Cervantes : Don Quixote:  Some Notes and Reflections [Part I 1605/ Part II 1615]

Prologue:

Author wondering about writing an erudite prologue.Thinks he is not capable of doing that. But it is easy - just quote, footnote, allude and write sonnets with the names of other authors ascribed to them.First modern novel - very postmodern too - playing with frames of reference, genres, narration, etc. Not out to inform -but does so by default. Books of chivalry - not fit to be read. But, he himself, is writing in that genre… if only to send it up. Writers as liars (yet a need for imitation/verisimilitude?). Yet calls this story of an errant knight a "history". Began as a tale (cuento), then turns into a history/novel.
Sonnets very humorous, ironic, mocking….

Chapter I: 

25	Playing with truth… narrator must not stray from the truth by an inch.
26	Sending up books of chivalry.
28	Horse is named Hakafore –‘foremost of hacks’ - Rocinante. Takes 4 days.
He becomes Don Quixote - Sir Thighpiece. Takes 8 days.
29	      His lady is Dulcinea del Toboso.
Everything named - "musical and magical and meaningful…." (Note this use of alliteration not in text, nor these meanings? Harmonious, uncommon and significant in Jarvis’ trans. And in text we have… “a su parecer, musico y peregrino y significativo…”)

Chapter II:

30	      Ventures forth. Not really entitled to call himself a knight.
31	Nice anticlimax… bronze… marble… wood… "for all posterity".
32	Comes to an inn/mistaken as a castle. Hilarious scene with prostitutes, etc.

Chapter III:

36	To get himself knighted by innkeeper. Red-light districts recounted.
37	Fights with muleteers wanting to use water trough.

Chapter IV:

41	Innkeeper gets rid of guest. Heads home.
42	Meets a farmer beating his worker - righting wrongs (but only makes things worse!).
47	Left cast.

Chapter V:

50	Books "scrambling the finest minds of la Mancha."
51	Nursed in bed.

Chapter VI:

52	Book burning sequence….
56	Poking fun at pastorals as well.
58	Galatea (1585) by Cervantes saved from fire. Another self-referential comment.

Chapter VII:

58	Second sally
59	Library sealed up. Taken by devil… enchanter….
60	Works for a fortnight on a farmer called Sancho Panza… who leaves his wife and three children.
63	"…such a fine master as you, who'ill be able to give me everything that's good for me and I can cope with."

Chapter VIII:

63	Famous windmills scene/monsters… "just war… great service to God."
64	"I'm going to moan about the slightest little pain"… says the squire.
67	'Abduction of woman'
68	Stripping of one of the friars. Friar referred to as the "pride of your ravishers"…
69	Basque defending himself with a cushion on stubborn mule. 
70	But the end of this battle is unwritten… a device to end this first part.

Chapter IX:

73	Need for a sage to record thoughts… "hidden from the public gaze."
74	Ending restored from the Arabic through translation of notebook. 'History' by Benegeli (eggplant-eater – in ‘reality’ Cervantes himself of course). 
75	All Arabs are liars… so how can we trust this history (of course we cannot!)?
77	Ladies plead for the Basque.

Chapter X:

78	SP mauled by friars' servants. Kisses hand of DQ after the 'battle'… not island adventures, rather "roadside adventures."
81	Eating, except banquets, not mentioned in histories. Therefore, DQ can do the same. An interesting comment/meta-comment on verisimilitude/reality of literature….

Chapter XI:

82	Eats with goat-herders. 
86	Song

Chapter XII:

91	‘Noses’ older than ‘Moses’. Word plays.
92	Sending up shepherds/shepherdesses.

Chapter XIII:

95	The burial of the shepherd.
96	Mention of King Arthur.
97	…bizarre scene of mad DQ, believed by SP, quizzed by Vivaldo. A dead shepherd from love, his companions dressed in black, goatherders… what on earth is it? Let the poet's writings live… yet burnt except for a lamentation… 

Chapter XIV:

103	Gristomo’s song (lamentation). Note the ‘Italian’ names (after Pastorals).
105	I don't expire… feed this fire… heavy irony, etc.
108	Defence by Marcela over being the cause of Gristomo's death. 
109	"Peoples' affection would be forever wandering."
110	"Killed by their own obstinacy rather than by my cruelty."
111	"She bears little or no blame for G's death." Said by DQ - was he really listening to this "intelligent and beautiful woman?" Slain by disdain on epitaph - so no-one was listening!
112	"Come to Seville” where there are adventures around every corner… but no - DQ needs to first rid the sierras of foul robbers….

