Este ensayo
analiza el travestismo en
Don Quijote, en términos no
sólo de género sino también de raza y religión. El
argumento va desde los episodios más conocidos, como el de Dorotea o las
Dueñas Barbudas hasta casos más complejos, hacia el final de la
Segunda Parte de la novela, que ocurren en la frontera nacional y constituyen
un desafío a la impermeabilidad de dicha frontera. Identificando dos
antecedentes genéricos de las mujeres vestidas de hombre en la novela de
Cervantes -las guerreras épicas y las doncellas trasvestidas de la
tradición novelesca- sugiero que el juego con los géneros
literarios en sí lleva a la situación límite de la
frontera, insostenible frente al travestismo multivalente que dificulta la
determinación nacional.
Según
Cervantes lo usa en el
Viaje del Parnaso, el término
canonizar lleva dos significados
contradictorios: la alabanza de una obra por ser buena, y la
representación engañosa de una obra mala como buena. Esta misma
ambivalencia hacia la canonización se ve reflejada en las dos figuras
alegóricas de la buena y mala Poesía, cuya distinción
social está duplicada en el poema en los mapas literarios de Madrid y el
Mediterráneo y las tropas literarias que luchan por tomar el monte
Parnaso. Para Cervantes, quien reconoce su ambigua postura entre la
poesía del
cisne, la de la corte y la academia, y la
del
cuervo, la de la calle y la taberna, el
hogar de las musas resulta ser utópico en su sentido literal -un lugar
inexistente. Entonces, no tiene asiento en Parnaso, sino que ocupa un lugar
marginado en el canon literario, el que ve basado en la fama como
función social en vez del puro mérito
literario.
The
linguistic polyphony and polymorphism characteristic of the style in
Don Quixote, as products of the manner in
which Cervantes uses language, and the variety and number of components that
generate and define them have been studied at length by Julio Cejador y Frauca,
Helmut Hatzfeld, and Angel Rosenblat, and in numerous monographs dealing with
specific aspects of Cervantes's discourse. Some sections of the work, however,
have altogether escaped the detailed and systematic research given to the
adventures of Knight and Squire. This study projects the findings of Cejador,
Hatzfeld, and Rosenblat beyond the novel proper, into the Prologues of Parts I
(1605) and II (1615), demonstrating that these sections of the narrative are
not only essential components of the whole but also fit well within the overall
stylistics and inner structure of the system.
This study
demonstrates Leocadia's «textualization», her inscription in the
archetypal female typifications of Virgin and whore, and the ways in which
these are interpreted («read») by her rapist Rodolfo. It compares
his interpretive abilities to those of Leocadia and Doña
Estefanía, both of whom prove to be better readers of Rodolfo -namely,
his predilection for female beauty- and as a result are able to entice him to
marry Leocadia. Despite the fact that Rodolfo's crime remains unpunished and
he, unrepentant, a defense is provided for Leocadia on the levels of story and
discourse. On the level of story Doña Estefanía's intercession
brings about the marriage and the subsequent restoration of Leocadia's honor.
On the level of discourse the ironic imposition of the conventional
«happy ending» as well as the sustained narrative condemnation of
the crime throughout the novel reveals a criticism of seventeenth-century
Spanish society and its treatment of women.
In this
article we study the reasons for the substantial presence of Garcilaso in the
Second Part of
Don Quixote -a presence which, strangely
enough, cannot be found in the First part. The defeat of Don Quixote on the
beach of Barcelona by the Knight of the White Moon implies for Don Quixote the
impossibility of continuing to live in the idealized world of the chivalresque
novel. The realm of the knights errant disappears gradually from the text,
while the pastoral motifs, through the mediating voice of Garcilaso, gain
substantial form and presence, to the point where Don Quixote even considers
becoming a shepherd. The fusion of these two worlds -the chivalresque and the
pastoral- has been admirably achieved, one reason being the function of
Garcilaso as a fundamental subtext to the Second Part.