Dotr Quixt'ttt'dc ln Mstrclut 2l
narnes:for Rocinrrnte,Dulcinea, Don Quixote cle la Mirncha. ln each
The Wrong Side of the
Tapestry
Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote de Ia Manchn
I
lrr the. opening chapter of the Don Quirote, as onc of the rnost
endrrring adventures of literature is abotrt to begin, the hidalgo of
the str.rry,'vcrving on fifty, of tough constituticln,lean-bodied, thirr-
facecl,argreat carly riser anrl arlover of htrntirrg' (p. 31),' is depicted
within thc' doutrle spacc'of lris world: thc' drab reality of his house
('His habitual diet consisted of a stew, rnore beef than mutton, of
hash rnost nights, boiled bones on Saturdays, lentils c-rnFridays,
and ir voung pige.on as a Sttnday treat': p. 31), and his librarv,
n hicir consists for tire rnost part of books on knight-errantry. This
library has almost literally replace'dthe hiclalgo's real world: he has
sold most of his propertv in order to buv the books. So irrclevant is
the reality of the plrrce he lives in that the narrator cloes not even
dei5;n t<'rdivulge' the name of his Manchegan village; and of the
man hirnself lvc' are inforrned onlv that 'they say that his surllanle
was Quixada or Quesada' (p. 31). The only names irr this chapter -
with the sole exception of the village barlrer's - that are assigned
with any certainty tcl indiviciuals are those of the knights, heroes
and giants of the lridalgo's books. And the main action of the
opening situation is constituted bv processes of naming, of his
horse, his lardy, and himself. As an unmistakable extension of
these processes we are told of his attempt to make a helmet,
fashionir-rg a r.isor from pieces of pastelroarcl. When a single'
sword-blow clemolishes in a moment r,vhat has taken him a week
to make, he patientlv sets irbtlut reconstrttcting the visor and this
time, 'not ctrring to rnake another triai of it, he accepted it as a fine
jointed headpiece and put it into commission' (pp. 33-a). This act
of faith, on wlrich all his future adve'ntures,encotttrtersrlnd ordeals
will be preclicated, is synonymctus rvith his chrticc tlf worthy
case the name is more than a mask for a paltry reality: whtrt realiy
happens is that in each casethe nirnre transfolms what is intrl rvhat
rnatl lte. It is the condition of n'hat the worlcl, and generations of
readers,will come to call his 'madness'. Ancl having set the stage
for l'rimself, Don Quixote can n()vv take the decisive step, riding, as
it were, out of his home and into language.
2
'l'he full inrplications of this step unfoltl very gradually thror-rghout
the progress of the. narrativc, to reach a moment of e.mblematic
truth in Don Quixote's arrir.al, lrear the end of his trar.els, in
llarcelona, where he visits a printing press (Part Il Chapter lxii).
As Robert Alter savs in a finc essa\','Mirror of Knighthoocl, World
of Mirrors': 'At such a rnoment \\re can halr'lly, forgct that Dou
Quixote hirnself is no more thtrn tl're prclduct of the ver)' process
he observes, a congeries of words set up in type, rurr off as prroof,
t:orrected and rerlrn, bound in pages, and sokl at so many reales a
copy' (in Alter 1978:4-5).
The l'isit culmin.rtes in the hidalgo's discovery of the proofs of ir
book called 'lhe St,ctvtdpnrt of tlra Ingcnious G(ntleman Dtttt Quixota
tlc la Msnchtr, composed by somcone or other, ntrtive of Tordesillas'
(p. 878). Don Quixote, experiencing at the tinre the e.vents n'ritterr
rrp i n the' real ' P a r t I I ( nhich we i1s r eader s ar e holding in our
hands at the same tirne), is confrorrtedwith a fake rrersionof himself.
Ye't his 'real' Part II could not have existed had his Part I not
been published in 1605, ten vears earlier, and disseminated
lhroughout Spain arrcl the rest of Europe. A f'erv clzrysbefore tl-re
visit to the printing press, in fact, Don Quixote was riding on a
rnule through the streets of Barcelonabearing on his back a parch-
rttcrtt on r.r,hichsomeone had r.vritten in large letters, 'This is Don
Qrtixote da lq Mancho' (p. 870). lt would seem that reality and
lirrrguagecan no longer be disentarrgled;each requires the other.
('cci n'est pas une pipe.
And yet the overlap is not complete: there is both a lack and an
('\ccss in language as presenteclby the Don Quixote.The nature of
llris lack and this excess, that is, the quality of language which
rttakes the Don Quixtttt'pt'rssibleas narrative, r1Si1 noV€I, is illu-
slrated in many scenes prececling the visit to the printer. One
 'fltt' Wrong Sidc oJ tlu:'Taltestrtl
22
exampie occttrs in II:iv (repcated ir-r II:xxvii) rvhere ill1 crror IS
pointed out in thc. 'original' account of llanchrl's riciing orr his ass
after the encoLrnter i /ith the gallev slaves (I:xxiii). Sancho's
r€rsponsL' is significant: 'I don't ktrovv how' to ansr'verthat [.. . ] All
I can say is that perhaps thc historl'-writc.r u'as wrong, or it may
hnvc.becn itn error of the printe'r's' (p. 493). Once their historv has
been written up, that is, sauctionecl and canonised in language,
there is alwa'"'sthc possibilitv that thr. u.'rittt.nircc()ul1t(not only in
l.lirgiarised or irrvcuted r.'crsions bV otht.r authclrs, but itr tltc
tLtutlnrisetit)t:rsittrr'ifscf may bc rvrong - ar condition r'vhich
) l ' ,l l )(' rs'(p.76), w a s allegedly bought by t he second aut hor f r om a
Diclerr-rtvvill placc ulrder uell scrtrtirry a centurv and a ht-riflater.
js subrrerted long
In this lvav, the rvriter's and printer's authtlrity
befclrethe trar,cliersreach Barceltlna.
3 ,rI lcgt'dly confronte.clwith.
In the scene at the printer's the problem is approached from
another, highlv illumitrating, anglc: tl"re wirole cliscttssitlnoi the
printing process,fr.on-rits technicalitiesto its economy, is informccl
bv an cxtensjve cliscussionoi the phcnomenon of translation and
thc urp;etow..rrds'proper ecltrirrarletrts'.
The hidalgo himself voices his tlor.r['tsilbout t]re fide.litv, and the
creclibilitr',of tr.rnslirtiotr:'lt st'cms to me thzrttrarrslating from one
tongne itrto anothcr [ . . . I is like Viewing Flemish tapestries from
the n'rong side; itlr althor-rglrY()Llsee the pictures, they are covered
with threads rvhich obscure them sOthat the smoothnessand gloss
of tlrc fabric are lost' \p.877).
This ren-rark,lirrking as it dtles lalrguage and imaging, as well as
the notions of original and copy, reality ancl re1-rresentation/illu-
sion/fake, acquires its ftrll significarrceonlv if one betrrs in mind
that the r.r.holeof the Dorr Qirirofc is preser.rtcdto the reader as a
Spanish translation from an original docutrrent in Arabic.
The reader is first explicitll' alerted to the prcsenceof at least one
t>therauthor at work in the rrarrative (th.rt rs, alt>r-rgside or behind
the N4iguel cle Cervantes Strilu,edra who ic-lentified himself in the
I'rt'rlogue as the' 'father' or 'step-father' clf Dorl Quixote) bv the
ir-rterruption of the encounter with the' Basque (I:r'iii-ix):
Tire unfrtrtunartething is that thr. author oi this l-ristoryleit the
b.rttle in sllspense at this critical point, with the excuse that he
Don Quixote de ln Mnnchtr 23
, otrld find no lnore records of Don Quixclte's exploits than thosr.
l'late.clhere. It is true that the second author of this work lt'ould
rrot belie','e that such a curicrr-rshistorv could have beerr con-
'-isrredto oblir.ion [ . . . j This causeclme great anltovance. (p. 7a)
{ }11lv lhgn are we given the backgror,rndto the preserrttext; and it
(,nrcs as a surprise, to say the least, after an early disparaging
rllr'r't'ncetcl the Prctphetas an inr,.entorof tirll tales in I:r., to learn
llr,rl the story, written in Arabic on 'some parchrnents t.rnd oLi
\r)ru).qpedlar in Tclledo. Deducing from a note in the margin on
l)rrlr'ineadel Toboso that it must be a version of the already weil-
l.nolvn story of Don Quixote, the author pays fifty pouncls oi
r.rr:ilrs anel three bushels of r,r.heatto hal'e the m.rnuscriut trans-
l,rlctl. It is the transcription of this translation the readei is now
ll is important for the reader's relationship 'lt'ith tl-re n.rrrative
llr,rl at the outset \,veare informed that Don Quixote's compranionis
,,rlk,t{ both Patnzaancl Zancas 'at different times in tlre historv'. As
,\ltcr (1978:9)points out, this ne\/er happens in the rrarr:rtivelte are
,'llt'r'r'cl,so we must conclude that either this informirtion is errur-
n{ ' ()us,or the new, aut hor has t aken it upon him self t o r evise t he
rrr,rrLrscriptin the rete.lling; c-ither way, the version nor,r.in the
lr,rntls of the reader * written by a Moor, trarrslated into Spanish,
, orrrrnenteclupon in the rnargins, revised and retclld by a Spaniarci
is not to be trtrsted. We are- rc.minded quite explicitlv that to
"l',urish
Christians of the sixte.e.ntharrd seveuteenth centuries the-
,'\r.rlrswere first and foremost a'nation [of] ready liars' (p. 78); and,
,r', I harvealready indicatecl,we are caurtionedseveral times about
l l rt' rrrrrel i abi l i ty o f t r anslat ion as such. But t his is nhat 'wr it t en
l,rrr1',rr;rge'ftrcnns in the Don Quitttte - hence the rrarrator's (or the
rr,rrr,rlors') preoccupation, throughout the narration, with the dual
,rrrtl shaky - nature of his/their story. Ancl this consciousness,
rrrrr'should bear in mind, is superimposed on Cervantes's sc.ven-
r,,r'rrllr-centurvreader who wotrld, as a matter of cour-se,nlrcadrl
lr,rvt'lrcen steepedin the old Spanish narrative tradition of era q nLnt
r' rrr ' ()r1ccLl pon a t im e t her e was and t her e lr . asn't . . . '( a t r adit ion
,1,'rrvcrl,nrost significantly, from an e\,en more ancient Arnltic nar-
r,rl rvt'forrnul ra:ksn t 1am akat ) .
