. 123 For James Olney, autobiography in general "has become the focalizing literature for various 'studies' that otherwise have little by way of a defining, organizing center to them" (e.g. American Studies, Black Studies, Women's Studies, African Studies). Olney explains the relationship between area-gender-ethnicity studies and autobiography because of the latter's ability to render "in a peculiarly direct and faithful way the experience and the vision of a people, which is the same experience and the same vision lying behind and informing all the literature of that people" (13). For Georgina Sabat de Rivers, autobiography is the most realistic genre because it is centred on the T,' within a Humanistic state of affairs centred on personal experience: "Si el^o es la piedra de toque de la realidad, £que molde mas realista que la autobiografia?" (236) Lazaro's most renowned offspring will, for genre theorists, become Guzman de Alfarache, whose success has transformed Lazaro into the inaugural picaro, but only, of course, through a creative working backwards particular to this type of study (see Lazaro Carreter 52-53) According to Luke Strongman, Ashcroft et. al's The Empire Writes Back misappropriates Rushdie's initial coinage. Strongman refers to Rushdie's Imaginary Homelands to clarify: "There is no 'writing back to the centre'; rather, the idea is one of furthering the spread of a relativized and globally dispersed 'English' outwards from a cosmopolitan centre of expanding international English" (Strongman xi; cites Rushdie, Imaginary 49). Clearly, the coinage is in the context of the expanding market of English books and the effect on both former "colonials" and the language they once had forced upon them, but which they have now adopted and adapted. In Lazaro's situation, however, while there is certainly a decentring and democratization taking place, there most definitely is a centre, the dividing line between centre and periphery being the same one as that between master and servant, hidalgo and mendigo. 126 Whereas "appropriate" stems from ad- ('to') +propius ('own, proper'), dispropriate implies self-dispossession. Rather than speak with authority in order to assert the self and continue to silence the other, the self acknowledges its power to silence (and the fact that this power has already been employed, that the other is already conquered) and disempowers itself by lending its voice to the other. The ironic, critical stance of the work prevents this from being flipped around and understood as an underhanded means of continuing to appropriate, as will become clear as my discussion continues. 127 Two competing views are offered by Rimmon-Kenan and Chatman, from the communication circuit of the text, that I reproduce here: an adaptation of Rimmon-Kenan's adaptation of Chatman's diagram. I have added the borders. 206

Real Author => Implied Author -> (Narrator)-* (Narratee) -•Implied Reader •=> Real Reader |

Chatman has placed the narrator/narratee in parentheses, making them optional, but stressing that the implied author is a construct of the reader of an ideal author (cited in Rimmon-Kenan 87). My understanding of type as essential to ontology is informed by Jorge Garcia-Gomez, who states: "in our commerce with circum-stance, we always arrive at it from both a past and a future and, therefore, never as dispossessed of a habitual wisdom and conjectural means of anticipation about the worldly business that is to (or may) be transacted by us in our surroundings" (150). The nature of this "habitual wisdom and conjectural means of anticipation" is typical; that is, our understanding of the world that we simultaneously seek to understand and act upon/within, "presupposes a degree of simplification or reduction of the world contents to the level of typical things, events, and components" (150-51). And types, Garcia-Gomez asserts by citing Alfred Schutz, "are more or less anonymous...; and, the more anonymous they are, the more objects of our experiences are conceived as partaking in the typical aspects" (151; cites Schutz 57). The anonymity of the Lazarillo author is not merely to be interpreted as a response to possible reprisals for unpopular ideas, but plays a fundamental role in the empowerment of Lazaro to self-realization. By making himself a type towards whom the narrator directs his discourse, the author allows his character to come alive in a way otherwise impossible. The author reduces himself to a part of the world; he is the world he assaults. Richard Tarnas, in Cosmos and Psyche, blames modern disenchantment on the untenable assumption that modern science and humanities enable: based on the mind/body division, the human individual is the only being in the universe with a soul. In this view, all meaning is arrogated to the human mind. Whereas the "primal view" of self in the cosmos is/was all about connection and continuum between the two, the modern