Some Reflections

Rutherford, in his discussion of his translation, notes that “All this might even lead to a realization that self-conscious and self-referential fiction is not, as certain contemporary critics and theoreticians in their post-modern parochiality to believe, a twentieth century discovery.” As I have agreed with these critics and theoreticians in this regard I feel I need to reply to this important observation made by the translator.

	I have argued that this use of the self-referential is a matter of degree and that beyond a certain degree of use the flavour of that use then changes the nature of that text. So certain earlier authors, say Shakespeare in his soliloquies, e.g., use this type of device without radically altering the genre adopted in the construction of their text. In many way, I believe, Cervantes was influenced by Spanish theatre. We also can note that the author believed his text was going to be recited to an audience besides just being read visually. Maybe this type of consideration could account for the marked self-referential nature of this text? Another argument I would use is that not only are seminal authors ‘people of their times’ but also ‘people ahead of their time’ who wittingly or unwittingly can intuit trends years before they properly develop? But can we use this argument to claim Cervantes as pre-postmodern – I don’t think so! No, I think we need to examine more closely how the postmodern use of self-referential material might differ from its use in pre-postmodern times.
	
I have argued in a number of papers that there is a transition currently being undegone that marks a phase-change between the Postmodern era and what I call the Contemporary era. I would like to note the following four characteristics of this transition, namely, a particular sense of contemporaneity – a sort of ongoing existential present with spontaneity and unpredictable re-direction of textuality, genre, hybrid-mixing of genre, non-directly related sub-textual material, etc; a direct, shocking, ‘earthy’ use of the vernacular; an awareness of an audience by that text and not just the semblance of a self-conscious sense of the self-referential; and, an ontological equality between different frames of reference along with a blurring of their distinctiveness as simulations, etc. 

	All four of these headings could be argued for as occurring in Don Quixote. But not to the extent that this can occur in today’s cutting edge texts (say South Park, e.g.). On the other hand, some of Cervantes’ material in his day could well have been seen as just as shocking and received then in an even more humorous light as a result than that still provoked in our reading some four hundred years later. Then, the public unclothing of the friar in Chapter IX and calling him a “pride of your ravishers” is both shocking and extremely funny. Could we imagine how it was received at the time of its publication? In the burial of the broken hearted shepherd the reader must wonder if the text is a pastoral, a piece on chivalry, a satire on both, or a new genre incorporating all of the above? May be the genre of the novel was born into this type of marriage – needing this degree of hybridity and self-referentiality to arise? However, be that as it may, my main defence of this retrospective and critical observation that there is nothing new under the sun is that the degree and manner of the utilization of these ‘postmodern-like’ devices by Cervantes does not quite create the flavour of text that we might characterize as Postmodern or as Contemporary? At the end of the day we find only a fast moving, comic ‘history’ of the adventures of Don Quixote and his faithful sidekick Sancho Panza and not a text that has radically de-centred itself and called the use of narrative into question, etc., despite the eddies and frisson between varying narrative strands, narrators, genres, hybrid genres, self-referential comments, etc. Again, I would also like to note that this mistaken modern flavour could also be the result of a theatrical influence, the writing for an audience… indeed in 1585 we know Cervantes sold two plays unfortunately now lost to us.

	Rutherford also tells us in his Introduction to his translation that this text still has “the ability to astonish us”… that “two principles of Golden Age literary theory are relevant: the belief that admiratio (amazement) and verisimilitude are essential qualities of fictional literature underlies our two heroes’ wonderful combination of unpredictability and credibility. Don Quixote is an experimental work far ahead of its times…” indeed one that still inspires us today and, hopefully, one we can emulate when we turn our hand to creating a true work of art. These two opposing, yet interacting facets of an artwork, create a wonderful tension in this work and in an ongoing resolution effectively drive the action of this text forwards at seems to be a furious pace. Hopefully, in this finding of our own inspiration we will be able to astonish others… take the breath away too… four hundred years from now!?

							   Noël Tointon, Sydney, 21.9.03.