Reflexivity in Don Quixote

Don Quixote is a text that is well noted for its textual reflexivity.

In the last sections of this work, Part II: Chapters L – LXXIV, this feature remains prominent in certain key sections of the text. In this short paper let me sketch out a brief, provisional theory of textual reflexivity. This topic has been of concern for me in so far as I have previously argued that an increased degree of reflexivity is a characteristic of a Contemporaneous (Post-Postmodern) text. As this feature is prominent in such ‘Modern’ writers as Cervantes and Shakespeare I have had to ask myself what is it that stops such non-contemporary writing from being seen as no different from a Contemporary text? As a first, tentative step towards resolving this puzzle let me proffer this initial, provisional understanding of textual reflexivity.

Reflexivity needs space to become reflective within. But it is the nature of an artwork to have that space already ‘represented’ there by virtue of its being there to be ‘seen’ as an artwork beyond the mere presentation of its material embodiment through which it announces itself as an artwork be that the pages of a book or the stone of a sculpture, etc. Moreover, this sense of artistic ‘space’ is enlarged when the genre or genres involved are themselves being focused upon as in the practice of satire, e.g. So, we should be able to come to recognize the fact that reflexivity is already involved in the very recognition of an artwork as an ‘artwork’ plus what ever material instantiation is given to it in the process of its being presented as an ‘artwork’. For example, a painting is both a painting and a concatenation of painted brushstrokes on the surface of a certain medium such as a canvass or a wooden panel, etc. From a certain distance, its transcendental distance, those brush strokes become a painting and cease to be just brush-strokes.

	So this is my first point: reflexivity is already present in our seeing an artwork as an ‘artwork’ regardless of whether it is ‘seen’, ‘heard’ or ‘read’, etc.

	My second point is this: this ever-present reflexivity must somehow be relatively suppressed in our reading of that artwork as an ‘artwork’. In our intentional concentration on seeing the ‘textual dimension’ of that ‘artwork’ we must not be too over-involved in this ‘space’ between its material presentation and its textual representation, concentrating our overt attention on the latter. This stands to reason! When the fisherman goes fishing if they were to keep telling themselves “I am fishing… I am fishing… I am fishing…” I am sure the fish would just get away (since there is just too much difference in ‘space’ and ‘time’ between one’s actually being engrossed in the sheer ‘act of fishing’ and the mere reflexive act of ‘thinking about it’!)! Hence this deductive observation that, normally, reflexivity is relatively suppressed in the normal reception of an artwork.

	My next point is this: that the textual dimension of the text, its representation, is essentially simulated. This allows the author or artist of a textual simulation, the presentation of its representation, to re-configure its apparent constitution in the course of our reading/re-reading of that text without disturbing the effective stability of this relative suppression of reflexivity. Cervantes is doing this all the time on this level of the textual dimension. Let me give some examples:
1. 	In Part II: LIV, the ring-in for the jilted lover. The original miscreant is in Flanders.
2. 	The device of the talking bust in Part II: LXII.
3. 	We have Sancho Panza flailing the trees instead of lashing himself in Part II: LXXI, etc.
4.  	Altisdora feigning death on the catafalque in Part II: LXIX
5. 	Don Quixote thinking Sancho Panza is dead in the underground cavern in Part II, LV.
6. 	The good-looking ‘male’ captain of the pirate ship in Part II, LXIII is a woman and not a man. Her lover is a man acting as a ‘woman’ in North Africa.
7. 	The Knight of the White Moon is not a knight but a student (but in a chivalrous sense is, and beats Don Quixote in the joust).

	This textual stability of the simulated dimension of the text, despite dissimulation, re-simulation, parallel simulations, etc., is a desire or prejudice (or pre-judgment) of ours to maintain the semblance of but one world of reality (even if that currently apparent world is being simulated [even as a simulation qua simulation]). Hence this next point: that there is a tendency for the self-maintenance of the textual simulation of the textual dimension (unless extra-textual forces are present that are capable of reflexively disrupting it)!