self has appropriated all meaning to itself, leaving it alone in a mechanistic and meaningless void. Discourse regarding meaning is often related to discourse about truth; both ultimately rely on a value judgement to distinguish them from meaninglessness and falsity. A recent and highly publicized example of the strain between fiction and "reality" was the outrage expressed to James Frey's A Million Little Pieces (2003) voiced most passionately by Oprah Winfrey, who had previously included Frey's book in her highly lucrative Book Club. The main sticking point for Frey's critics is the misuse of peritext: his book was published as a memoir, and was therefore supposed to be nonfiction. Investigations revealed that Frey had, in fact, invented or embellished important sections of his book (and, therefore, his life) in order to either "get it right" or to sell more books ("A Million Little Lies"). As a result of the outrage, some readers were offered refunds for being "duped" by a book claiming to be a memoir, and later published versions contain a disclaimer by the author (Barton). The Brooklyn Public Library has even re-classified the book, which retains the "memoir" tag, and placed it in the fiction section ("Frontdesk'). The debate surrounding this issue reveals that, while everyone admits to some sort of continuum of fact and fiction, we insist on drawing ethical and epistemological boundaries in order to differentiate the two. Whereas all writers lie, commentators insist, or at least, whereas all memory is fickle, and thus impossible to ultimately verify, they ought to try not to when they are claiming not to. Beyond the litigative impact, it seems to have a profound psychic impact when a medium reports true events, when it is "based on" true events, or when "the characters and events portrayed here are purely fictional and have no relation to any person, living or dead." The assumed truth-value impacts the experience, makes it more exciting, as if our suspension of disbelief has been crippled and requires assistance from peritextual authority 130 There are at least eleven instances of either the direct use of the phrase "dije entre mi," or a similar phrase: "reime entre mi" (35), "dije yo" (with the accompanying arrow-like quotes '«»') (102), "quede yo diciendo" (which accompanies a prayer, another indication of interiority) (82-83), simply "entre mi" (73), and "decia" (54). See also Lazaro Carreter, p. 149. These asides underline a dual self, divided between a "public" persona (that which is shared with the other characters) and an internal self, shared only with the reader and hidden from the other characters for its potential contradiction of the public persona and a potential threat to whatever this persona pursues (Bueno 284). The aside is not a new phenomenon, but can be traced at the very least to La Celestina (c. 1500) (Lida de Malkiel 67), which nevertheless attempts "to reduce the use of the unrealistic aside, and to alternate the dialogue between different groups of people" (73). Also, at least in its dramatic sense, the aside is distinguished from the monologue in that it offers a vision of the true sentiments of the character. (Bueno 284-85; cites Pavis). Whereas the monologue is more artificial (it implies a spotlight, figural or literal), the brevity of the aside does less to break the flow of the main "scene," and yet is largely responsible for the text's irony. The aside enables us to see that Lazaro's actions and speech do not necessarily reflect his thoughts, which highights the self as a persona: the public self is constructed in order to extract benefit from a given situation. Also, the aside is a step on the road from naive youth to adulthood, perceived as a psychological shift towards cynicism (Bueno 285, n.9). 131 See the discussion on the meaning of hacienda on page 155 and note. 132 In response to comments to find a master, Lazaro comments to himself: "—Y adonde se hallara ese—decia yo entre mi-—, si Dios agora de nuevo, como crio el mundo, no le criase." 133 Alternatively, this comment in support of spiritual orthodoxy could be an expression of Lazaro's attempt to conform to the expectations of Vuestra Merced. The false moralism implicit in the squire and the priest's encouragement of temperance is displaced, on one level, by a new moralism: the squire's efforts are used to comment on misplaced skills that are obsessed with the temporal rather than the spiritual. Such skills of enchantment could be used to remedy rather than simply mask an ethical vacuum. Andree Collard comes to a similar conclusion: that the voyage into interior spaces produces the need to imagine and articulate the world on the exterior: Just as memory tears open important moments in time and brings portions of the past into the mind, so too the spatial imagery oiLazarillo pertains almost exclusively to the interior landscape of the self and shares the same oppressive