,\s (,onzilez points clut, translation involves a crucitrl cclncernoi
( predecessors:
''r\',lntcs's entire relationship r.l'ith his
24 Thc Wrttng Sidc oJ the 'fnTtastrry
Cen,antes's parody of the romances clf chivalry went so far as to
include sclrnething that was a topic of everv chivalric romance:
thc claim that tl're text was a translation into Spanish from ..t
manuscript found far art'ay and written irr a foreign, sotnetimes
archaic, language (favourite languages included English, Cer-
man, Arabic, Flungarian, Phrygian, as well as Creek and t.atin).
(Gr>nz6lez7987:79. n.24)
ln fact, Conz.{lez argLrestl.rat,'trarrslationis at the very heart of the
novel as a genr(', and [ . . . I it is one of the.kev defining character-
istics of that most undcfinirble of genres' (ibid.:65).We shall return
to this in thc. chapter on Marclucz.
The significance of the strirtegy invariablv lie.s in the way in
which it subverts all notions of presencc.antl .ruthoritv in the text
before the re.acler.'The materialit-v of a word canttot bc transl.rted
or carrir.r'lo\-er into another language. Materiality is pre.ciselythat
which translation relinquishcd. 1'o relinqr-rishmateriaiitv: such is
the driving force of translation' (Derrida 1978:.210).
4 ,lroll Sancho Panza! May yor"r live, jointly and separately, fttr
But transL'rtionis mcrelv ollc' arnong scver.rlstrategicsemployed by
Cervantes to intcrrogatc the credibility of his on'n text. To make
sure that the rea.der rcmait.ts conscious of the unreliability of lan-
Eiuage, tlre enc{ of Part I of the Dorl Qtrirtttc restores us to an
a\4/arenessoi the tcxtualiiy of the text by offering the reader a
clutch oi ve'rses:'Thest: lt,ere such verses as could be cleciphered.
The rest, arsthe characters were worm-eaten, were entrusted to a
universitv scholar to guess out their meaning' @. a61); and Part II
opens with a pertinent reminder of Cide H.rmete Benengeli's role
as 'original' ;.ruthor (p. an) Such references become more and
more frequent in the course clf the third journev.
In the prelude to the encounter with the. lions (ll:xvii), the nar-
rator interrupts himself to comment:
And hert-. it is to be noted that when the author of ottr true
history came to this passage he exciaimed and cried: 'O brave
and incomparirbly courageotls Don Quixote cle la Mancha! True
mirrc'rr of all r'aliant knights in the rt'orlc-l!Thou nen' and second
[)on Marrucl de Leon - honour and glorv of spanish knights! In
Don Quixtttt'de ln Mnnclut 25
rr'lr.rIworcls shall I recount this most fearful exploit, or with whtrt
,rr1' ,rrrl cnts
make i t cr edible t o f ut ur e ages?[ . . . I Let your deeds
tlrlrnsclves praise. you, valorous Manchegan, for here I leave-
llrr.rrrin;rll therirglory, lacking wctrds to extol them'. (p 575)
I r r'n lrr'/irrr.'DonQuixote confronts the iion in what turns out to be a
rrrr':,1 r/lheroic encounter, he is already written into uictorv,and into
lr',lrrly, by Cide Hamete Benengcli.And it is almost inevitable thtrt
,rlllr thc incident the hidalgo shoultl change his ide.ntity and his
rr.rl',(,- which coincides r.vith his 'reality'- by changing his name
trr' l l qg K ni ght of t he Lions', f ulf illing what Cide Ham et e had
u rrllt'n beforehzrnd in his apostrophe to 'thou nert' and secorrd
| )or1\zlilngsl de Leon'.
r\ number of chapters later the original author is himself apo-
''l r r rpl l i S gd'
ln ,,,('ry truth, all who enjoy stories like this should show
llrt'ir gratitude to Cide Hamete, its first author, for his meticu-
lorrsnessin recording its minutest details t . ] O most renowned
,rrrthor! O fortunate Don Quixote! O famous Dulcineal O
rrrlinite ages, to the delight and general arnusernentof mankindl
\p.727)
,'\l lirncs Cide Hamete even acrs as commentator in his own mar-
lirr, ('xpressing doubts about his orrn veracity:
llrt. translator of this great history frorn the original r,r'rittenby
rts iirst author, Cide Hamete Benengeii, says that when he
r,',rt'hcdthe chapter relating the adventure of Montesinos' cave
lrt' lound written in the margin in the hand of this same Hamete
llrt'sc words: 'l cannot persuaclemyself that all that is written in
llr(. previous chapter literallv happened to the valorous Don
(-)rri xote[...] B ut I cannot possibly supposr .t hat Don Q uixot e,
rr'lro was the most truthful gentleman and noblest knight of his
.r1it',could be lying [ . ..] So if this adventure seemsapocrypharl,it
r" rrot I that am to blame, for I write it down without affirming its
lr rrth or falsehood. You, judicious reader, must judge for your-
:.r'll, for I cannot and should not t-lomore.' (p. 621)
.\rr r'r't'rl more revealing passageoccurs at the opening of ll:xlir,:
26 The Wrong Sida of the ToTtestrtl
They say that in the real original of this history it states that
when Cide Hamete came to write this chapter his interpreter did
not translate it as it was written [...] So, being confined and
enclosed within the narrow iimits of the story [ . . .] he begs that
his pains shall not be under-valued, and that he shall be praised
not for what he writes, but for what he has refrained from
writing. (pp.745-6)
Here the very silences and interstices in the writing are activated.
The same happens to the distances between the different narra-
torial voices, through which the concept of 'translation' is charged
with dramatic force. In Il:xliv both Moor and Christian worlds
(indicative of two different 'realities') are brought into play by
Cide Hamete's observation that, 'Moor though I am, I know very
well by the commerce I have had with Christians that holiness lies
in charity, humility, faith, obedience and poverty' (p. 750).
At one point a chapter opens in Moorish way with a threefold
invocation of Allah (p. 51a) - but not long afterwards a much more
convoluted opening to a chapter illuminates the intricacies of the
relationship:
Cide Hamete, the chronicler of this great history, introduces the
present chapter with these words: 'I szttearas s Cntholic Christian',
on which his translator observes that Cide Hamete's swearing as
a Catholic Christian, he being a Moor, as he doubtless was,
meant only that as a Catholic Christian, when he swears, swears,
or should swear the truth, and observe it in all he says, so he
would tell the truth, as if he had sworn like a Christian Catholic,
in writing of Don Quixote. (p.646)
What this self-conscious use of narrative language - that is, of
language as always and already translated by others - achieves
is, above all, the impression of reality as existing at a rernoae.In the
remarkable confrontation with the Squire of the Wood (Il:xii-xv)
the most the strange knight can say about the Don Quixote he
encounters is that 'you are as like to that knight I conquered as
one egg is to another' (p. 556); after the fight, Don Quixote unmasks
the knight to look at him: 'He saw, our history relates, the very
face, the very physiognomy, the very image, the very picture of the
bachelor Samson Carrasco' (p. 558) - ond for thnt uery renson Dort
Quixote doesnLttbelieuewhat he sees.Images and perceptions are as
Don Quixote de Ia ManchLr 27
r,l,'', | ,rs translations: in fact, they function in the narrative
.r,tlr ,rs trirnslation functions in the act of narration.
c
llr, lr,rtlitional view of Don Quixote and his relationship with
', rrr lr(' l'.rrrzaconcerns the dichotomy between reality and unre-
rlrtr (rllrt'rc the latter may be illusion, or fantasy, or imagination,
, 'r ,lr,',rrrr);between reason and unreason; ultimately between mad-
l, .'.,11111 sanity. In Part I this is demonstrated, with spectacular
, llr., l, irr cvery scenewhere Don Quixote's imaginings appear to be
,lrl'\\,r'('ckedon the ridges of mundane or cruel reality: the giants
,rr,'rvurdmills, the Saracen arrnies a flock of shccp, the castle a
l ,' rrl t' i rut.
llrr:. pattern of binary thinking is particularly evident in Auer-
l',r,lr':, famous mimetic approach based on the phenomenon of
r,l'r('\('ntations of everyday life in which that life is treated ser-
r,rrr.,l1',irr terms of its human and social problems and even its
tr,r1,,rrr'irmplications' (Auerbach 1974:342): the 'everyday' is not
,1,'lrrrt.tlmore closely and is interpreted on a 'common sense'
l,,r'.r,, Auerbach's fine but overly rigorous approach examines
rrr,rrnlythe way in which Don Quixote's iddey're leads him con-
.,t,rrrllyto avoid both despair and a return to sanity. Or as Close
{l't'r(|.17)so neatly phrases it,'The historical world is bent to the
l,rrvsoi the fictitious one.'
llris solution', says Auerbach (1974:340),'appears each time the
in insuperable contrast to the
'rlcrior situation establishesitself as
rllrr:,ion.'Reality, in other words, is rather simplistically seen as
1'rrrt'ly'exterior'; and the realism of the text, for Auerbach, resides
rrr ',r vigorous capacity for the vivid visualization clf very different
l',','plt' in very varied situations, for the vivid realization and
r'\l)r'('ssion of what thoughts enter their minds, what emotions fill
tlrlrr hcarts, and what words come to their lips'(p.35a). In other
rlorrls, the 'sensory' is the key to Cervantes's realism. 'In the
r,':,rrlting clashes between Don Quixote and reality no situation
r'\ ('r' rcsults which puts in question that reality's right to be
rvlr.rt it is. It is always right and he wrong; and after a bit of
,rrrrrrsing confusing it flows calmly ofl, untouched' (p.345).
\,Vlr,rtan emasculated and impoverished reading, both of the text
,rrrtlof ' real i tv' !
