Cervantes' Don Quijote Once Again: An Answer To J. J. Allen

Daniel Eisenberg

The City College, CUNY
New York, N. Y. 10031

Despite its steadily diminishing importance¹, debate over the Quijote continues unabated. At the center of one of those controversies which somehow plague Spanish literary history above all others, there is still little agreement even in the vanguard of Cervantine criticism on those perennial questions, what the character Don Quijote stands for, and what the purpose of the book was seen to be by its author. It may safely be stated that a consensus on these questions is at best far in the future.

A recent monograph by J. J. Allen² attempts to reconcile diverging opinions on the first of these points through the use of modern methods of literary analysis. Borrowing from a well-written article by Oscar Mandel³, Allen divides critics of the Quijote into a «hard», school, represented among others by Hatzfeld, which sees Don Quijote primarily as a fool, and a «soft» school, which sees him as a heroic and noble figure. By examining the means, both stylistic and contextual, in which Cervantes guides the reader toward the position he desires, Allen concludes that Cervantes intended Don Quijote to be seen in Part I as «a vain and meddling man with whom one does not identify strongly... almost always the object of readers' and other characters' laughter» (p. 41), but in Part II he is intended by the author to be the object of «sympathy and admiration» (p. 50). Thus both hard and soft critics are right, each in their own way, and order and harmony are reestablished in the critical kingdom.

Or so it would seem at first glance. To the present author, who is, like Mandel, avowedly of the hard school, Allen's comments concerning Part II are much less convincing than those he makes on Part I, for which he combines new and familiar evidence to show that Don Quijote is in fact as the hard school sees him. In his brief chapter on Stylistic Disclosure, Allen's evidence for the acceptance of the soft interpretation of Part II is almost exclusively negative: the decrease, then disappearance, of archaisms⁴, the fact that the dawn descriptions in Part II are not at Don Quijote's expense, and the lack of insulting slips of the tongue by characters in Part II, or rather, in Part II after Don Quijote's tercera salida begins, a distinction whose significance escapes me. Even were there no contrary examples in Part II, this alone is merely circumstantial evidence.

However, there is much in Part II which would indicate the same attitude of the author towards his main character as in Part I. First, there is the overwhelming and repeated evidence of the chapter headings, which often can only be seen as directing the reader to an interpretation unfavorable to Don Quijote. In II, 10, Don Quijote, offers Sancho «el mejor despojo que ganare en la primera aventura que tuviere, y si esto no te contenta, te mando las crías que este año me dieren las tres yeguas mías», clearly a humorous deflation of Don Quijote's future spoils. In II, 17, the gratuitous exaltation of the author, whoever, he may be, who says that Don Quijote showed «jamás vista locura», the attitude of the lion, and Don Quijote's statement to Diego de Miranda that by his works one would rightly take him to be a «hombre disparatado y loco», clearly show him as ridiculous. Also supporting this position are the statement at the opening of II, 40, desiring that Don Quijote should live «para gusto y general pasatiempo de los vivientes»; Don Quijote's remark while on Clavileño (II, 41), that «no parece sino que no nos movemos de un lugar»; the comment at the opening of II, 43 that Don Quijote «mostró tener gran donaire, y puso su discreción y su locura en un levantado punto»; Cide Hamete's reference at the opening of II, 44 to «las locuras de Don Quijote»; the narrator's comparison of Don Quijote's thoughts with fleas, at the opening of II, 46; Don Quijote's use of a proverb not altogether to his point (thus reminiscent of Sancho) in his letter to Sancho in II, 51; Cide Hamete's blunt remark that Sancho and Don Quijote are «tontos», in II, 70; Sancho's slip in calling Don Quijote «matador de doncellas» as well as «amparo de las viudas» and, using an archaism, «defacedor de agravios», in II, 72. The play on bestias at the end of the Aventura del barco encantado, the epitaph of Sansón and the concluding remarks of Cide Hamete, have long ago been noted by other critics as not in keeping with the soft interpretation of Part II.