quality. There is little scenery other than inside spaces, sometimes enclosed: a room within a house, a church, an inn, a house-tomb, and sometime fluid: a hero born within—he insists upon it—the Tormes river. Objects are confined within closed and inaccessible boundaries. Streets are long, narrow, impersonal. [...] That outside world, peopled with crowds we only hear about and a silent mass we do not see but is strong enough to dictate whole modes of existence, teaches Lazaro, through his masters, the golden rule he applies in Chapter VII: that things are what we make them, at best an illusion. (266-67) 135 As with the Machiavellian prince's stato that is not only the land governed but also the state of governance itself (Hexter 152), and with the hacienda of the priest that is eaten by the "mice" and the "snake" (cited on page 151 of this chapter), hacienda is meant to convey more than merely land. In Amadis, the recounting of one's hacienda alludes not to material goods, but to internal disposition, the "talante interior de los personajes" (Rico in Lazarillo n. 120). Aristide Rumean (Rico's source) explains in greater detail in his article on the use of the word 'hacienda' as an evocation of an elevated style borrowed from the likes of Amadis; "II s'agit de ce que Ton sait de quelqu'un, de son histoire, de ce qu'il a vecu ou qu'il vit d'essentiel et qui tient a son destin, de ce dont on est curieux (comme Lazare), de ce que Ton garde secret (encubrir), ou que Ton revele (descubrir, contar). Tout nous oriente vers l'interieur des personnages et non vers des biens materiels ou des affaires externes." (35) 136 Living in the world, it would seem, requires that differences in rank and responsibility be maintained: cf. Matthew 22:20 "Render therefore unto Caesar the things which are Caesar's; and unto God the things that are God's," a basic support of the idea of worldly hierarchy that, although it may be at odds with divine hierarchy, still needs to be respected. The troubled relationship between temporal order, divine order and religious freedom (free will) plagues most spiritual practice. A case in point: Luther's condemnation of the Peasant's War (1524-25) in Against the Murderous, Thieving Hordes of Peasants (1525). Whereas Luther's challenge to papal and the Holy Roman Emperor's authority partly inspired the revolt, there were obvious limits as far as Luther was concerned according to practicality: he had relied on the support of German princes to be able to promulgate his ideas, and feared alienating them. 137 "Verily I say unto you, Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me" (Matthew 25:40). 138 The Diccionario de Autoridades (1734) defines "mancilla" as "la llaga 6 herida que mueve a compasion. Trahe esta voz en este sentido Covarr[ubias]. en su Thesoro, y dice es diminutivo de Mancha 6 Macula. Lat Plaga" (479,2). 139 Lazarillo was "composed at a time when the problems of poverty and vagrancy had captured the attention of most of the Spanish urban population," an attention that culminated in the 1540 Poor Law that prohibited vagrancy throughout the kingdom and limited begging to the beggar's home city" (Herrero 878-79). The Poor Law is referred to by Lazaro on page 93. 140 The time in which Lazaro collects these clothes is condensed in the narrative. In the "indecently brief Tractate 4 (Collard 263), Lazaro obtains a pair of shoes (111). Tractate 6 sees him in the service of the chaplain as a watermonger. Over four years, his wages enable him to purchase clothes: Fueme tan bien en el oficio, que al cabo de cuatro anos que lo use, con poner en la ganancia buen recaudo, ahorre para me vestir muy honradamente de la ropa vieja, de la cual compre un jubon de fustan viejo y un sayo raido de manga tranzada y puerta y una capa que habia sido frisada, y una espada de la viejas primeras de Cuellar. Desque me vi en habito de hombre de bien, dije a mi amo se tomase su asno, que no queria mas seguir aquel oficio. (126-27) For Collard, the rapidity with which he obtains this second and most significant set of clothes emphasizes the importance of the clothes: "The clothes, then, loom larger in his consciousness than the way he went about acquiring them" (266). Indeed, Lazaro's time with the chaplain seems merely to serve the purpose of obtaining the clothes, for after he has them, after having the appearance of un hombre de bien, the job is suddenly beneath his dignity. In the case of the shoes from the Mercedarian, the means of obtaining the trappings may be downright humiliating, as suggested by Shipley (see note 132, above), and therefore the less that is said about it the better. 141 My estimates of page length are rough. In the annotated edition I reference here, footnotes take up a great deal of space on each page. To be more precise, including footnotes: Tractate 5 occupies pages 112 through 125 (thirteen pages); Tractate 4 occupies pages 110 to 111 (2 pages); and Tractate 6 pages 125 to 127 (three pages). 