28 The Wrong Side of the Topcstry
At the very least, one should ;rcknorr,,ledge,r'rot onh' an increas-
ing internctio,l between the different levels of reality, but a more
and n'rore subtle inht'rcnceoi each irr the other. The whole of Part ll
is incomparably more complex, alld more subtle than the - appar-
ently stark oppositions of Part I. Of partictrlar importance is
the rer-narkably sophisticated sequence irr the Duke's palace in
Part II, where 'reality' itself is transformed by the play-acting of
the nobilitv.
ln this long sequence,n here the Duke.and his household persist-
ently'play up to' the hidalgo's madness bv offering him an experi-
ence rrf the fantastic, tlrat is, wherr the n,orld (realitv) begins to
resenlble Don Quixote's rr.presentations of it, the verv logic that
allowed such a representation in the first place must do away r,tith
it. As the world of lealitv appears to become more and more nad,
so the madman appears to become increasingly sane. Phrased
differently, Don Quixotc is mad when he accepts the reality of his
representation (as in the case of the windmills or the sheep per-
ceived in Part I as giants or Saracens); but he may be seen as
becoming sane when his rcpresenti,rtionbecornesa reality. Within
what During (7992:34) terms 'an imperialism of seeming' Don
Quixote exposes ever receding dimensions of meaning.
The juxtaposition of two episocles from Part II illustrates this in a
particularly dramatic fashion. From the descent into the 'enchanted
solitucles' of the ca"'e of Montesinos (Il:xxii - xxiii) Don Quixote
retums with a taie that taxes all t'relief:although Sanchc.r judiciously
and loyaily asserts that, 'I don't believe that my master's lying'
(p. 627), he does sup;gest that the hic'lalgo must have been
bewitched clown there. After the. imagined ride, blindfolded, on
the birck of the magic horse Clavileno (Il:xli),Z Sancho is the one
',vho returns with a fabulous tale of his view of the earth rro bigger
than a grain of mustard seed' (p. 733), while Don Quixote quietly
comments: 'Sancho, if you want me to believe what you saw in the
sky, I wish you to accept rny account of what i saw in the Cave of
Montesinos. I say no more' (p. 735).
A significant clue is provided n'hen, near the end oi the story,
Don Quixote acknowledges an irrn cs an inn, and the narrator
explains: 'I say that it was an inn because Don Quixote called it
one, contrarv to his usual habit of calling inns castles' (p. 8a8).This
cloes not so much convey the slrggestion that Don Quixote has
changed as that reality is stil/ constituted, as it has been throughout
tl're r-rarrative.,by 'saving' it, that is, in and through 0n ttct o.f Inn-
Don Quirctte de In Mancho 29
rr,r'.', llrrs discovery sends the reader back to Part I with a height-
, rr,,l ,rrr,.lrcrress of the cornolexities and subtleties below the sur-
I r,r' .1 ,rl ,l ),l r e6t lysilnple ct int r ast s. r r r J bir r , r r it ies.I i anvt hilt g, ( ) ne
trrr,l ' ,orrt' scl f in what Alt er ( 1978: 6)calls a st at e of 'ont ologicar l
, , I lt1'()'.
l l rr' l .t' y to th is cr uciai per cept ionlies in t he acknowledgem entof
tlrl l)ru Quixoteas a fictional exploration of Erasmus's concept of
t,,llr ', ,rntl of the dawning, after the blind faith of the Middle Ages,
,' l ,r n(' \\' A ge of Doubt . This is an insight of f er edby Car los Fuent es
rrr rrlr,rl must be one of the greatest essays on the Don Quixote,
r , r r,rrrtes, or the Critique of Reading,' (in Fuentes 1990).
\||11r.v1[ing the novel as one of the first signs of 'a modern
,l rr.rrt' betw een wor ds and t hings' ( ibid. : 51) ,Fuent es elabor at es
,'rr llris l"rreakas one-between 'analogy' and 'differentiation': our
lr,', lt'r'nchallenge lies in'how to accept the diversity and mutation
,'l tlrt'w,orld, n'hile retaining the mind's power fclr analogv and
rnrl\', s() that this changing world sl'rallnot becotrremeaningless'
Ir' ,l ()).
lrrcrrtes quotes Trilling: 'All prose fiction is a rrariation on the
tl rr.rrrr.ttf D on Q uixot c 1. . . 1 t he pr oblemof appear nnce and r ealit r l'
(l ' ' i 0). A nd t his is linked t o Er asm us, and t o't he dualit y of
l rrrl l r, the' i l l us ion of t r ppear ances,illd t he pr aise of f olly'( p 52) .
\Vr' ,u'c reminded of Erasmus's worcis, 'The reality of things [ . . . ]
,1,'p1,11115 solely on opinion. Everything in life is so diverse, so
,r|P115,1'61, so obscure, that we cannot be assured of any truth'(p.
',.). s('e Erasmus 1977, Chapter 45). Reason can only see itself as
rr.,r\()n'through the eyes of arr ironictrl maciness:nclt its opposite
I'rrl ils critical complement'(Fuentes 1990:53).The medieval person
ltltritrLl, the neu' human being doubts.Fuentes's key phrase is: All rc
1",.;:;iblt', but sll is in doubt'.'Even as they are won, thesc-ner,r'realities
,rrr,tloubted by the critical s1'ririt,since the critical spirit founded
tlrr.rrr'(p. 55); and in Cervantes, indeed, doubt is the very key to,
,rrr,l the condition of, reality. And cloubt, we should add, is the
r orrtlitior of language - most particularly when language itself,
r rt,r,vcd;rs 'translation', as 'the words of others', becclmesnecessa-
rrly suspect.Where, in all this, lies sanity, and where madness?
I'irrt II of the novel drives home the problem in a particularly
,,lriking manner, in the syncopation of sequencesfeaturing Sancho
,'rr his'island', and Don Quixote in the ducal palace. As even the
','.urt" characters (the Duke and his household) indulge more ancl
tnrtrc dtzzyingly in play-acting, all sense of reality becomes
30 The Wrong Side of the TnTtestry
blurred. In the midst of this increasingly precarit'lus world, an
extremely poignant inciclent occurs in Il:xliv and ll:xlvi where
Don Quixote discovers a ladder in his green stockings, an 'irrepar-
able disaster' which he finds incomparably more disconcerting
than the encciunters with the seemingly amorous Altisidora and
the cats and bells r.vhich accompanv the discoverv. ls tl-ris an
extreme of madness - or of sanity? Surely, by this tirne we cannot
be confident about either.
6 f lrt' kev to the 'problem' of the Don Quixote is that it does not
Let us therefore try a different approach. What we term 'reality', it
should be clear to thc twentieth-century reader, is no more than a
historically and culturally determined construct, a system of
received, and accepted, ideas of how we believe the ll,orld to be:
it is baseclon perceptiotr,or what Erasrnus termed 'opinions' - btrt
perception already presupposes interpretation and imaging, in
other words, translation.
In the Midclle Ages, the material world was regardecl as merely
the adumbration of divine truth: angels and devils were more'real'
than tree or stone. With the Ilenaissance and the rise of humanism,
reality is removed from the hand of God and allowed an independ-
ent, and substantive, existence. In other words, reality comes to be
perceived as a duality: tl"reworld, and the human being, objectivity
and subl'ectivity (which coincides with the notion of 'nature' as
autonomous object, and 'personality' as autonomous subject). In
the Age of Reason this will debouch in the Cartesian division
between res cogitans and res extense'.the human being is personol,
the 'world' a collection of objects. Hence the very concept of real-
ism arises from the belief that the objective world can be perceived,
knorn'nand described.
Only after Kant was the impossibilitv of knowin2; the Ding att
Siclr acknowledged, and a dichotomy of being and seemingestab-
lished. Yet Cervantes, the Spaniard, is, like Shakespeare,the Eliza-
bethan, not only fully a man of his time but much larger than his
time: he knows the tradition of Era t1non cra / knn ya maknrr,which is
borne out, as we have seen, by the narratorial situation of the Don
Quixote. The. narrative may set out to be a critique of chivalric
romance ancl, by the same token, of the pre-Erasmian medieval
world-view: Don Quixote, who denies the 'real' in favour of his
Don Quixote de ln Mancha 31
rllr',rorr, i.sa fool and a madman, and explicitly portrayed as such.
llrrt llrt.greatnessof the text resides in the way in which it develops
rrrt,,r 1f i[iqqe of the real itself. Cervantes,as Marthe Robert points
,,rrl (l()lJ0),does not simply debunk chivalric romance as he has
',,f ll('t() know it in the Amadis tradition, but also reaiaesit. By the
lrrrrl lrt'writes the Dorr Quixote,Amsdis has been out of fashion for
,rl l,',rstthirty years. [t is, however, a revival in an entirely different
f ,'r. which will embrace, among many other things, all the
,r,,()unts about the discovery of the New Worlcl by the conquista-
,lorr'5 (5ss Peter Hulme's brilliant study ColonislEncounters:7986).
' ,rrrrl rl ysetu pf ict iclninopposit iotttor ealit y: Dof lr sidesoft heequat ion
,u r' Pr'()ductsof language. If the Don's 'madness' is the consequence
, ovt'rindulging in the reading of chivalric romances, the 'sanity' of
'l
llrc world is constituted just as much by linguistic strategies: Cide
Il,rnrt'tr: Benengeli trrrd his world are determined by the texts of
l,.l,rrrriust as much as the Spanish worlcl of Cervantes's time is
lrllcrt'd through the texts of Rornan Catholicism, the accounts of
llrr' t'onquistadores, the accumulation of songs and narratives con-
lr rlruted by whomever Don Quixote and Sancho Panza encounter on
llrr'ir trar.els,in inns or taverns,in remote mountain ranges or by the
rr',r1,side, on the Manchegan plains, in the castle of the Duke, in
'island' or wherever. Sancho himself, traditionally
",rrrt'ho's
rr'li.rrcled as the representative of sanity and reality in opposition
Io lhc Don's madness, is constructed, as a character of fiction, from a
lr.t';rsure-house of received wisdom, folklore, idioms, proverbs, quo-
l,rlions- the whole massive layer of lvhat Barthesterms the 'cultural
, o.f c' of a narrative text (1975:20, 206). lt is revealing that when
li.rrrcho enters his 'island', he is also met by the reality of writing:
llrt' inscription on the painting which announces, in Nostradamus
l,rslrion,his arrival on that very day. Just as much as the hidalgo's
rr',rlity is predetermined by chivalric romance, Sancho's is here
rt,r,cirled to be the consequence of what, in Diderot's terminology,
lr.rstrlready been written up on the Great Scroll.