	This aspect of textual stability is observed as a presuppositional necessity in the telling of a lie, the commission of an act of dissimulation. Most of the lie has to be truthfully presented and its only in a small point, the fulcrum of the deception, that the lie is put into effect. 

	What then creates an act of textual reflexivity set up by the author and read as such by the reader? Because reflexivity is essentially suppressed this process must be, effectively, a de-suppression of this otherwise ever-present desire to read the text as a textual representation of but ‘one world of reality’ even if covertly regarded as merely fictitious. Hence this next point: The ‘introduction’ of textual reflexivity must involve the relative de-suppression of our tendency otherwise to suppress the same!

	In general, if that is possible, let us ask, how does Cervantes introduce this element of reflexivity into his text? As a tentative answer let me propose this observation that he does this through presenting a parallel textual dimension that then interacts with the initial textual dimension, when properly proportioned or controlled, with a sense of textual frisson being produced as a result. Hence my next point: that, essentially, the reassertion of a textual reflexivity is (re-)introduced through the bifurcation of the textual dimension and the resultant presentation of a duplicated (or multiple) presentation of textual representations. Let me discuss some instances of this practice as occur in the final sections of this text where we get some more examples of a truly surprising reflexivity, e.g:
1. 	In Part II: LXII Don Quixote enters the premises of a book publisher. Here we get the book discussing the business of publishing a book. On the subject of translation we are told that translations are like a tapestry as if seen from behind. That only Greek and Latin should be translated. But we ‘know’ that the author of Don Quixote is a ‘translator’ and ‘editor’ of a text originally written in Arabic? So, if that is the case, then we are being told, more or less by implication, that this translation has most likely failed. Some failure! The text is talking about its own ‘failure’ by this bifurcation and potential ‘clash’ of a textual dimensions that has Don Quixote entering the premises of a book publisher and another dimension where we are informed that translations can only be good ones, if properly conducted, from Greek or Latin, whereas we ‘know’ this ‘translation’ is from the Arabic. But we also know this text is not a translation! In essence, the author has presented a ‘vertical’ textual bifurcation between the textual dimension proper and our meta-textual appreciation of it as a text qua text and our meta-textual appreciation of this interaction, in this instance, as ‘false’, that the text that says “it is a translation” in reality is not a translation. In this segment of the text we even have Don Quixote reading this false sequel published by Avellaneda and being quite annoyed in his reading in it of what is purported to have happened according to that text (we are currently reading). So we have, in effect, a fictitious character reading about himself and disagreeing with what he reads in that text that purports to be a history about himself.
2. 	Don Quixote gets a character in this book, Don Alvaro Tarfe, to agree that the Don Quixote that he met in Saragossa is only the fictional character of a false Part II not written by the real ‘author’ Cervantes (in and through his translation from the Arabic). Since Don Quixote was going to Saragossa to the joust there like the bogus Don Quixote, to prove this point, the ‘real’ Don Quixote decides to go to Barcelona instead  (Part II, LXXII). He even persuades this character to get a legal deposition drawn up to the effect that the ‘Don Quixote who went to Barcelona’ is the ‘real’ Don Quixote and not the ‘false’ ‘Don Quixote who went to Saragossa’, etc., (and who, he believes, is currently resident in a mad-house in Toledo?). Here we have an instance of a ‘horizontal’ bifurcation of the text (or a parallel bifurcation) (p. 969).
3. 	After Don Quixote dictates his will, and dies, the text states in its last paragraph that those false histories are already tumbling to the ground. But isn’t Don Quixote, written by Cervantes, a false history too? Shouldn’t this book also fall to the ground? However, it is true that this ‘false’ sequel, as written by Avellaneda, only gets a second reprinting as late as 1732.
4. 	In the will of Don Quixote we are told that, in a very Christian manner, he, Don Quixote, forgives this author, Avellandedo, for his writing of this false sequel Part II (Part II: LXXIV).
5.	In this text we are told that only this Arabic writer, Cide Hamete Benengeli only is allowed to ‘bring to life’ the adventures of Don Quixote in a non false history. On one hand, the author Cervantes has killed off the character Don Quixote so no more sequels can be written, and, on the other hand, if it should happen that he might want to write a sequel and/or add some adventures missed out in the original text(s) this will be allowed, in effect, ‘permitting’ only the original author, Cervantes, to re-continue these adventures? So, the author has given himself it would seem a de facto permission, through his main character, to re-continue these adventures should he, the author, decide at some future point in time to do so. Indeed, the very text ends in a burst of just such reflexivity, a re-current feature throughout this text.
	From an examination of the above examples of reflexivity we might conclude, therefore, that reflexivity is promoted through this bifurcation of the textual dimension in a desire to harmonize their clashing planes through the play of our powers of interpretation exercised in and through this tendency, or prejudice, on our part to want to live in but one world-of-life (even if part of its representation be fictitious in nature; even when that is covertly understood as such)!?