142 Tractate 4 ends with an elliptical "otras cosillas que no digo" ("other minor things that I will not recount")(l 11); the time with the tambourine painter reduced to a short clause on suffering "tambien sufri mil males" ("I also suffered a thousand difficulties.")(125); and at the beginning of Tractate 7, he quickly resigns his post as the sheriffs assistant when his master is badly beaten by some criminals (127- 28). 143 Julia Dominguez Castellano makes a similar point: the squire teaches Lazaro the art of dress, while the pardoner teaches the power of speech (107). Lazaro has also learned from his various masters the buzzwords (jerigonza) essential to different professions (108-09). My point is somewhat different, as the power of words is not limited to speech. More significant is the relationship of the pardoner's oral performance to the text of the bull, the authority of which he is peddling. This differs from the more oral stages of the early chapters. Indeed, in his defining of the different tractates according to the object of study (e.g. Tractate 2 marks the discovery of sacramental discourse, Tractate 3, the language of honour, etc.), Harry Sieber characterizes Tractate 5 as the point at which "speech gives way to ecriture" (Language and Society xi-xii). 1 Auerbach describes the crisis of authority in the Early Modern period in terms of the increasing inability of readers (in general) to maintain Biblical authority by making interpretative leaps that "fit" the literary environment to the contemporary historical world. This was for a long time comparatively easy; as late as the European Middle Ages it was possible to represent Biblical events as ordinary phenomena of contemporary life, the methods of interpretation themselves forming the basis for such a treatment. But when, through too great a change in the environment and through the awakening of a critical consciousness, this becomes impossible, the Biblical claim to absolute authority is jeopardized; the method of interpretation is scorned and rejected, the Biblical stories become ancient legends, and the doctrine they had contained, now dissevered from them, becomes a disembodied image. (15-16) 145 Humanist and Reformer re-translation destabilizes traditional ecclesiastic authority; Princes and nascent nations are intent on imposing their authority and influence on disparate populations (they must impose or create it, for it does not exist without such efforts); and economic instability is in the process of creating mass migrations and changes to the basic power structure of society as traditional landed elites increasingly lose out to merchants and bureaucrats. 146 "Ansi procuraba tenerlos propicios, porque favoresciesen su negocio y llamasen sus feligreses a tomar la bula." (And thus, he managed to make them propitious, so that they might accommodate his business and call upon their parishioners to accept the Bull.) The use of the term buldero reveals the slippery nature of the term bula (bull), which could either mean a very specific theological or policy document issued by the papacy, or, more generally, any document issued by the papacy or by a bishop that carried a leaden seal, from which bula gets its name ("Bull"). What is meant by buldero (also bulero) in this section of Lazarillo de Tormes is more precisely a cuestor, rendered by the Latin "quaestor" and the English "pardoner." This clerical officer was responsible for raising funds for various projects of the Church by collecting alms from penitents interested in participating in the tenets of a particular indulgence. The indulgence, a document that could conceivably fall under the more general definition of a bull, was a suggestion for the procedure of expiating sins. An indulgence, for example, was often issued around a particular pilgrimage, and would give instructions as to how the penitent might satisfy the poena (punishment) imposed on him after confession and contrition, which were designed to remove culpa (guilt). The confessor would absolve the sin (in God's name), but impose a temporal punishment, such as a pilgrimage, self-immolation, a gift of alms, or a combination. We can assume, then, that a buldero or pardoner was hired to deliver the indulgence by preaching it in various areas, and imposing the punishment specific in the indulgence to those who accepted the bull {tomar la bula). Whereas the confession would involve a particular sin being articulated to a confessor, the indulgence would, I assume, be a general document that could be applied to a wide range of sins. The funds collected by pardoners were used to fund hospitals, schools, and the maintenance of church communities and infrastructure. Thus, indulgences became a means of local taxation; bishops were empowered to issue indulgences, and used them as a supplement to regular collections. The opportunities for abuse are obvious, and just as pardoners were reported to have presented fake relics (see The Riverside Chaucer, p. 906, note to 11. 