Arora 1

Ishaan Arora

Dr Teja Pusapati

ENG343

22 February 2020

Don Quixote’s ‘Prologue’: A Fiction Unto Itself

Cervantes’ seminal work Don Quixote, begins with, as Charles Presberg puts it “an

unprecedented species of prologue”, which seeks to talk about the act of writing prologues while

at the same time making a case both for, and against that very act (219). This ‘Prologue’ flouts

the conventions of seventeenth-century prologue writing in as much that it is quite self-

consciously “a wholly fictional work … narrated by a fictional narrator” (Presberg 216). This

fact is brought to the fore in part, once the fictional narrator of the ‘Prologue’—and indeed the

book—introduces “one of [his] friends” within the ‘Prologue’ (Cervantes Saavedra et al. 7). This

friend of the narrator’s subsequently goes on to direct the latter on how to go about writing said

prologue and in this process the narrator purportedly incorporates his friend’s suggestions on the

topic as is, or verbatim (11). In addition, it is not once even indirectly alluded to, till the middle

of the first paragraph that the narrator is indeed not the author and neither is any literal evidence

provided to refute the same. To quite the opposite effect, the narrator mentions that he “longed

for this book, born out of [his] own brain” (7). He goes on to admit to not being the original

progenitor of the “putative” fiction or “history” (these terms being interchangeable given the

inherent ambiguity surrounding them) of Don Quixote (Presberg 216). He does so by referring to

himself as a mere “step-father” or editor of the work rather than its “’father’ [or] … original

author” (217), having dug up Quixote’s “history” from the “archives of La Mancha” (Cervantes

Saavedra et al. 8).

 Arora 2

Cervantes continually conflates the words “history” with that of fiction (though only

implicitly) through the medium of the narrator, as is the case when the latter mentions—as if in

passing—that his “sterile, half-educated wit” could not have “give[n] birth to” anything but “the

history of a sniveling child” (7). The narrator upon discussing the contents of the book, uses

adjectives such as “totally unoriginal”, “lacking any … serious ideas”, once again blurring the

lines between what is to be considered the “history” of Don Quixote and what is relegated to the

domain of fiction (7, 8). Thus, in Presberg’s words, Cervantes “involves the reader in a paradox

concerning the relation between the shared language of historical and poetic discourse” (221).

Similarly, in the course of the same lament, the narrator mentions that he has failed to include “a

single annotation in the margins and absolutely no footnotes at the back”, which remains highly

uncharacteristic of a supposed historical account compiled, edited and retrieved using archival

sources (Cervantes Saavedra et al. 8). Furthermore, when the friend suggests that the narrator

could invent “all the sonnets and epigrams and elegies … supposed to be written by important,

titled people” himself, he goes on to agree with this advice and yet fails to follow through with it

(9, 11). By way of using his friend’s “exact words for [the] prologue”—a friend whom he deems

“clever, smart”—he incorporates the same erudite quotes which ostensibly the narrator has no

knowledge of; and those which the narrator’s friend had disparaged just moments ago yet

knowing them by heart, as it were (7, 11). This string of evidence laid down above then, goes on

to cement “the impossibility of our acting in a manner other than as … compilers, copyists” thus

rendering “our every utterance [as mediators of discourse] an instance of intentional truth-telling

and lie-telling at once” (Presberg 231).

Directing attention to a second formal feature, that of adherence to and transgression of,

the then contemporary definition of what a prologue constituted, by the ‘Prologue’ to Don
 Arora 3

Quixote. According to an early seventeenth-century definition of the word prologue, derived

from the first ever dictionary of the Spanish language, it is a book’s introduction meant to clarify

subsequent arguments, to capture the benevolence and attention of the audience in the case of

comedies while serving even there, the aforementioned function (Covarrubias). The ‘Prologue’

transgresses this definition on one count, specifically that of clarification since, not on a single

occasion is it able to properly introduce the readers to the protagonist or his squire, Sancho

Panza. The latter’s name too, only appears at first in the very last lines of said ‘Prologue’. These

lines are accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek remark by the narrator that the reader would have to

be “utterly free of confusion” without ever providing any information to ensure the former.

Though, contradictions abound here too. In part a clarification is indeed provided, that of

“shatter[ing] the authority of … tales of chivalry” (Cervantes Saavedra et al. 11). As far as the

latter half of the definition is concerned, since the ‘Prologue’ is for the most part in dialogic

form, its intimate nature pulls readers in and keeps them engaged; hence adhering to the same.

As has already been mentioned this prologue though would’ve thwarted “seventeenth-century

readers’ expectations” nonetheless (Presberg 216). It should be mentioned that loas (prologues to

Spanish comedias) at times were connected to their respective full-length plays, but more often

than not, didn’t (Rennert 281). And so, the ‘Prologue’ as well forms “an integral part of

Cervantes’ fiction”, as it constitutes a prologue about the writing of prologues, to a book about

the writing of books; while at the same time not being too closely related—in terms of content, at

least—to the rest of the novel, thus existing as a fiction unto itself (Presberg 216).
 Arora 4

Works Cited

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de et al. Don Quijote. W.W. Norton & Company, 1999, pp. 7-11.

Presberg, Charles. “‘This Is Not a Prologue’: Paradoxes of Historical and Poetic Discourse in the

Prologue of ‘Don Quixote’, Part I.” MLN, vol. 110, no. 2, 1995, pp. 215–239. JSTOR,

www.jstor.org/stable/3251102. Accessed 21 Feb. 2020.

Covarrubias, Sebastián de. Tesoro De La Lengua Castellana O Española. Universidad De

Navarra, Ediciones Digitales Del GRISO, 2005, p. 150.

Rennert, Hugo Albert. The Spanish Stage in the Time of Lope de Vega. Dover Puclications, Inc.,

1963, pp. 274–286.