'Iir argue, as Auerbach and many
others have done so persistently
ovt'r the years, that the Don's madness is constantly offset against,
,rrrrlin fact defeated by, the 'real world' is to misread the extent to
rvlricl-rthe entire narrative world of the Dorr Quixoteis a construct of
l,rrrguage:Ianguage experienced as trnnslstiott,as alien, as the lsn-
3tnge of others.On p 611 Don Quixote reminds Sancho Panza, 'That
(lucstion and answer are not yours, Sancho [...] You have heard
32 Tha Wrotry Sidc oi tlrc Tnptestnl
tlrem from somebody.'This becomeseueryLttttltl's problem in the text.
And within this general corrtext, the Don's own languulge (that is, the
language of his 'rnadness', of iris dreams .rnd illusions and 'aberra-
tions'), presents no less consistency, no less scnsethan that of San-
cho, or the priest, or the barber, or the innkeeper, or the Yanl5uesan
muleteers, or the Duke, or the rleccitiul Altisidora.
'Madness fascinates because it is knowledge', sa1.s Foucault
(1985:21)and in this respect Marrthe Robert wotilcl be wide off the
mtrrk in arguing that 'whiche.ver \^,.1ywe look at it, one thing is
certain ancl that is that it cannot be diagnosed as an anomaly clr
virtue currently found among human beings - it is unprecedented
and whollv improbable I it] scts [Don Quixote] beyond er.ery
locatable moral or spiritual attitucle,at the extremc limit of what is
human' (1980:li5). On the contrirry, as Foucault cltrims, 'at the
secret heart of rnadness [ . . .] *e discover, fintrlly, the hielden
perfection of a language-I ] Language is tire first and l;rst struc-
ture of m;rdness' (1985:95-i00).
Foucault spells it out: 'The ultimate language of madness is that of
reason,but the language of reason enveloped in the prestige'of the
image, limite.d to the locus of appearance which the image defines'
(ibid.:95). Hence, in the Dott Qttixote, the intirnate association
between the wav in which the Don r.isualises(anc1,b coin a word,
visionarises) the grammar of chivirlric romance irr its transposition,
its translation, to the all-encompassing 'discourse' (again Foucault's
word: ibid.: 99) of what from the oLrtsidelooks like maclness.Inside,
we are remindec-lby Don Quixote himself upon his return from the
Cave of Mor-rtesinos, resides 'the coherent argument I held with
myself' (p. 615).'I-anguageis the first and last structure of madness,
its constituent form; on language are basecl all the cycles irr which
madness articulates its nature' (Foucault 1985:100).Language itself
opens inb both 'real' nnd'imaginary' worlds, ancl makes not only
Don Quixote-,but Sancho Panza, possible. Tirrough tlre manipulation
of this double-edged language, I{iley (1962:64)perceptively remarks,
the hidalgo 'is trying to live literature and be not onlv the hero of his
own story but also, in so far as he can control events, its author'.
7
It may be re','ealing to examine how the Don reacts to extreme
physical manifestations of the 'real world' (grantecl that, by now,
Don Qr.rirolt'de lq Mnttchu 33
l r,r\' (' to t ake t hat u, or lcl wit h a gr ain of salt ) . Even f r om t hc'
",
.rrrl,rtt' of the narrative it is clear that this 'real worlcl' often poses
,l r,rl l crrtr' sto Don Q uixot e - in t he f or m of ht r t r gu ( f or exam ple
,rll.r llrc e'ncounterwith the shepherds in l:xviii or at the end of the
l,ul'l)('[ sltow, Il:xxvi); of st"t (as in the attempted seductions bv
\f,rrrlorrres in l:xvi or Altisidora in Il:lxix); or, most ctflen,oi pattt.
lo rr,lrlt extent do such experierlcesimpose, at the very least, an
.r\\,r'('ncssof the limits of the body, and consecluentlya discovery
, ' r ,rr' kn()w ledgem ent of t he 'r eal' wor ld?
/\l il very early stage of his errantry, beaten up bv the muleteers
(lrv r,), Don Quixote's solution, significantly, is'to thirrk of some
l ' ,r:i si rgci n h is books'( p. 52) ; he even m anages t o t hink him self
lorll;11;11.','ior it seemed to him that this was a disaster peculiar to
l.rri1',htserrelnt'; and when the pain suffered in tl're errcounter is so
l'.r,1that he cannot er,'enstav on the donkey, he fincls a rerneciy irr
,,torics' (p 54). At the samc time he offers the most glorious
,rllilrnation of his identity irr the whole novel: 'I know who I am
| . I and I knon,, too, that I am capable of being not onlv the
, lr.rractersI have named, but;rll the Twelve Peersof France' (p. 54)
lrr the language of madness, as defined by Foucault, narrative
,rtttrirlly bestovrs on Don Quixote a grenter sense oi reality. This
lr,rppenseven lvhen he acknou,lec'lges pirvsical suffering,:.tfter the
lrrtounter with the windrnills (I:viii) he rerninds Strncho th;rt,'if I
,lo nclt complain of the p:rin, it is because a knight errant is not
.rllowed to complain of any wounds, er.en though his entrails rnay
I't'dropping out through thern' (p. 69); and follor,r'ingthe beating
lry the monk's servants (l:x), he aclmits his sorrv state: 'Observe,
lrrother Sanchcl,that this.rdventure and others of its kind are not
,rrlvtntures of isles but of cross-roads,from which nothing is to be
li.rined but a broken hetrd and the loss of an ear' (p. 81): but
rrrrmediatelvafterrvards he dispels the agony by finding his cus-
l()mary solace in tales of chivalry. When Sancho persists, the
lricialgo colnes up with the renredy of the magic balsam, itself a
rrranifestation of chivalric cliscottrse - and while the balsam rrearly
kills Sancho it strangely cures iris master.
ln a particularly eloquent defence of this 'langtrage', the Don
plcads the causc of his state:
't only want to argue from my own sufferings that it is most
certainly a more painful and belaboured one, hungrier and thirs-
tier, more miserable, raggecl and lousy; for there is no doubt that
34 Tht: Wrong Sida of tlrc Tapastry
knights errant of old suffered much iil-usage in thc course of
(p. 0S;
their lir,'e.s.'
In other n'ords, there is neither denial of, nor escape from, the
reality of suffering, but an acceptanceof it - becauseit is part of the
fictifying careerha hss clrcsetr.He comes as close to 'realitv' here as in
the remarkable encounter with the lion (Il:xvii) where he demon-
stlates not just foolhardiness but remarkerblecourage in challen-
ging a preclator rvhich he knorusto bt:t lion.
In I:xv begins one of the. most horrendous sequences of physical
suffering in the whole storv. During the sojourn at the inn mistaken
for a castle,following the bruising encounter with the Yanguesans,
Don Quixote is so much in pain that he cannot sleep; yet this
prompts the escape.into a ner,.u' fantasv (one of the only instances
where hallucination may be ascribed to the delirium of pain); when
Maritornes comes to his bed in error, he turns down the offer,
among other reasons because he is too 'bruised and battered'
(p. 123). As his pain persists, he turns to the remedy of his magic
balsam, but is intern-rpted and subjected to further blows. After
taking the potion he is reported to feel 'recovered and well', but
only a few pages later he is still too bruised even to dismount to
help Sancho who is being tossed in the blanket: so the balsam's
effect rnav well have been illusory, or at least merelv temporary.
Very soon afterwards, the Don is again beaten up severely by the
shepherds, but when hc tums to Sancho for assistance the squire
responds by vomiting in his master's face - to which the hidalgo
quietly resigns himself: 'All these squalls rvhich greet us are signs
that the weather will soon clear and things go well for us' (p. 140).
At least, for once, Don Quixote admits that he can now do with
some bread and fish heads, and that such food would be preferable
'to all the herbs in Dioscorides' herbal'. Yet even in this agony
(apart from all his rvounds he has lost a number of teeth), he
accepts pain as part of the rewards of chivalry.
I have dr.velt on this sequence at some length for various reasons.
The most obvious is that it iilustrates the purely relative nature of
'realitv': its worst excessc.scan so rcadily be neutralised, almost
n'ithout exception, not so much bv a retreat into fantasy (or into
language) as by reducing the events themselves to narrative inven-
tion. The r.iolence perpetrated on Don Quixote is so excessive,the
cumulativc effect so outrageous, that by no stretch of the imagina-
tion can it still be called 'realistic'. A contemporary equivalent
rr lr l r,,,ir cartc,on,:::',"1:';:: :,:,,':,::::^whe re,, ."
,,1,r :,i rrl l l ecpisode,Tom would be beat en,dism em ber ed, ",n" "::
f lat t ened,
1' rrl rcri st't l,liquidised m any t im es, com ing back f or m or e af t er
, r .r 1 t'.rtastrophe. As Alter (1978:9) puts it, in a sligl'rtly different
' ',nt('\t, 'lnte.rnal consistency is quietly substituted for verisimiii-
trr,l r' ,thou gh not - so quiet ly't hat we do not r ef lect f or a m om ent on
| | rr.sLrbstit ut ion. "t
ln lcply to Nabokov's notorious criticisrn of the Don Quixotc as
,'rrt'of the most bitter and barbarous [booksl ever penned', Kun-
,l ,' r,r ( 1995: 60- 1)per t inent ly point s out t hat ,
Wt'are not in the world of Zola, wherc sclmecruel act, describecl
I'rt'cisely and in detail, becomes the accurate document of a
*ocial reality; with Cervantes, we are in a world created bv the
rrragic spells of the storyteller who invents, who exaggerates,
w,l.rois carried away by his fantasies,his cxcesses."
l lris is why, for an understanding of the 'real' in Cervantes's text,
rvt, should look more at present-dav cartoons than at nineteenth-
( ('ntury novels. But Don Quixote, of course,goes far bevond Tom qnd
Ir'rr11tn the suspension of disbelie.f,as a single instance shouid
tk'r'nonstrate.Irr ll:xliv, after the hidalgo has been painfullv sus-
I't'rrdedfrom a window by his arm, he is finallv released:his reaction
rs 1ontount Rocinantc,couch his lance,and chargc at the r.erv pcople
rvho have just saved him. This is no simple repetition of the prerrious
, lirshesbetween madness and sanity, or two levels of reality: it is an
,rct designed to transform the (intensely real) suffer:ing of a moment
lrcfore into 'enchantment'; and the narration of the event is a ludic
tf cmonstraticln of the belt,itching properties of longuoge.