337-43), they could just as easily "sell" fake indulgences. The problem of pardoners exceeding their mandates was recognized by the Fourth Lateran Council in the thirteenth century. At the same time, indulgences in general were being criticized for their lack of emphasis on the role of conscience in penitence ("Indulgences" 449); by reducing penance to the payment of a fee, it was feared, the alteration and redirection of the individual soul was made more difficult. This interest in policing individual consciences, as opposed to merely the behaviour of individual bodies, would later prove the focus of the Inquisition, and speaks to a medieval view of self desperate for the external performance of faith to align itself as perfectly as possible with an internal 210

actuality of faith. In this religious view, the self must also abdicate its selfhood to the divine, and take on the aspect of a template of selfless self. (Of course, this does not suggest that the medieval self actually conformed to this desire, but rather the opposite: actual self was, and continues to be, an amalgam of public performance and individualized interiority.) The religious view might be contrasted with a civil view (to the extent that we can distinguish the two in order to facilitate discussion): the epic civil self of Maldon shows individuality being stripped away and transformed into perfect obedience and dejure, if not de facto, suicide. On page 117 of Lazarillo, the text also uses echar el cuervo: "Yo vine aqui con este echacuervo que os predica, el cual me engano y dijjo que le favoresciese en este negocio y que partiriamos la ganancia" says the sheriff as part of his performance of rejecting the indulgence presented by the pardoner. Rico's note explains echar el cuervo as "to offer something the effects of which are promised but that are never realized," or, more specifically "to earn money dishonestly by promising things that will not be fulfilled." The echacuervo, then, is the seller of false bulls (n.22), the dishonest pardoner. This conforms to Nebrija's translation of the Latin quaestor into the Castillian echacuervo. For a detailed discussion of echacuervo, its possible etymology, and other appearances that may have influenced the use of the word in Lazarillo, see Joseph's E. Gillet's 1957 article. 147 That Lazaro only informs the reader of what he learned at the end of the tale is yet another example of the literary realism of the text: the narrator suspends revelation of his full knowledge of the events in order to increase reader suspense by having them follow the same epistemological trajectory as the narrator had when experiencing the events. 148 My interpretation of this text as pursuing a state of balance is based on the understanding that successive sections of the book, insofar as they explore different aspects of society and self, build on one another without necessarily effacing all that has come before. In this, I stand in opposition to critics such as Douglas Carey, who sees the exploration of charity in Tractate 3 as a "brief vision of caritas [that is] soon forgotten in the totally materialistic ambience that pervades the novel. By Chapter vii, Lazaro has attained a purely mundane success in terms of the goals that others [...] have set for him" (38). The charity episode is essential to Lazaro's development of self; however, once this "lesson" is learned, materialism does not and cannot efface all that has come before. To survive in the world (only possible through community as well as individuality), a balance must be maintained. Even if cynicism forces us to admit that Lazaro himself does not achieve this balance (which I do not accept in any case), the text as a whole (the sum of its narrators, author(s) and narratees) does. Likewise, we cannot deny the coherence and unity of the text merely on the premise that this coherence is not fully maintained throughout the text. Elements of incoherence do not make for complete incoherence (see Dominguez Castellano 118-19). 149 On page 129, Lazaro describes his job, which involves far more than the translation of pregonero to "town crier" conveys: "tengo cargo de pregonar los vinos que en esta ciudad se venden, y en almonedas, y cosas perdidas, acompanar los que padecen persecuciones por justicia y declarar a voces sus delictos: pregonero, hablando en buen romance." He is, then, an auctioneer and, to some extent, a summoner. From a voiceless rogue, Lazaro has transformed himself into the voice of the economy and the state, now incorporated into the state machine and speaking with an authority that his not his own. The office of pregonero was necessary but despised in sixteenth century society, being on par with that of the verdugo (executioner), as Rico's note explains ("un oficio muy vil y bajo") (n.12).

