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Heroic Striving and Don Quixote's Emblematic Prudence

1990; Liverpool University Press; Volume: 67; Issue: 3 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1080/1475382902000367265

1469-3550

John T. Cull,

Early Modern Spanish Literature

Click to increase image sizeClick to decrease image sizeBSS Subject Index: CERVANTES SAAVEDRA, MIGUEL DE (1547–1616) DON QUIJOTEEMBLEMS [IN LITERATURE & CULTURE] Notes 1. Sebastián de Covarrubias Horozco, Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (1611; Madrid: Turner, 1977), 885. 2. Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha, ed. Luis Andrés Murillo, 3 vols. (Madrid: Castalia, 1978), I: 248. All references are to this edition, and include volume, chapter and page numbers, in parentheses. 3. Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy, ed. Holbrook Jackson (1621; New York: Vintage Books, 1977), 300. 4. Juan Huarte de San Juan, Examen de ingenios para las ciencias, ed. Esteban Torre (1575; Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1977), 260-61. 5. Ernesto Grassi and Maristella Lorch, Folly and Insanity in Renaissance Literature, Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 42 (Binghamton, NY: Centre for Medieval and Early Renaissance Studies, 1986), 109–14. 6. P. E. Russell, 'The Madness of Don Quixote', in Cervantes (Oxford: Oxford U.P., 1985), 73-81. 7. E. C. Riley, Don Quixote (London: Allen and Unwin, 1986), notes that the knight is no longer easily tricked by appearances: 'It is not clear whether the change in Don Quixote's condition is attributable to the month's rest, with nourishing food…or to the first adventure after he and Sancho set out again, or to some other unnamed cause' (106). 8. See, for example: John J. Allen, Don Quixote: Hero or Fool? A Study in Narrative Technique (Gainesville: Univ. of Florida Press, 1969) and J. M. Sobré, 'Don Quixote, the Hero Upside-Down', HR, XLIV (1976), 127–41. The same article, translated into Spanish by Ana Fernández Seín, was published as: 'Don Quijote, el héroe al revés', Sin Nombre, IX (1978), 67–79. For a Christian reading of the issues raised here, see R. P. Pedro Lumbreras, O. P., Casos y lecciones del Quijote (Madrid: Stvdivm de Cultura, 1952). 9. C. M. Bowra, Heroic Poetry (1952; London: Macmillan, 1961), 97 and 126. 10. It is perhaps excessive to view Don Quixote as 'a portrait of the Christian Saint', as does W. H. Auden in an otherwise perceptive article, 'The Ironic Hero: Some Reflections on Don Quixote', in Cervantes: A Collection of Critical Essays, ed. Lowry Nelson, Jr. (Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall, 1969), 73–81. Reprinted from Horizon, XX (1949), 86–94. 11. For possible sources of the adage Fortes fortuna adiuvat, see D. Erasmus, Collected Works of Erasmus 31: Adages Ii1 to Iv100, trans. M. M. Phillips, annotated by R. A. B. Mynors (Toronto: Toronto U.P., 1982), II: 187–88. 12. L. A. Murillo, 'Don Quixote as Renaissance Epic', in Cervantes and the Renaissance, ed. M. D. McGaha, Papers of the Pomona College Cervantes Symposium, November 16–18,1978 (Easton, PA: Juan de la Cuesta Hispanic Monographs, 1980), 55. 13. This transformation is noted by Robert Brody, 'Don Quijote's Emotive Adventures: Fulling Hammers and Lions', Neophilologus, LIX (1975), 372–81. However, his conclusion regarding the confrontation with the lions is debatable: 'it is not physical death with which he is concerned; he is a desperate, frightened man who, by a reckless deed, tries to cling to the illusion of his former bravery' (380). 14. See C. Bandera, Mimesis conflictiva: ficción literaria y violencia en Cervantes y Calderón (Madrid: Gredos, 1975), 81–111, and two studies by E. C. Riley, 'Don Quixote and the Imitation of Models', BHS, XXXI (1954), 3–16, and 'The Imitation of Models', in Cervantes's Theory of the Novel (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1962), 61–67. Both studies by Riley are excellent introductions to the precept of imitation in the poetic treatises and manuals that Cervantes could have consulted. For a more extensive overview of mimesis, see David H. Darst, Imitatio: (Polémicas sobre la imitación en el Siglo de Oro) (Madrid: Orígenes, 1985). 15. See L. G. Salingar, ‘Don Quixote as a Prose Epic’, Forum for Modern Language Studies, II (1966), 53–68. 