In looking at the last sections of this text the reader might like to discuss the following segments in the light of the above analysis of simulation, reflexivity, etc?

1.	Is Cervantes getting around censorship by discussing, in a reflexive manner, the unjust/just fate of the Moriscos in Chapter LIV (p. 854) (through an inability by the authorities to definitely pin down one particular stated opinion and firmly linking it to what they then believe the author truly believes)?
2.	What is the point of Don Quixote seeing the four sculptures of saints and horses in Chapter LVIII? How should we read this segment? Is it essential to the text?
3.	To what extent is reflexivity re-introduced in our reading of the account of Sancho Panza deciding to flail the trees and not lash himself whilst still in earshot of Don Quixote, and, Sancho Panza getting paid for the same when he is only hitting trees. There is a delightful irony in what Sancho Panza says when he states he prefers the presence of trees in so far as “they keep me company and help me in my plight” – an irony when ‘heard’ from the perspective of Don Quixote (p. 965). How are we to ‘read’ this commission of this task of vicarious penance to be conducted on Don Quixote’s behalf? Just how ‘simple’ is Sancho Panza? He sees no point in this task but finds himself contracted to ‘do it’? Does the resurrection of Altisdora tip the scales here and force Sancho Panza to change his mind on its ‘efficacy’ in the case of the dis-enchantment of the ‘peerless Dulcinea del Toboso’?
4.	Is there some unfinished business in the non-appearance of Dulcinea del Toboso at the end of this book. Or, does ‘the return of sanity’ defuse Don Quixote’s need for her? Then, how sane is he when he is still seeing her now as his mistress in a pastoral sequence but maintaining there the same name (p. 974)? Or, is the author exhibiting the assumption that “once mad always mad to some degree or other”? To what extent is the change of Don Quixote’s name back to his original name plus the tag of “the Good” an indication that this transition is not complete?
5.	What differences might a reflexive reading make in our interpretation of the galley sequence (LXIII)? Is there a sexual subtext here reinforced with the half-naked slaves, the heat of the sun, Sancho Panza swinging in the rigging, the chase of the pirates, the good-looking captain, and, the same captain turning out to be woman, etc., etc. Or, is the element of ‘sex’ merely a minor, non-essential addition to the text?
6.	Don Quixote rejects knight-errancy but in its place substitutes a yearning for a pastoral idyll (LXXIV). Is there any real change here? To decide this question doesn’t the text force us to take a reflexive point of view? Is it not the case that this last chapter is a delight to read because we are continually confronted with the re-imposition of a reflexive point of view when we continually try to re-instate a mono-dimensional harmonization of the text from the simulated point of view of both Don Quixote himself and his audience of characters around him? Just ‘where’ are we and ‘who’ are we as a reader in our reading of this text? Does this give us an insight into the simulated, phenomenal nature of the self itself? 			(Noël Tointon, Sydney, 15.5.04.)