Minutes later, confronted with the inn-keeper who is bcing be.a-
l('n up, he refrains from intervening, on the grounds that a knight
should not interfere in the quarrels of squires. Coming fror,r the
rnan who in Il:xvii wili not hesitate to challenge a lion in his cage,
this cannot simply be dismisscd, as the women of the inn do, as
'cowardice': it is a much more complicated manifestation of the
tlizzying interaction of the various kinds of realitv that erupt from
language. As in the case of Hamlet, we are left unable to distin-
guish between feigned madness and the real thing, realitv ancl its
rrrasks,reality and its many Others - becausetlrcy nrt: all dcputdnt on
lnnguage.Flave r.r'enot been warned before, as early as I:xvii, not to
trust all facile opposites? ln that chapter, in the n'ake of ail the
36 Tlr Wrong Side o.i the Topcstrtl
confusion created by Dcln Quixote's 'n-ristaking' the inn fclr a castle,
the hidalgo, with perfect etluanimitl', admits that the' inrr may
merely have optpcared to Lrea castle: yet er.'enso he shrert'cliy refuses
to pay for his lodging, irs knights are llot supl-roseclto sink so io\'.
8 l r,rrrsl atedi nt o a weave'of st or y.
A cn-rciai problem in one's evaluatiot-r of the compleritv of play in
wlrich irll notions of realitv anc-l fictictn in the Dtttt Qttixttte are
ensnare'd, lies in tlre tluestion: Whc-re does the critic position him-
self/herself in relation to 'madness': within madtress, or lvithin
reason? If it is the latter, which cannot but be the case, how can
one evaluate madness except by brantling it as 'reason'sOther'? The
text anticipatesthe question. From the point of view of the cluster of
narrators ihemselves, Don Quixote is undoubte-dlv mad: but the
narratc>r is thoroughlv, and persistently, discredited (or at least
subr,'erted and interrogated) by the narrative situation as such,
wlrich reveals Cide flamete Benengeli's accollnt as,nt tlrc t't:rtl lcnst,
unrelinble.IfCervantes wishes to discredit the tradition of chivalric
.,,-anc",t he htrs to place himself otrtsitlethat tradition, and outside
maclness,witl-rin the clclmainoi reason and oi 'the rt'al': but by using
a questionable narrator, he interrop;ates /rls orun position. And he
allows Don Quixote to speak, in a Foucauldian larrguage, from
utithitr madness, increasingly lending a beguiling validity to mad-
ness - precisely by avoiding a glib opposition between sanity and
insanity. Neither has substance of its c'rwn,each is constantly pro-
duced and defined by the other. In the twentieth centtrry, Lacan has
noted that madness is an effectof sanity. Consequentlv, Don Quixote
does nclt necessarily offer the, or evell an, 'alternative' tcl sanity, but
he does undermine the total authoritv (and tlre authoriality) of the
real. And that validity resides in the concept ctfstortl, based on the
ccrnvention of Era y fi()tt era. In the Dtttr Quixtttt', thrclugh the strat-
egies of langu,rp;e-as-translation,eL'rvthing (that is, both the tradi-
tionally 'real' and the traditionally 'imagined') is presented as story'
At c-very hait on the journey (that is, at everv point of rest or
equilibrium in the narrative, as 'journey' and 'narriltive' signify
I)orr Quixotc de Io Manclrn 37
,',r,lr other) where Dorr Quixclte and Sirncho l)anza mee't nelt, char-
,rtlt'r's,the outcomertrf their interaction is almost invariably story-
lr'lling. But these characters do not clnlv fe1l stories, they turn
llrr,rnst.lvesinto stories. 'Every man is the child of his or,l'rr
rvorks', says Don Quixote on p. 48 - and 'works' might just as
rvt,ll have been'words'. The whole of the Spain thev traverse is
A Particularly telling encounter (in every sense of the word)
or'r'Llrsin I:xxii when Dc.rnQuixote ancl Sancho meet a chain-
1i,rngof gallev-slar.es.The scene is preceded, significantlv, by the
in which the hidalgo dons a barber's brass basin in the
''l)isode
lrclicf that it is the enchanted golden helmet of the wizard Mam-
I'r'ino; and he is still wearing the basin on his head when he
t orrfronts the prisoners' guards. This r-rotonly provokes the reac-
liorr one rnight expect fror.rrthe guards, but also'loads' thc' reader's
,rlrproach to realitv in the scene tlrat enstles. ln the guards' cast',
llrtir reaction is prompted by the fact that they reacl the basin as
part of a sign-svstem clifferent from Don Quixote's: 'Prrt that basin
striright on ye111head, and c-lon'tgo about looking for a cat witlr
tlrre.e legs', the sergeant reprimands him (p. 178). Our own
,rpproach, on the other l-rand, is informecl by a knowleclge c-rf&offt
I hc sign-systemsinvoh'ed.
The episode opens with a metaphoric view of the chain-gang:
llrey seem 'like beads on a great chain' (p. 171). This irnage, Iike the
hidalgo's helmet, immediately complicates the singleminded rea-
lity of the scene.Don Quixote is offerecl the guards'version of the
lristory, but irrsists on cluesticlningeach prisoner separaterlv:an
,rffirmaticrnof the notion of xtbjectitt' realitl'. lt is reinforcet-lwhen
one of the slaves talks about the situation in which a man's life
tlcpencls on his own version of events, rather than ou 'witnesses
,rrrd proofs': and of course Don Quixote concurs. He, too, con-
stantly acts against the grain of truth.
ln these conrrersations,etrch character's more or less elaborate
sclf-invention is accompanied by a thumbnail sketch that puts the
story in a different perspective. One is described as 'a musicizrn and
,r singer' (p.172) - which is translated irrto 'confessing on the rack';
another intimates that he has been sentenced to five vears on the
galleys 'becauseI was short of ten dtrcats' (p. 773) atrd it is left to
thc visitors to figure out what he has really done. Each story
bccomes a metaphoric intervention, .t versic'rnof reality told with
tlre purpose of designating the realin cttherrttords,that is, fir-rclinga
38 1'hcWrorrg Sidt of tht'Taptcstrq
nc.!\,langu;'lge ttt rcpresent realitv - lvhich is rvhat the whclle novel
is about.
f n irrrcrtherrespectthe scenebecomesa rtrise-en-nbtlnlc oi the novel
as .r '"r,hole:that is, from tlre '"vay in rvhich thc priscrrlers tr.rnsitrrur
then'rselvesinto strtry and their bitlgraphies into fiction, it is clear
that /rrn.quage detcrnrincsrcdittl . To the rascal (lines de Pasamonte
(alias C,incsillo cle P.rra1-rillr),u,ho rvill rcturn irr Part II of the
rr.rrrative, /it'lrrS tiis life is in fact identic.il ttl zllilirls it - and str
the lvriting, can only finish rviren the liie e'ncls.The re.lder can only
fully evaluate thc submerged mcanings of the scene when in a
secluL-nce of latcr chapters (l:xxrix-xliv) the captil'e tells his story:
it purpr>rtstctbe a 'trtrt tale', ve.tfollows the traditional p;rttern of a
f.rilvtalc (thc father lvho ,-livitleshis estate cllnong threc sons), atrd
in the course of his stttry he refers to 'a Spanish stlldier, callecl
son'rerthingde Saavedra', rt ho was in a battle with }rim (p. 355).
'Thart Sa,rvedrasl'rould apPcitr in the ntlrr:rtive of a fictional char-
acter inve.nted by S;ravedra',says Alter (lt)7E:17),'is the author's
wir! of affirming his absttiute proprietorship over the fictional
w,orlcl he l.ras creatc't1.'I should suggest the opposite: having
allon'ed 'his' stor:v to be filtered through a cluster of other narra-
tors, e-ach as disreputable as the rest. he sulrvet'ts his own
rrutirorinlitv so thortlughll' as to .rrrticip.rteBarthcs's uotion of thc
'dc'.rtl-rof the anthor'.
C)nce agirin that 'intern.rl consistency' of rvhich Alter (ibid.:9)
spokr- elservhereis t.noreinrportant than atrv alttempt at verisimilj-
tude. C)neis remincled of another story told bv Cen'antes,about two
stuc-lentswho trturecl through ltaly, entertaining the inhabitants tlf
each village rtn the town squilre rt,ith the story of their p;rrticipatiou
in the Battle of Lepanto; but in one village they ran into trouble
when an old veteran of that btrttle confrorrted them publicly with
convirrcinp;proof th.rt the1,|1pi1matle it all trp. They were promptlv
strung up on the gtrllows, br-rtiust before thcy coultl be hanged they
begged from the local duke the favtlur of being alitlwed to hear thi'
authentic stclry of the Battle of Lepanto ttiltl by the veteran himself.
The olcl man needed iittle persuasion; but his version - the 'true'
version - \A/t'tS SObclring irncl pedestri.rn itr its presentation that the
p'ropulaceprromptiy demancled that the str-rdentsbe ireed and the
l'eteran hanged in their stead. To their everlasting honour it must be
saicl that they interceded for the old soidie'r's life, and ir-rthe end all
tlrrcr' were spare.rl;but the esserrtialpoint hacl btcn tnade: thtr
quirlity of .r story iics in its telling, not its veracitv.
