Home: A Study of Don Quixote, by Daniel Eisenberg <http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/Cervantes/StudyOfDQ.htm> A part of: Index to works by Daniel Eisenberg <http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/index.htm> URL for this document: <http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/Study_of_DQ/ASODQ_Ch_3.pdf> Copyright © 1987 by Juan de la Cuesta–Hispanic Monographs III. The Genre of Don Quixote UTHORS AND READERS inevitably and necessarily use generic concepts; it is impossible to understand a work without placing it in a generic context. An examination of a work's genre, then, is a step towards its interpretion; as E. D. Hirsch has written, "disagreement about an interpretation is usually a disagreement about genre."1 Generic study of Don Quixote is especially appropriate since Cervantes was interested in genres. An interest in literary theory, which he obviously had, meant in his day an interest in genres, a large part of early literary (or linguistic, or scientific) theory, and a prerequisite for the formulation of the literary rules about which he evidently cared deeply. Although in no case is it unproblematical, it can be seen how each of Cervantes' works fits into an existing generic category, La Galatea being an eclogue,2 the Novelas exemplares the introduction into Spain and purification of the Italian novella,3 the Persiles an epic in prose, and the Viage del Parnaso an imaginary travel book. Obviously Cervantes thought of Don Quixote as also fitting into some literary category. Unfortunately, literary categories are not eternal. Both the criteria used for categorization and, worse, the meaning of the labels for categories are deceptively changeable.4 This is especially the case when dealing with such a pivotal and influential work as is Don Quixote, through which the history of 1 Validity in Interpretation, p. 98. On the importance of genre for interpretation see also Alastair Fowler, Kinds of Literature (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1982), Chapter 14, who points out that "activity in genre theory has tended to precede or coincide with periods of great literature, and to arouse the interest of the best writers" (p. 256). 2 La Galatea, I, xlvii, 3. That this term is intended to refer to the work as a whole is confirmed by Avalle-Arce in his note to this passage, and also by Francisco Ynduráin, "Relección de La Galatea," in his Relección de clásicos (Madrid: Prensa Española, 1969), pp. 61-73, at p. 67. 3 Novelas exemplares, I, 23, 8-12. 4 The search for categories for literary works resembles a dog's pursuit of its 80 A STUDY OF Don Quixote– literature changes direction: it seems one thing when viewed from the present looking backwards, and something rather different when considered in its own context. It is for this reason that identifying Don Quixote's genre is something like determining the street on which Columbus Circle or the Plaza de la Cibeles is located, and the subject of great confusion. Our goal in this chapter is to identify Don Quixote's genre in Cervantes' terms, as a step toward understanding his interpretation of and goals in the work. In his terms, the category could have been neither novel nor romance, for while the words existed, their Golden Age meaning was quite different from the modern, English generic categories described with the terms.5 tail: difficult at best, impossible in a sense, and productive of only temporary success. In contrast with works of nature, whose classification is less difficult because change is slow, literature changes rapidly, at times in reaction to previously established classifications; also, there are no two literary works which resemble each other as much as do two members of the same plant or animal species. The dream of classifiers, a permanent schema making order out of the unruly world of literature, has never been realized. 5 Novela, borrowed from Italian, meant "short story," and romance a verse narration, in the sixteenth century usually of historical content (see my "The Romance as Seen by Cervantes"). Even the modern meaning of these terms can be problematic: "each critic or theorist sees the central 'novelty' of the novel [Don Quixote] differently," summarized John J. Allen, "Don Quixote and the Origins of the Novel," in Cervantes and the Renaissance, ed. Michael D. McGaha (Easton, Pennsylvania: Juan de la Cuesta, 1980), pp. 125-40, at p. 125. The applicability of the (modern) terms "novel" and "romance" to Cervantes' works is studied by E. C. Riley, "Cervantes: A Question of Genre," in Mediaeval and Renaissance Studies on Spain and Portugal in Honour of P. E. Russell, ed. F. W. Hodcraft et al. (Oxford: Society for the Study of Mediaeval Languages and Literature, 1981), pp. 69-85; in his "Don Quixote" (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), p. 24, he states that, without changing the