Allen's chapter on Contextual Disclosure, while more substantial, is still unsatisfying. He points to Don Quijote's victories in battle, the changing ethical status of his opponents, Don Quijote's increasing cognizance of reality and his diminished pride, among others, as factors which make for a more favorable presentation in Part II. While a defeat of Don Quijote by Sansón would have meant an end to Part II no sooner than it had begun, and his «victories» over the lion and Tosilos are at best ambiguous, Allen's comments concerning the other characters in Part II are perhaps more specious. Even accepting his premise that the other characters of Part II are morally inferior to those of Part I, this would indicate only a relative improvement in Don Quijote's stature, and in an absolute sense means nothing.

But although the «author» comments on several occasions in Part II that the other characters seem as crazy as Don Quijote, the lack of such comments in Part I should not be taken to indicate approval of the actions of the characters in this part. Does not the priest of Part I amuse himself at Don Quijote's expense?⁵ Is not Maritornes (the correct comparison, not Dorotea) cruel in the same way as Altisidora? And the ecclesiastic at the Duke's palace speaks out for reality and against the jokes played at Don Quijote's expense, while the canon of Toledo, for all his intellectual discussions, goes along with them⁶.

Furthermore, there are numerous episodes in Part II which show that Cervantes' attitude toward his protagonist was nearly the same as in Part I. Some of these have been pointed out long ago and are familiar. Don Quijote makes a fool of himself when he cannot tell a puppet show from real life, after being pointedly taken in by Ginés' deliberately transparent trick of adivination with the monkey. Don Quijote's impotence at bringing about the disenchantment of Dulcinea, and the deception practiced by Sancho, constitute a continuing belittlement throughout the latter section of this part. He is made to relate things which «happened» in the Cave of Montesinos which are in open conflict with his idea of knight-errantry⁷. Don Quijote ends up much the worse at the conclusion of the Aventura del barco encantado, a parody of a chivalric adventure.

Others have not been recognized as such because of the unfamiliarity with the sixteenth-century romances of chivalry which were the subject of Cervantes' parody. A minor element are the muletillas such as «sin acontecer cosa que de contar sea», quoted by Allen (p. 15), though without realizing that they are parodical. Don Quijote's cautious descent into the Cave by means of a rope tied around his waist is in direct and humorous opposition to the temerity with which «true» literary knights-errant undertook such descents⁸. The paintings which Sancho says in II, 71 will appear on every «bodegón, venta... mesón y tienda de barbero» are a direct allusion, although completely inconsistent with the extent of Sancho's knowledge, to the paintings of deeds of knights which are referred to in romances of chivalry⁹.

The Aventura del rebuzno is an explicit parody of a chivalric adventure, in which a knight-errant suddenly comes across a battle in progress and helps one side to victory¹⁰. (Cf. the Aventura de los rebaños of I, 18). In contrast with the battles of the romances of chivalry, the conflict is senseless; the heraldic symbol is an ass; Don Quijote fails to accomplish anything and ends up very much the worse, in disgraceful flight. The procession at the Duke's palace during which the means of disenchanting Dulcinea is announced is also directly based on the romances of chivalry¹¹, but instead of ligeros caballos we have perezosos bueyes, in place of noble vehicles noisy oxcarts; the carro triunfal is covered with plain white cloth, and the nymph was «si no rica, a lo menos vistosamente vestida». To free his lady, the act required is that the knight's squire should beat himself «en ambas sus valientes posaderas».

The procession is only one of a series of mock chivalric episodes prepared by the Duke and Duchess, in which are concealed clues inconsistent with knight-errantry which the unobservant (and ridiculous) Don Quijote does not notice, but which the reader is meant to catch, as does Sancho occasionally. The story of the Dueña Dolorida, told by a bearded man who at first forgets to use the feminine gender, and who carries his invention of chivalric names and his use of language to ridiculous extremes, the horse Clavileño -a depreciative name- with the fireworks and the bellows, the burlesque verses of Altisidora and the gateamiento, all use chivalric means to diminish the stature of Don Quijote.