Dott Qtrixotcdc lt Mortchn 39
Wlrirt remains, in the Dotr Quixola as a w,hole, and in each storr,'
rrrvr.rrtcdb y f ict ional char act er swit hin it , is not an nut horbut just
rr,lr',rtive- or again, as Barthes wonlcl ht'rr-eit, lcrt - th.rt is, stones
tlr,ri tt'll thernselvesarrd their inventors into being, thrtlugh the act of
l ,rrrguage.
llris becomes evcn more spectacularly evident when the narra-
lrorr is presenteclas tlrcqtrc.Auerbach (1974:35I)was r)ne of thc.first
{,rlies to argr-rethat the complicatecl plal'of 'clisguisesanC histri-
orrics'in the story turns realitv into 'a perpetual stage without e.ver
{ (',rsing to be reality' (one may disagree x'ith the ltrst part of the
',l,rtcment).Nowhere is this more in evidence than in the f.rmous
l)rrppet scene n'rounted bv llone other than the erstwhile galley-
.'l.rveGines de Pasamonte,alias Ginesillo de Parapilla, rrolv krrown
.rs l\4asterPeter (Il:xxxvi). This triple disguisc is rc'plicated in the
rr,rrrative situation r.r.herethe Second Author narrates whrrt the
tr,rrrslatorhas rnade of Cic-leHamete. Benengeli's 'original' - and
tlris is, significantly, the occtrsion vrhere the garmlous Moor is
n'ported to have sw,orn 'i,rsa Catholic Cl'rristian'.
Like tlre Dou Quirotc as a n,httle,the puppet-master'sstory is based
on chivalric romance, involving the rescue oi a damsel in distress,
rronelessthan the daughter of Charlemagne,the beauteousMeliserr-
tlra, frorn the clutchc.st>f arr evil lv{oor, b_vthe noble knight Sir
( iaiferos, her husband. Whenever in the citurse of the perforrn.rnce
,r 'point' is marde abor-rtreality, it is also subverted. At the crucial
nroment, iust as the krvc-rsare fleeing from the palace of the Moor,
l)on Quixote inte-rrupts the pl.rv becausehr- finds the ringing of bells
improbable (Moors, he insists, woulcl have used kettle-drums). But
irnmediatelv afterwirrds he enters so iully into the reality of ir
performance he has just accused of being improbable, that he 'kills'
the puppets. When challengecl,he falls back on the explanation of
'magic' and on'seeming'. Then, suddenly, the munclatreretrlitie-sof
hunger and supper inten'ene to restore him to the'sane'world, yet
the next momcnt he denies that the puppet he destroyed is Melisen-
dra. And after havirrg paid compensation for the wrecked puppets,
he wants to know whether Melisendra and Sir Gaiferos are safely
Lrackir-rFrance.
It is revealing that Fouctruit (1985:189)should also have recolrrse
to the theatre in his discussion of madness: ihe theatrical nerform-
ance, he argue's,provokes'a crisis which marJ<sthe pointit rt'hich
illusion, turnetl back upon itseif, rvill open to the d.tzzlemc-ntof
truth' - or, iclrmulated at greater lerrgth:
40 The Wrong Sida of thc Tnpcstrtl
The fulfilment of delirium's non-being in being is able to sup-
press it as non-being itself; and this by the pure meclranism of its
internal contradiction - a mechanism that is both a play on
words and a play of illusion, games of language and of the
image; the delirium, in effect, is suppressed as non-being since
it becomes a perceived form of being; but since the being of
delirium is entirely in its non-being, it is suppressed as delirium.
And its confirmation in theatrical fantasy restores it to a truth
which, by holding it captive in reality, drives it out of reality
itself, and makes it disappear in the non-delirious discourse of
r e a s o n .(F o u c a u l t 1 9 8 5 :1 9 1 )
In short, the Don Quirote'calls into question the status of fictions
and of itself as a fiction' (Alter 1978:15).
10
The supreme example in the Don Quixote of the status of fiction,
and consequently of the language r,r'hich is the condition of that
fiction, is the role of Dulcinea del Toboso. Don Quixote/ as many
commentators have pointed out over the centuries, knorus that
Dulcinea is his own invention, 'yet [isl deadly serious about his
unsn'erving devotion to the ideal fiction he has made for himself'
(Alter 1978.:25);but more important than this restatement of the
novel's most obvious tension is the fact that Ihis fiction largelv
determines what happens to Don Quixote in 'reality'.
In the opening chapter, casting around for a lady to whom he
can dedicate his exploits as knight errant, the hidalgo remembers
one Aldonza Lorenzcl, 'a very good-looking farm girl, whom he
had been taken with at one time, although she is supposed not to
have known it or had proof it it' (p. 35). From this tenuous root in
'reality' grows the Dulcinea del Toboso of the hidalgo's fantasies:
and the driving force behind her conception is the 'musical' and
'strange' sound of her nsme. As in so many other instances in the
novel, the action of naming determines reality - but far from repres-
enting an essentialist or Adamic concept of language as theorists
like Thiher (1984) would ascribe to linguistic theory prior to the
twentieth century, the referentiality of the name 'Dulcinea del
Toboso' is fortuitous. If there is any reality attached to it, it comes
after the fact, not before.
Dort Quixotede ln Msr.chs 47
lstrppose it may be argued that the name does contain an
,",,,('n('('- an essence distilled from all the ladies of chivalric
rr)nr,ur(.e. But this does not bring one very far, as the signification
,rlllilrrrtcd to it would remain so vague as to remain almost mean-
rrrl',lt'ss.
Which is why it seems to me more promisirrp;to approach
'l)rrlt'inea del Toboso', at the outset, as a near-empty signifier,
rorls[1'scfgclalmost exclusively arcund its own sound qualities
,rrrtl its as yet unrealised possibilities. If it is to function as a
,,r1',nificrit will have to be filled in during the course of the nar-
r,rl i ve.
lnitially, even the suspectgrain of reality there may be in the name
(tlrat is, its referenceto the'very good-looking'Aldonza Lorenzo) is
r;ulrverted in the famous chapter where we first learn about the
'rrriginal'manrrscript of the Dorr
Quixote.Becausewhat first attracts
llrc attention of 'our'author is a note in the margin; and this is
lranslated, extempore, by the young vendor as follows: 'They say
llrat Dulcinea del Toboso, so often mentioned in this histclry, was the
lrt'st hand at salting port of any woman in all La Mancha' (p.76)
'I his, rather than beauty, appears to be her
claim to fame.n
Soon afterwards comes the encounter with the Basque, narrated
significantly - in the form of a commentary on a picturc of the
cvent. The outcome of the episode is that Don Quixote sends his
lirst victim to EI Toboso to be dealt with according to the lady's
pleasure. Then follows the terse observation: 'The terrified and
tlistressed ladies [the Basque's companions] did not consider
what Don Quixote required nor ask who l)ulcinea was, but pro-
rnised him that the squire should carry out the knight's command'
(p. 79). The signif ier r em ains open.
There is a hint of progress when Don Quixote, pressed by some
travellers on their u.'ay to a funeral, provides a remarkably detailed
description of his inamorata:
'[H]er name is Duicinea; her country El Toboso, a village in La
Mancha; her degree at least that of Princess, for she is my Queen
and mistress; her beauty superhuman, for in her are realized all
the impossible and chimerical attributes of beauty which poets
give to their ladies; that her hair is gold; her forehead the Elysian
fields; her eyebrows rainbows; her eyes suns; her cheeks roses;
her lips coral; her teeth pearls; her neck alabaster; her breast
marble; her hands ivory; she is as white as sno\^/; and those
parts which modestv has veiled from human sight are such, I
42 Thc Wrong Sidc of the Tapestry
think and believe, that discreet reflection can extol them. but
make no comparison.' (p. 100)
But even a cursory examinatior-rwill reveal that this is no ,descrip-
tion'- except, indeed, in the form of a catalogue borrowed from the
'impossible and chimerical attributes of beauty which poets give to
their ladies'. In the most literal sense her body here 'is a citation: of
the "already-written"' (Barthes 1975:33).And Don euixote con-
firms the process through which she has been constructed when
her degree of Princess is derived, not from her stirtion in life or in
society, but fron-L the fact that she is his mistress.T Her whole
existence is vested in him, and his interlocutor acknowledges this:
'For she would count herself fortunate to have all the world know
that she is loved and served by such a knight as your worship
appears to be' (loc. cit.). But, of course, by this time his whole
existence, his rnlsorr d'6tre, his \/ery sense of realitv, is predicate.d
on lrcrl
The Don skirts very closely past the possibility of reality and
identity when her existence as a sexual being is broached, but at the
last moment 'those parts which modesty has veilecl from human
eyes' are assigned to what 'I think ancl believe' - an e\rocation of
the same act of faith which initially led the l-ridalgo to accept the
cardboard visor of his helmet without testing it a second time.
A significant inversion is added tcl the image constructed in front
of the reader's eyes when Dulcinea's lineage is described, not in
terms of her ancestry,but in terms of her possible descendants: ,a
it is
lineage which [. . . ] rnay yet give noble birth to the most illustrious
families of future ages' (p. 101).
Dulcinea again features prominently in I:xxv when for her sake
Don Quixote indulges in a spell of penance in the mountains.$
While he knows very well that Dulcinea cannot read or write, he
sends her a love letter: in this scene, in other words, Dulcinea is
restored to the peasant girl who first served as her model; and at
one point Don Quixote even reverts to the Llse of her oriqinal
name:
'I am quite satisfied [. . .] t" imagine and believe that the good
Aldonza Lorenzo is lovely and virtuous; her family does not
matter a bit, for no one will inquire into that for the purpose of
investing her with any order and, for my part, I think of her as
the greatest princess in the worlcl.' (p. 210)
Dttn Quixote de I0 Mrncha 43 1
\Vlrt.n Sirncho returns from the missiorr to the lady, and mischie-
wu\lV offers his master a most unflattering version of Dulcinea's
,rl'l'r',rr(u1ce, winnowing wheat, Quixote irnmediately'trtrnslates'
tlrr' ,rt'count into flattering terrns, even when the descriptions
l'f.(()rfr(' unbearably coarse (pp.268-70). If Don Quixote has any
,rr,,pi1 iiln of treachery (becauseSancho has returned much sooner
l
I
tlr,rrrt'xpected) he readily finds a magical explanation:
' \' orr must have gone and r et ur ned t hr ough t he air [ . . . ] Fr om
rllrich I concluc'le that the sage necromancer, who is my friend
,rrrtll ooks af t er m y af f air s [ . . . ] m ust have assist eclyou on your
f()rfnrey without your knowing it.' (p 270)
f lrrs is, indeed, play in the fullest sense of the word, that is, in the
,lr,rlogicawareness of an event (specifically an event in language)
,r',lttllr real and unreai, mad anci sane.
