UCLA UCLA Electronic Theses and Dissertations Title Sacred, Epic and Picaresque: Violence and Genre in Cervantes Permalink https://escholarship.org/uc/item/0gh3n95z Author Molina, Alvaro Publication Date 2012 Peer reviewed|Thesis/dissertation eScholarship.org Powered by the California Digital Library University of California UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Sacred, Epic and Picaresque: Violence and Genre in Cervantes A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures by Alvaro Molina 2012 © Copyright by Alvaro Molina 2012 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Sacred, Epic and Picaresque: Violence and Genre in Cervantes by Alvaro Molina Doctor of Philosophy in Hispanic Languages and Literatures University of California, Los Angeles, 2012 Professor Teofilo F. Ruiz, Co-chair Professor Efrain Kristal, Co-chair This dissertation analyzes selected texts from Cervantes and his classical and early modern sources, focusing on his treatment of violence. It aims to respond to Nabokov’s famous indictment that Don Quixote was ‘the cruelest’ book ever written. Building on a critical framework that includes the work of René Girard, Steven Pinker and Frederick de Armas among others, my study looks at violence specifically from the perspective of genre – primarily the chivalric, the epic and the picaresque – emphasizing how the author’s thinking about violence was inevitably colored by pre-existing fictional paradigms. Instead of approaching violence by bringing ethics and philosophy to bear upon literature, such as the debate over the role of humor in the early modern period, I am more interested in examining how various literary categories inflect and nuance the author’s treatment of sacred, chivalric, epic or picaresque violence. To this end I examine 1) the particularly quixotic conjunction of chivalry and hagiography manifest in the episode of the saints in Don Quixote Part II, 2) Cervantes’ frequent, conflicted and evolving use of Virgilian formulas for the purpose of epic characterization, and 3) the tendency of the picaresque genre to feature prominent facial and bodily scars on its protagonists, a marker for social stigma that the author adapted quite cleverly in his Prologue to the Novelas ejemplares. This analysis ultimately concludes that Cervantes worked within well- established classical and early modern traditions, infusing new life into them with often brilliantly unexpected results. ii The dissertation of Alvaro Molina is approved Veronica Cortinez Frederick de Armas Teofilo F. Ruiz, Committee Co-chair Efrain Kristal, Committee Co-chair University of California, Los Angeles 2012 iii DEDICATION To the memory of Carroll B. Johnson, former Professor of Golden Age Spanish Literature at UCLA, a great role model and mentor in academia who is dearly missed. I would also like to dedicate this work with heartfelt gratitude to the many people in my family, friends as well as everyone at UCLA who have helped and encouraged me to pursue this goal despite a few setbacks along the way. iv Sacred, Epic and Picaresque: Violence and Genre in Cervantes Abstract …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… ii Committee page …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… iii Dedication ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… iv Table of Contents …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… v Acknowledgements ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… vii Vita ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… viii Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 1 Part I. Violence Against the Infidel Chapter 1. Epic Violence: Captives, Moriscos and Empire in Cervantes 1. Introduction: the Virgilian cursus ………………………………………………………………………… 10 2. Towards a Definition of the Epic ……………………………………………………………………………… 14 3. Double-edged Teleology in La Numancia ………………………………………………………………… 15 4. Virgilian Heroism in La información de Argel ……………………………………………… 22 5. Cervantes the Martyr and Epic Triumphalism …………………………………………………… 26 6. A Captive's Audience: Epic as Rhapsody ……………………………………………………………… 28 7. Zoraida's Romance and the Limits of the Epic ……………………………………………… 33 8. Parody of the Virgilian Epic in the Persiles ……………………………………………… 38 9. Conclusion ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 42 Chapter 2. “Santos y quebrantos”: Rise and Fall of Sacred Violence in Don Quixote, II: 58. 