150 "felling stories is as basic to human beings as eating. More so, in fact, for while food makes us live, stories are what make our lives worth living. They are what make our condition human" (Kearney, On Stories 3). 151 See also Dopico Black on adultery in Spain. While not exactly the same as cohabitation, attitudes toward adultery generally reveal the Spanish obsession with the purity of women's bodies, and the place of this discussion in Spain's treatment of its Jews and Muslims, as well as all other 211 infringements against the moral order. As Dopico Black shows, the suspicion of women's bodies, and in particular "exotic" women's bodies, is an extension of an anxiety of lack of control over the internal lives of all Spaniards. The conversion of Jewish and Muslim women brought this general anxiety to the surface: the anxious inquiry that these bodies occasioned was largely the result of their status as sacramentally converted Others and of the fact that the transformations they ostensibly suffered were conceived as conversions in and of the flesh and thus subject to at times extreme literalization. What was at issue, precisely, was the efficacy of the sacrament; the mere suspicion (or worse, the realization) that these bodies might retain a vestigial trace—a lingering, inextirpable memory—of their former Otherness was potentially devastating, (xiv-xv) 152 There may also be a link between the conquest model of empowerment and the literary model. As Joan-Pau Rubies points out, the material dreams of the conquistadors were a source of disappointment for a great many: "as the spoils of conquest were quickly distributed among a small oligarchy in an attempt to construct a new social order, and thousands of soldiers were left with nothing but a sense of betrayal" (87). A valued tool in redressing material injustice was literary text. Cortes' letters, as well as those of Columbus and Cabeza de Vaca, to name but a few, were interested in recouping some sort of material reward for their committed service that had produced (in terms of material acquisition) only failure. This required the conquistador to shed his role as a character in a history and adopt a new role as an agent rewriting history from his own point of view. The conquistador is not writing to the Archive as an ontological exercise (as argued in Gonzalez Echevarria), but rather writing to the Keeper of the Purse for his fair share of resources extracted largely at personal risk to himself. 153 James Fernandez articulates this tension as one between "apology" and "apostrophe," concepts that he develops in his discussion of nineteenth-century Spanish autobiography. Apology is a mode of engaging with the historical world, expressed in autobiographies written for a specific temporal purpose—to obtain favour or to defend one's reputation—and assumes that the self has been affected by, or has even affected its surroundings. Apostrophe is a withdrawal from the world into a spiritual or aesthetic realm. Apology, as I use the term, inevitably signals an intense engagement with the here and now. The apologist implicitly declares that his or her actions on this earth are worthy of commentary and defense and, moreover, that the opinions that his or her contemporaries (and future generations) hold are important enough to warrant a sustained act of self- justification. Ultimately, I would argue, the stance of the apologist can be linked with a historicist understanding of identity and of one's place in the world. The apologist tacitly acknowledges, "I am, at least in part, a product of circumstance; and my reputation, a product of discourse, deserves to be cultivated, corrected or defended, through textual intervention." Apostrophe, on the other hand, defined as the rhetorical invocation of an absent (and often transcendental) listener, pretends to be a trope of detachment, of unworldliness. (Fernandez 7) 154 In volume 2, book 1, chapter VI: "Esto proprio le sucedio a este mi probre libro, que habiendolo intitulado Atalaya de la vida humana, dieron en llarnarle Picaro y no se conoce ya por otro nombre." This title was made the subtitle in many subsequent editions (see Bushee). 155 Frye is citing Wittgenstein §7 "Whereof one cannot speak, thereof one must be silent," (Wovon man nicht sprechen kann, dariiber muss man schweigen), which follows §6.54: "My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.) / He must surmount these propositions; then he sees the world rightly" (Wittgenstein 189). 212

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