In his chapter on Contextual Disclosure, Allen does not mention the fact that with the exception of Diego de Miranda, all of the important characters Don Quijote comes into contact with amuse themselves at his expense and without Cervantine censure (in contrast with Part I, where many characters, not having heard of the amusing madman, would leave him alone if he would only treat them similarly). Even in the final chapters of Part II, where Don Quijote should be at his highest stature, the honorable bandit Roque Guinart «conoció que la enfermedad de Don Quijote tocaba más en locura que en valentía» (II, 60), and Don Quijote's treatment in Barcelona is the result of the letter. Guinart writes to Antonio Moreno, suggesting how he and his friends may amuse themselves (solazarse) with Don Quijote, which is what Moreno looks for means to do (II, 62). Don Quijote's «dignified» entry into Barcelona is spoiled by the street urchins (II, 61), just as the «cerdosa aventura», and his speculations on the pastoral life, sully his return home¹².

This interpretation of the presentation of Don Quijote in Part II is relevant to the second question referred to at the outset of this article, that of the purpose of Don Quijote. It has been a generally accepted principle of Quijote criticism of the last two generations that since the nature of the Quijote is incompatible with its stated purpose, that the stated purpose is not its true or primary one and that one is therefore justified in speculating on Cervantes' real intention¹³. This is nearly as unscientific as the common, though unacknowledged, practice of beginning with the conclusion that the Quijote is a masterpiece (or the first modern novel, or the greatest literary work of all time, etc.), and then searching for the reasons why.

Parenthetically, I would venture to suggest that Cervantes' primary purpose in writing both parts of the Quijote is nothing more nor less than parody of the romances of chivalry, as Cervantes declares it to be right up to the very last sentence of the book¹⁴. This has sometimes been accepted as valid for Part I, but a hard interpretation of Part II, with its continued burlesque of chivalric materials, admits of nothing less. The romances of chivalry were popular much later than is usually realized¹⁵, and it is not necessary to assume that Cervantes wrote against the romances because he was outraged by their deficiencies and wished to call the same to his readers' attention. (Had he felt this a serious question, he would have written a serious work, a treatise, not a work of fiction). Far from requiring a consistent critical base, parody is equally compatible with a respect for the subject as it is with a realization of its inadequacies.

A final note must be added with regard to Allen's fourth chapter, «Levels of Fiction», in which he discusses the implications of the inclusion of Part I as a finished book in Part II. This chapter has been criticized from one point of view by Ruth Snodgrass El Saffar. I would merely raise the familiar question of Cervantes' intent in doing so, a valid question which Allen ignores. It may well be true that Cervantes has done something unprecedented, and with philosophical implications, by discussing Part I in Part II. But if so, he did so with no clear purpose and without regard for these implications. It is merely a curiosity, unless it can be established that it was Cervantes' intent to imply the things Allen sees, rather than carelessness or unconcern. It is not unlike the question of whether Cervantes intended a deliberate confusion over the names of Sancho's wife and Alonso Quijano, or whether he simply forgot what he had earlier written. If Sancho knows in Part I, but not in Part II, what an ínsula is, must this be due to conscious intent on Cervantes' part?

To reject the simpler possibility that these and similar items are merely accidents resulting from Cervantes' haste and disinclination to revise¹⁶, is to conclude the existence of an anachronistic Cervantes, interested in ontological problems which were just not considered in the Spain of his day, or an Unamunian Cervantes who was a humble amanuensis of things bigger than he. Although a case can be made for these positions, it, like the Ptolomean cosmography, requires increasingly elaborate explanations and suppositions.

Accepting the hard interpretation of Don Quijote implies accepting the book as a work of humor -no more, no less- written without further pretensions. The question of why it is a great work of humor (and intuition leads me to affirm that it is), remains to be examined. The relationships between the language, the actions, and the theme to the humor needs to be elucidated. We are entering a new era of Quijote studies, and the comic aspects of the work deserve critics' immediate attention.