( )rr several other occasions Dulcinea plays a key role as marker
,'l lhe relationship between reality and unreality, madness and
',,rrrily,notably in the descent into the carreof Montesinos (Il:xxiii),
rvlrt'rt'cluring the three days of his visit (that is,'a little more than
,rrrlrour' in 'real' time: p 620) Don Quixote allegedly meets his lady.
remarkabiy similar to tl'repeasant girl he and Sancho
"lrr',rppears
rrrr,l irr [I:x and whorn Sancho preterrded at the time tcl identify as
| )rrltinea, persuading his master that her peasant appearance was
tlrl rcsult of the knight's enchantment. Upon hearing the Don's
tr'lx)rt, Sancho bursts out laughin9,'for knowing as he did the
trrrlh about Dulcinea's pretended enchantment, and that he had
I'r.t'rrhcr enchanter ancl the inventor of the story, he finally realizecl
| . I that his master was out of l'ris mind' (pp. 62I-2): another
,lr.rrronstration of the power of language in constituting the 'real'.
lrr llrt' hidalgo's account of the encounter, Montesinos suggested
tlr,rl l)ulcinea was no match for the magician's own lady, where-
ull()n Don Quixote neatly solved the whole problem by decidirtg
tlr,rl 'the peerless Dulcinea is who she is, and the lady Dona
lfr'lcrnra is who she is, and was - and there let it rest' (p.619).
I lr(, nlove towards Dulcinea's independent existence is particularly
,,r1',rriiicant in the light of what is yet to come.
lrr tlris episode, as in the previous one referred to, one has to bear
rrr rrrirrrlthe extent to which, as Alter (1978)phrases it, mllch of the
| )orr'sstory is shaped by his 'acute consciousnessof "the sage who
r,, lo write the historv" of his exploits, for it is onlv through the
44 Tlr Wrong Side of th( T'ap6tnl
writing down that he can be sure I'rehas become as real as Amadis
[ . . . I D o n Qr.ti x o te ,a b o o k i s h m an, actual l v w ants to become a
book ' (p p . 8 -e ).
What we read as a narrated text (twice-narrated, thrice-narrated,
ad irrfinitum),exists for Don Quixote, caught ln that text, as a stor],
still to be told; and his own function lies in the tellobility of his tale,
in rvhat Derrida would term the itaraltilityof his language."
But tellability and iterabilitv in the hidalgo's story-to-be-told do
not exisl, as it were, in a state of total futuritv: they are determined,
precisely, bv the fact th;rt they hout' becn told before - irr the
cl-rivalric rolrilnces to which he wishes so passionatelv to be
restoret.l.Irr the end Don Quixote must return to the 'subtle imrnen-
sity of r,r'ritir-rgs'(Barthes 1975:722)that has spoken him into exist-
ence.
11
The decisive eve.nt in this process, and alst'rthe culmination of the
Dulcinea thenre irr the novel, is orre of the sublime moments ir\
Western literature. It is the last encounter u,ith the Bachelor Sam-
son Carrasco, masqllerading as the Knight of the White Moon:
defeated in the skirmish, Don Quix<'rteis bound bv the terrns of
their pact to acknowledge that his adr.ersary's mistress is superior
to Dulcinea del Toboso:
Ti-ren,battered and stunned, withclut lifting his vizor Don Quix-
ote prclclaimed in a low and feeble voice, as if he rvere speaking
from inside a tomb: 'Dulcinea del Toboscr is the most beautiful
womalr in the world, and I am the most unfclrtlinate i.:night orr
earth; nor is it just that my weakness should tiiscredit that truth.
Drive your lance home, knight, .rncl rid me of life, since you have
robbed me of honour'. (p. 890)
Eighteen years before Calileo, this is Don Quixote's Eppur si rnuot,t:.
It is aiso a profoundly liberating experience: by announcing Dulci-
nea's status as the most beautiful mistress in the world, irrespective
of whether he abjures her or not, he grants her an autonomous
existence, rele.rsing her from all dependence on ftis faith and his
imagination. But by the same token he cal-l t1o\ / no longer be
clependent on fter - and if he relinquishes the lady who has pro-
[)ttrr Qrrixott'de Ia Manclm 45
ultirnt'rteir-rstificationfor all hi-s exploits, there is, quite
' r,l,',1 the
l rtr,r,rl l y,nL)se nsein cont ir luing t o lir , c. Aucl
. st r ,ir r espect iYet r f what
tlr,, ll.rchelor or the code of chivarlry requires oi him, Don Qr"rixote
lr,.rr.lry condemns ltirnsclfto death. Which incleed follorvs soon
.rl tr' n'
r .rrds.
t )rr his deathbed, entreated by the Bachelor Samson Carrasco to
rr' .rst' 1zour i d le t ales',t he ir idalgo r eplies: 'Tales?t ' '] Up t o now
tlr,'y lrirve been only too real, to my cost. But, with Heaven's aid,
rrrl.tlt,irth shall turn them to my profit' (p. 936). This is followed bv
lrr'. rrltimate recotlrse to tlre translative powers of language, as he
rrr,rkt,shis final confession and dictates his testarnent. The last
,,,, lrr.il of the testarnent entreats his heirs to track dtlwn the dis-
l,'l)ut.rble author of the false Second Pttt't o.f the Exploits of Don
()l/\i)/c dt In Mtutcha in order to beg of hirn, 'with the greatest
r',lr)('strless,to forgive the occasion I unr'r'ittingly gave him of
as are therein written; for I
I,rrl,lishing so many gross absurditie's
,grril this iife with all uneasy ct'rnscjenceat having given him an
r,\( u:ie for writing them' (p. 938).
I lt' dies with a proverb on his lips 'Sefiores[ ' ' '] uLltfionospoc) 0
dc ruttnio no lwy ytrijoros /rtrgnrio'(Cervantes
l,,tttt,l,ltesya ert los rrirJos
1' r' ,8:.155): ll"tr . t , go gent lv, gent lem en [ . "] f or t her e ar e no bir ds
tl rrsycar i n l a st y. l. 'r A. d he lea'es t he f iual wor d
^est s'( p.of
938)
t he. t ext , r vho is. llso an invent ion
r,, tl rt' i ' rl l eged'or iginal'aut hclr
, ,t tlrc text, Cide Hlmete Benengeli: ' poyl1111i 5ttlonacft)Doll Quiittte,y
Ut,l)ttrL6l;6l srtpottbrar,y yo esctibir'(Cervantes1958:457):'Forme
,'l,,rrt'Don Quixotet was born and I for him. His was the power of
,r,ti0r.r,mine of writing' (p. 9a0).with these words he is folded back
rrrlo lris own text, sr-rbsumedinto his owll speech'
'l'he word has the final word.
I rn y nort ern. Kttt yi tttakatt.
J
I
I

Notes
Introduction: Languages of the Novel
1. ln Chapter 7 below I shall try to demonstrate that N{acCabe's notion ol
nineteenth-century 'metalanguage/ is by no means so readily applicablt,
to Eliot, and that where he sees firmness of purpose and positivisl
assurance in the narrator's stance, the language of Middlt'nnrclr (as, in
fact, in Eliot's other novels) reveals much more self-doubting and muclr
more self-awareness, than has generaily been assumed.
2. To the question, 'Does Postmodernism exist?'Thiher (1984:227)replic':
at the end of Words in ReJlection:'Ifone means by this term a series oi
discriminatinp; traits * identifiable fibres of an approximate length - tha t
allows us to see ruptures as well as continuities, then I think the term rr
reasonably useful.'Thiher provides an illuminating exploration of twen
tieth-century fiction on its way towards lrostmodernism, against tht
background of recent linguistic theory.
3. The word 'novel', derived from the Italian rroz'cl/a,Iiterally mearrt ',r
small new thing'. C)r, as Dr Johnson so charmingly described it in hi-
dictionary, 'a small tale, generally of love' (quoted in Day 1987 7).
4. This would hold true whether we assume that the novel began witlr
Defoe, or with Aphra Behn or Madame de Lafayettc, or with Cerr'.rrrtr'.
rrr Rabelais,with N/n/'s Sa.gaor Tlrc Thttusnttdtttd ()ttt'Nialrfs,or n'ith tlrl
long prose n.rrratives of Antiquitv rvritten bv Apollonius of Rhoclcs, ,,r
Chariton, or Longus or Apuleius.
5. In the transmission of a nrcssn,ge from an ndLlrcsst:rto an rlrlr/rcsscr,tlr,'
Jakobson model requires that it be enclosetl in.r cor/r in the fornr,'l
speech, writing, dance, or u''hater.er, ancl transmittec-l via somc or,rl
visual or other contact between sender ;rnt1 receiver, nith refererrct' l,'
a shared context from which it can be decoded.
6. ln the original meaning o'ifiction as derivecl fronr,/irrrcrr: to fabricatr., t,'
make up, to invent.
7. Derrida is of course not referring to physical u'riting on i.l p.rge bul t,
the rntiort of writing, that is, of language remote in time and space f r, 'r,'
the authority and presence of an author; in this sense it becrrurr''.,
'supplement' to the traditional notion of authoritative speech. Set l), '
rida l976:6ff.
8. Heidegger does not consider what to some of his successors,espt'r i,r| | '
after the Holocaust, would become a most vexing problem ancl rt lr,rt t,
fiction writers and readers can become a matter of course: th.rt tl',
choice crf a specific w.ord may in fact strpplanfthe experienceor p('r,, i
tion which prompted the choice of that word in the first place.
9. Traces are, as it were, signs in search of meanin6;:they may olltt',tt t'
reach out towards 'original signifieds', but the very notion ()l .,"
origin is ruled out. So, at most,'Traces [ ..J produce the space ol tl,' '
330
Nofes fo pagcs 12-35 331
inscription onlv b1'acceding to the pericld of their er.rsure': l)erricla
(1978:226).ln other words, 'the trace is not only thc disappcararrct'of
origin - within the discourse that we sustain [. . .] it metrns that the
origin did not even clisappear, that it was nerrer constitutcd cxccprt
reciprocally by an origin, the trace, which thus becomes the origin oi
the origin' (Derrida 7976:61).
10. The supplement, Derrida indicates, rs both that which 'seems to bc
added as a plenitude to a plenitude, [and] equally that which compen-
sates for a lack' (Derrida 1978:212). Elsewhere he clarifies it everr
further: 'T'he supplement suppiements. It adds only to replace. lt
intervenes or insinuates itself i rt-the-plsce-of' (Derrida 1976:1 45).