16. On Humanism in Spain, see A. M. Arancón's introduction to Antología de humanistas españoles (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1980), 9–31; A. Castro, El pensamiento de Cervantes, new ed. rev. and annot. by J. Rodríguez-Puértolas (1925; Barcelona: Noguer, 1980), and Marcel Bataillon, Erasmo y el erasmismo, trans. Carlos Pujol (Barcelona: Editorial Crítica, 1983). 17. See: II.4, 70; II.11, 119; II.15, 147; II.17, 160–61; II.28, 256–57; II.29, 266–67; II.60, 493; II.63, 526, etc. The episode of the lions is especially problematic, for in spite of the pleas for prudence from Don Diego, the knight undertakes the bold adventure nevertheless. Don Quixote, however, explains himself in one of those rare moments of sincere confession. Recognizing that the middle road of prudence is not always possible for a man of flesh and blood, he deliberately chooses the lesser of two evils: 'puesto que conocí ser temeridad esorbitante, porque bien sé lo que es valentía, que es una virtud que está puesta entre dos estremos viciosos, como son la cobardía y la temeridad; pero menos mal será que el que es valiente toque y suba al punto de temerario que no que baje y toque en el punto de cobarde' (II.17, 167). Karl-Ludwig Selig notes, with reference to this episode, the importance of the epithet atrevido that Sancho opposes to the Gentleman in Green's characterization of Don Quixote as loco. 'Don Quixote II/16–17: Don Quixote and the Lion', in Homenaje a Ana María Barrenechea (Madrid: Castalia, 1985), 327–32. 18. See, for example, the extensive bibliography in the appendix to Mario Praz's Studies in Seventeenth-century Imagery, 2nd ed., Sussidi Eruditi 16 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1975). 19. Juan de Horozco y Covarrubias deals at some length with emblem theory in the first book of his Emblemas morales (Segovia: Juan de la Cuesta, 1591). In his comparison of emblemas and empresas, Horozco y Covarrubias asserts the author's privilege of literary appropriation, or imitation: 'para Emblema no importa sea propia o sea agena, porq no se mira sino a lo q enseña' (f. 66r). A few other theoretical precepts are of interest: 'las Emblemas se hazen de figuras que significan, y siendo como personas mudas hablan por señas, a lo menos habla en ellas la persona que las inventa' (f. 64v) ; 'la Emblema ha de ser para auiso general como regla que pueda conuenir a todos' (f. 66r). The emblem has a moral-didactic purpose. It should teach 'algo bueno en negocio de costumbres' (f. 66r). Finally, 'las Emblemas no admiten burla por ser inuetadas para enseñar verdades y desengañar' (f. 66r). 20. In addition to Praz's work, cited above, the student of emblem books should consult R. J. Clements, Picta Poesis: Literary and Humanistic Theory in Renaissance Emblem Books, Temi e Testi 6 (Rome: Edizioni di Storia e Letteratura, 1960), and Peter M. Daly, Literature in the Light of the Emblem: Structural Parallels between the Emblem and Literature in the Sixteenth and Seventeenth Centuries (Toronto: Toronto U.P., 1979). 21. This and other editions and commentaries of the Emblemata in the Iberian peninsula are studied by K. L. Selig, 'The Spanish Translations of Alciato's Emblemata', MLN, LXX (1955), 354-59. Selig's many erudite studies of the influence of emblem books in Spain prove him to be a pioneer in this field of Spanish letters. All references in this study to the Spanish translation of Alciati's Emblems, are to M. Soria's facsimile edition of Daza's sixteenth century work, Alciato, Emblemas (Madrid: Editora Nacional, 1975). There is another excellent edition of these emblems in Spanish, Santiago Sebastián's Emblemas (Madrid: Akal, 1985). 22. See, for example, K. L. Selig, 'Don Quijote, I/8–9 y la granada', in De los romances-villancico a la poesía de Claudio Rodríguez: 22 ensayos sobre las literaturas española e hispanoamericana en homenaje a Gustav Siebenmann, eds. J. M. López de Abiada and A. López Bernasocchi (N.p. : José Esteban, 1984), 401–07. For a general overview of Alciati's influence in Spain, see R. Keightley, 'Sobre Alciato en España y un Hércules aragonés', Arbor, XLVI (1960), 57–66, and the articles of K. L. Selig cited in note 1 of P. L. Ullman's 'An Emblematic Interpretation of Sansón Carrasco's Disguises', in Estudios literarios de hispanistas norteamericanos dedicados a Helmut Hatzfeld con motivo de su 80 aniversario, eds. J. M. Solà-Solé, A. Crisafulli and B. Damiani (Barcelona: Ediciones Hispam, 1974), 223. 