main argument, he would "now want to qualify and clarify some of the points made." Those interested in Don Quixote's role in the creation of the novel and in modern novel criticism will find references to the major works in Allen's article, supplemented by Robert Alter, Partial Magic: The Novel as a Self-Conscious Genre (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1975); subsequent to them are Walter L. Reed's An Exemplary History of the Novel: The Quixotic versus the Picaresque (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1981); Alexander Welsh, Reflections on the Hero as Quixote (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1981), reviewed by Anthony J. Cascardi in Cervantes, 2 (1982), 185-87 and subject of a review article, "Quixotic Reflections," by Alistair M. Duckworth, Cervantes, 3 (1983), 65-76; Percy G. Adams, Travel Literature and the Evolution of the Novel (Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1983); Allen's own "Coping with Don Quixote," in Approaches to Teaching Cervantes' "Don Quixote," pp. 45-49; and Cascardi's The Bounds of Reason: Cervantes, Dostoevsky, Flaubert (New York: Columbia University Press, 1986). A useful recapitulation, together with study of a work Cervantes held in high esteem (I, 103, 3-10), is provided by Mary Lee Cozad, "Experiential The Genre of Don Quixote 81 However, we have an aid available to us, not just a guide to Golden Age generic theory but the book which influenced Cervantes more than any other work of literary scholarship: López Pinciano's Philosophía antigua poética, the most thorough treatment of genre ever written in Spanish, and one of the few comprehensive treatises of the entire Renaissance. In contrast with modern categories, which are heavily based on form, for López Pinciano the key criterion for literary classification is the story or subject matter treated; this is the "alma," whereas the way it is told is merely the "cuerpo" (I, 239). One might think the question of Don Quixote's genre, as seen by Cervantes, settled by the term "historia," which is used to describe the book in the title and repeatedly in the text. It is certainly a logical starting place for a generic examination of Don Quixote. What did Cervantes mean by calling Don Quixote an historia, more specifically a verdadera historia?6 Historia, first of all, was not a literary genre, although its meaning was broader than the English term "history" and could refer to literary works. In its broadest sense it meant the telling (contar) of events: "al cuento de mis sucesos," says the Alférez, "se puede dar el nombre de historia" ("Casamiento engañoso," III, 147, 2-4). "Cuenta la historia," "la historia cuenta," standard formulas in early Spanish prose, are frequently used in Don Quixote.7 An historia could be of two sorts. It could be verdadera, a history, which is the only way in which López Pinciano used the term; an example cited by Cervantes is the Historia del Gran Capitán, called "historia verdadera" (II, 83, 32-84, 1). Or it can be fingida, in which case it is literature, what we would call prose fiction and what Cervantes also calls fábula.8 The distinction between Conflict and Rational Motivation in the Diana enamorada: An Anticipation of the Novel," JHP, 5 (1981 [1982]), 199-214. For an introduction to classification theory, see Shiyali R. Ranganathan, Prolegomena to Library Classification, 2nd edition (London: Library Association, 1967). 6 The book is called a "verdadera historia" at I, 55, 10; I, 58, 16-17; I, 132, 13-15; I, 191, 22-23; II, 7, 19-20; II, 393, 19; III, 113, 17-18; III, 155, 17-18; III, 217, 1; and IV, 140, 8. 7 I will cite only one case of each: I, 131, 21; III, 101, 8-9. For additional examples, see Predmore, The World of Don Quixote, p. 6. 8 "No todas las cosas que suceden son buenas para contadas, y podrían passar sin serlo y sin quedar menoscabada la historia: acciones ay que, por grandes, deven de callarse, y otras que, por baxas, no deven dezirse, puesto que es excelencia de la historia [verdadera] que, qualquiera cosa que en ella se escrivía, puede passar al sabor de la verdad que trae consigo; lo que no tiene la fábula, a quien conviene guissar sus acciones con tanta puntualidad y gusto, y con tanta verissimilitud, que, ha despecho y pesar de la mentira, que haze dissonancia en el entendimiento, forme una verdadera armonía" (Persiles, II, 100, 9-22). The canon applies the term fábulas to the libros de caballerías (II, 341, 9 and 26), and Don Quixote's niece calls them "fábula y mentira" (III, 93, 5-6). Deficient fábulas 82 A STUDY OF Don Quixote– the two types of historia is easier to understand if an historia is thought of as a painting in words, a comparison found explicitly in Cervantes' works.9 A painting can be a portrayal of a real scene or person, or an imagined one, yet the same evaluative criterion applies: how closely the work resembles reality.