11. Derrida links iterability to the functioning; of the parasite, which is
never merely external to its host: 'L'itdrabilite altire, elle porasite et
c()tttLutrittca qu'elle identifie et permet de rdpdter;elle.fnit qu'on aeut dire
(dt;jti,totrjorrrs,aussi) autre chosequ? c? qu'on aeut dire, ttn dit nutre chose
rlu(' cL'tlil'oil dit et aoudrsit dire, contprenduutre choseque. . . etc: Itertrbility
:rlters. it ozrrasitesand contaminates what it iclentifies ancl allolvs itself
to repeerf it makes one want to say (already, always, also) something
cliffcrerrt from n,hat one wants to say, one says something different
from r,r,hatone s<1vs nrlrl u'ould like to say, one understands something
different ironr . . . etc.' (Derricla 1977:33,my translation).
i2. The Syrnbolic Orcler is drscussecl,itttt nlio, in Lacan 197'/:65,around
t h e s t a r te m e n th
t a t,'M a n sp e a ks [...] b tr t i t i s b e ca u seth e sym b o l h a s
mtrde him man.'
13. At first sight it m.rv seen-linconsistent that I do, hon'ever, cliscuss
Diderot and Flauberi, both of thc-m famous for their foregrounding of
language and /or narrative technique. But Diderot was selecteel
bccause he is less familiar to thc' Enp;lish reader than Sterne; and
Flaubert because,although his use of language has been the subject
of innumerable studies, my focus falls more on the irnplicallonsof that
usage for our reading of the narrative - an approach already central to
many discussionsof Sterne and Joyce.
1 The Wrong Side of the Tapestry
l. All references are to J. M. Cohen's excellent translation in the Pengurn
Classics (1950).Referencesto the original Spanish are to the 1958 edition
published bv Emec6 in Madrid.
2. There is a wonderfuily revealing moment in this scene when Don
Quixote, mourrted on the wooden horse, is described as looking 'like
nothing so much as a figure in a Flemish tapestry, painted or woven,
riding irr scrme Roman triumph' (p.729). Given that, on p.877, the
image of a Flemish tapestry will recur, this time as an illustration of
the coarse.ncssand unreliability of translation, this may be retrd as a
particularly subtle instance of narratorial intervention, once again to
alert the reacler to the dubious quality of ettenltltingrelated in the storv.
3. Riley (1962:179-99) devotes a whole chapter to a discussion of 'Ve.risi-
militude and the Marvellous'. It is a useful stt'rrtingpoint for such an
 No/t's fo ptogcs35-48
enquiry, even if it lacks Kundera's inspired vision. Compare, from 7)rr'
Art of the Noae/: 'At the time [of Cervantesl novels and reaclers had nrrt
1'et signerl the verisin-rilitucle pt-rct.T'hr,v ri'erc not )ooking to simul.rtt'
reality; thev r,t'cre looking to amuse, tlmaze, astonish, enchant. 'Ihet,
vtere'ploy.ful, and therein lar,theil virtut.rsitr,'(Kundtra 19ti8:94-5).
4. And rnThc Art o,fthc Nottelhe says, 'To takc, with Cervantes, the worlrl
as ar.rrbiguitv, to be obliged to face not a single absolute truth but .r
welter of contradictorv truths (truths embodied in irnngirtnrysck'cscallecl
ch.rracters), to have as one's onlv cert;rintv the iplsdort o.f unc?rtninlv.
requires [ .. . ] corrrage' (Kr"rndela1988:6-7).ln our present context it is
necessary, once again, to insist th.rt this whole 'u.isdom r-rfuncertaint\'
clepends crn the novel's presentation of language.
5. In re.cerrtyears more and more critics h.rve suggeste.dthat this 'debunk
ing' of chivalric romarlce lr,'asnot nearly so straightforwarcl a project: a"
it might have appearecl for so long, but that the text of tlre Don Qul-r'ol,'
reveals in nrany ways a nostalgia fbr the genre in Cervantes. As Ril..r
(1962:180)phraies it, 'fne diffeience betw&n his use of tl.reextraordirr
ary and ihat in tire mrnances he condernned is ilc tliff-erenu l)etu)L'(tt
controlledartd uttcontrolled.farrtnst/(mv emphasis).
6. In l:xxv Sarrcho c'xtcmporisc.son the same thelne: 'l know hc-r well [. . .
and I can tell vou that she pitches a bar as well as the strt:rngestlad rr:
the village. Praisebe to (lod! Shr.'sa bral^'n)'girl, r.r,e'llbuilt arrd tali an,l
sturdy, and she u'ill knor,r,'how to keep her chirr out of the mud n'itlr
any knight errant,who r.ve.rh.rs her for his nristress.() the rtench. uh.r'
muscles sl-re'sgot, and what a pair of lungs . . .' (p. 209).
7. Centuries later, in Kafka's TheTrinl, a sitnation r,r,illobtain irr rvhich,,r..
Kundera (1995:20t3)puts it, 'K. is guilty rrot because he has comrnitted ,r
crime but becausehe has been accusecl.'
8. Riiey (1962:65)suggeststhat Dulcinea is no more thar.ra prtttext for tll
penance: 'Ihe rc'al motive cause is the desire to carry out a famorr .
exploit in imitation of Anr"rdis of Car-rl,who, spurned by his 1a,1"
Oriana, changcd his name to Beltenebros and retired to liver the lift' ' t
a hermit on Peiia Pobre.'
9. This is but one instance among many n'here the l)ort Qll-rotc anticip.r | '
Mdrquez's One Hutdretl Yenrsttf Solitudc.
2 Courtly Love, Private Anguish
1. All reiercncesto the English translation of La Princt'ssc r?cClilcs art't,,
the Irengr,rinClassicseclitiorr(1992);re'fr.rcnces to the French (nr.rtlr'r'r I
where differences of nuance appear) are to the edition of Le l,ivrt' r,
Po c he ( 1983) .
2. Irr French: 'Une sttrted'ngitation stutsdisortlrtt (p. 23).
3. In French:'Cet air de ntvstire tt tlc confitleuca'(p.153).
il. L'r his lntroc.luction to the English translation Ilobin Buss .rrgues tlr,rl
seventeenth-ccntury French, the n ord wrrs both more specific antl lt :,
standard mrrderrrdictitrn.rrt,of cl.rssic.rlFrencir defirresa "lover" .rr.,"
man who declarcshis love to a woman, regardless of u'hether or' nol r'
Nofcs fo ltules 18-55 .1.1.)
n-rzrybe sinct're; .rnd this emphasis on the act of speecir, rvith nonc otr tl.tr'
act of sex, e'ntirelv displaces thc relationship from thc privatc to tlrtr
social sphere, wherc it .rcquiresatnr:lerneutof plav' (p. 6). flLrtBuss docs
not consider that nrnarrtneed not n/zr.rar7,s designate onlv "'t sLritor: tht'rt'
are ilrc'leetlirrstarrceswhcn it denotes a sexual re'lationship. \\'hirt nr.rkt's
Ln Princcssede Clt;r:esso intriguing, is that one can never 6e entircl,r' sure
.rbotrt its usa5;ein.1ny given context: the ambigr,rityof the rvorrl itst'lf
becomes significant once one begins to explore the language in r,vhich
the narr;rtive is - almost literallv - clothed.
It is part of the strict code of beh.rviour which determines the narrative
that we arL-never even told her first name: she is introcluced simplv zrs
'a beauty who attlacted every eye' (p. 29) ancl the reader is infornletl ,t[
hc.r familv connections; after that, when she is not refe.rred to as 'tl-re
daugl'rte.rof Mmc' de Chartres', sht- is, at most, 'Mlle de Chartres'; ancl
after her marriage 'Mnrc de Cldves' or 'the princess'. Neither are lve told
the iirst name of her lor,'er, the Duc ,le Nemours. This may be partlv
explt-rincdby thc fact tl-ratin the nridst trf so nany characters taken from
hisbrv, these tr,r'o arc (more or iess) fictitious. But the rnain teason
seems to be that even at mclrrrcnts of dr'.rmatic monologue or irrtimate
description the /crr*urr.gcroilc imposes this exterrral fomrality ott thc
narrative. This r,r,illbe clealt rvith cxtensively later irr the. chapter.
Ihe use of parcntheses in the sentence suggests the.rurscltrlt-scontrol of
differcnt lavers of language by the narrator.
"'[)p nrrt obligr-me", she s.rid, "to .rdmit sornr'thing to vort th.rt I do rrot
have the strength to admit, though I have many times intended to do so.
Onlv consicier that it is unwise for tt worlan of mv trge, rr,,hois mistress
of her clwrr conduct, to renrain exposed in the midst of the court"'
(p. 1 13). 'I'he impract of the scene as a whole derir,'es, of course, not
only from the' force of her P;rs5ienatesinceritr,, but frorn the fact that it
is overheard lry Nemours, snd that the rcoder is nunre of it.
11. Thc Prince tle Cldves's immediate reaction to the PrincessL"sfirst mo\'-
ing confession about her imrocence in thc face of temptation, is, 'Oh,
madame! [...] I ctrnnot believe.you'(p. 115). Following the scene in the
Dauphine's bedroom she confronts her husband with the discovert, that
theii private conversation iras become conlmon knorvledge ancl sug-
gests that he is the only pelson who could have spread the nervs. In a
rage, he turns the tables on her: 'lt is rarther for you. madame, to
consider to whom you have been speaking: it is more likely that the
secret rv.rs revealecl by vou than by me' (p. 129). Whcn she passionatelv
protests her innocence and denies the accusatit-rn,hc is shaken: 'He dicl
not knon, r,rrhatto think' (p. 129) - evirlently because he is not u-sedto
langtLageas a vehicle of truth. And in the final crisis of his life, when the
vaguc rr.port of tl'refootman lrc' has sent to spy on her and Ntmours is
refuted by her frank account of what rearlly happer-red,he cannot refrain
from the most rricious ;lnd destructivc remarks (pp. 155-7), revt.aling
the total confusion brought about by his conditioning through the false
lanp;uageof the court: '"Do not continue", M. de Cldves interrupted,
"False oaths or a tme confession would perhaps cause me equal
distress"' (p. 157).