23. J. Herrero, 'Sierra Morena as Labyrinth: From Wildness to Christian Knighthood', in Critical Essays on Cervantes, ed. Ruth El Saffar (Boston: G. K. Hall, 1986), 70. Article reprinted from FMLS, XVII (1981), 55-67. 24. C. Bandera notes the epic need for a fusion of 'lo humano con lo divino' in his 'Deseo y creación literaria en el Quijote', MLN, XCV (1980), 282. 25. Marisa C. Alvarez studies this emblem in 'Emblematic Aspects of Cervantes' Narrative Prose', in Cervantes, Special Issue (1988), 149–58. Her commentary is germane: 'In Don Quixote's journey from irrationality to reason, this adventure is one stepping stone towards self-knowledge for he has not departed from el camino de la razón' (152). 26. Emblemas, p. 209. As Selig notes in his articles on the editions of the Emblemata, cited above in note 21, Bernardino Daza takes some liberties in translating the Latin of the originals into Spanish, which further complicates the question of influence. Sebastián's translation of the poetry is much more faithful to the original. Sebastián also incorporates appropriate commentary from Diego López's Declaración magistral de las Emblemas de Andrés Alciato … (Nájera: Juan de Mongastón, 1615). The commentary to this emblem states that: 'el hombre prudente deve procurar ser señor de su cólera, y refrenarla porque ninguna victoria ay más insigne ni mayor ni más provechosa que aquella que alcançe el hombre de sí mismo, quando refrenando la ira y cólera, viene a quedar victorioso' (Sebastián, 218). 27. Cervantes doubtless was aware that this lore had long been debunked. Dioscórides, in the Materia Medica, for example, says: 'Es frívolo y vano lo que se dice, que siendo perseguido este animal de los cazadores, se arranca los compañones huyendo, y de sí los arroja: porque no se los puede tocar, a causa que son restrictos, y recogidos atrás, así como los del puerco' (II.23, 138). Andrés de Laguna confirms this opinion in his annotations, and adds: 'antes dejaría los ojos, que la tal prenda' (II.23, 138). I quote from César E. Dubler's facsimile edition, La 'Materia Medica' de Dioscórides: Transmisión medieval y renacentista, Vol. III (Barcelona: Tipografía Emporium, 1955). I have modernized the orthography. 28. Direct influence, though plausible, is not assured. It is conceivable that Cervantes knew only the commentaries to the emblems. See, for example, K. L. Selig, 'The Commentary of Juan de Mal Lara to Alciato's Emblemata', HR, XXIV (1956), 26–41. 29. Don Quixote's possible impotence and fear of castration are studied by C. B. Johnson in Madness and Lust: A Psychoanalytical Approach to Don Quixote (Berkeley: California U.P., 1983), 59, 91-92, 158, 166-67, 198. 30. The image is Herrero's, op. cit., 71. The same theme of Sierra Morena as labyrinth is treated somewhat repetitively by S. Jiménez Fajardo in 'The Sierra Morena as Labyrinth in Don Quixote I', MLN, XCIX (1984), 214–34. 31. Don Quixote's words here appear to be part of a dialogue with Horozco y Covarrubias's emblem 42, Book II, Cum non contendendum, on imprudent but atrevido Marsyas, who dared compete with Apollo. We read in the prose gloss: 'El que quiere contienda con los que son mas auentajados que el, es imprudente porque le faltara la victoria y sobre el dolor que tendra se le seguira deshonor y afrenta' (f. 193r). 32. Another difficulty with emblematics is that different emblematists used identical or similar visual images to represent diametrically opposed concepts. Juan de Horozco y Covarrubias employs the pictura of a sword slung from the branches of a tree in emblem 50, Book 2, ‘Victoria parta’ ('Alcanzada victoria'), to remind his reader that peace is fragile and the soldier must always be prepared to return to battle (f. 208r). We read in the prose amplificatio: 'puede ser dañoso olvidar las armas y el exercicio dellas, pues ninguna paz ay tan segura que no pueda de muchas maneras turbarse, y siempre las armas son menester' (f. 209r). Viewed in this light, we might suggest that if Don Quixote's disarmament is a symbol of a return to sanity, then the hanging of the arms from a tree functions as an emblem of the fragility of the line that divides sanity and madness. 33. M. Louise Salstad, 'Nature as Emblem Book in Sixteenth-Century Spanish Religious Poetry', PhQ, LIX (1980), 413–35. The passage quoted is at 433.