1. Introduction ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 44 2. Girard and sacred violence …………………………………………………………………………………………… 46 3. Don San Diego Matamoros …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 50 4. Saints and Knights ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 57 5. True Spanish Histories ……………………………………………………………………………………………………… 61 6. Miles Christi, Soldier of Christ …………………………………………………………………………… 65 7. Heaven suffers violence …………………………………………………………………………………………………… 72 8. Violence, not of works but of faith …………………………………………………………………… 79 9. Caballos, duelos, santos y quebrantos ……………………………………………………………… 85 10. Saint George and the Basque Knight ……………………………………………………………………… 89 11. Saint Paul and Sansón Carrasco ………………………………………………………………………………… 93 12. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 98 Part II: Wounded Hands and Woeful Faces: Picaresque Violence in the Age of Cervantes. ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 100 Chapter 3. Celestina, Lazarillo and Guzmán: Facial Marks and Picaresque Minds 1. Introduction …………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 101 2. Celestina, la de la cuchillada …………………………………………………………………………………… 101 3. Lazarillo's Wounds: from Broken Teeth to the Mark of Cain …………… 104 4. A Slashed Courtesan in Mateo Alemán ……………………………………………………………………… 115 v 5. The Watchtower, the Picaresque and the Birth of Shame …………………… 121 6. Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 135 Chapter 4. Cervantes’ Picaresque Self-Portrait 1. Introduction: Recapitulating ……………………………………………………………………………………… 137 2. The Picaresque and the Rise of Empathy …………………………………………………………… 139 3. Cervantes and the Rise of Empathy ………………………………………………………………………… 141 4. Don Quixote: the Picaresque and the Limits of Empathy …………………… 143 5. Novelas ejemplares: Exemplarity and the Picaresque …………………………… 147 6. A Wounded Hand and the Perils of Epic Characterization ………………… 149 7. The Mystery of the Missing Engraving ………………………………………………………………… 158 8. Identity as Text: but Which Identity, and Which Text? …………………… 159 9. Della Porta's Physiognomy and Cervantes ………………………………………………………… 167 10. Della Porta's Physiognomy and Cervantes' Self-Portrait ……………… 171 11. The Della Porta Code and the Picaresque ……………………………………………………… 182 Conclusion ……………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 186 Bibliography ………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………………… 189 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I wish to acknowledge the support and generosity of the UCLA Graduate Division and the Department of Spanish and Portuguese, who have allowed me to be in residence and teaching this year while completing my dissertation. In particular I would like to thank Teofilo F. Ruiz and Efrain Kristal for all of their support in bringing me back to UCLA and co-chairing this committee. A special thanks to Hilda Peinado as graduate counselor, for helping me navigate a mountain of red tape even as we speak. Also a special thanks to Jesus Torrecilla for his role as Graduate Director, and to Veronica Cortinez for forming part of this committee and dealing with my manuscript on short notice. I am also greatly indebted to Frederick de Armas for all his support and mentorship on this project, without which I would not have had the inspiration to bring it to conclusion. Chapter 1 of this dissertation is a translated, updated and revised version of an article in an edited volume: “Santos y quebrantos: auge y ocaso de la violencia sagrada en Don Quixote II: LVIII,” in Estas primicias del ingenio: jóvenes cervantistas en Chicago. Ed. Kerry Wilks and Francisco Caudet. Madrid: Castalia (2003): 155-184. Chapter 2 of this dissertation is an updated and revised version of an article in another edited volume: “Epic Violence: Captives, Moriscos, and Empire in Cervantes,” in European Literary Careers: The Author from Antiquity to the Renaissance. Ed. Patrick Cheney and Frederick A. de Armas. Toronto: University of Toronto Press (2002): 286-301. vii VITA Alvaro Molina completed his B.A. in Classis/Latin at the University of Dallas in 1994, a Masters of Arts in Spanish Literature at New York University in 1996, and received a C.Phil from the University of California, Los Angeles in 1999, in Hispanic Languages and Literatures. He has taught Spanish language and literature at New York University, the University of California, Los Angeles, the University of Dallas and the University of Mary Washington in Virginia. He has a few publications and multiple conference presentations to his name over the years, all of them on his specialty field of Golden Age Spanish literature, but especially on Miguel de Cervantes and his classical and early modern sources. viii Introduction Given how important it is to narrow the scope of a dissertation right from the start, it may be all the more so when writing on a topic like violence, a field of criticism that has grown rapidly in recent years and continues to be the object of an increasing amount of scholarship. Thus, I should clarify from the beginning that the present study focuses on just a few representations