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Georgia Southern University

Cervantine scholars from the United States and Puerto Rico gathered at Yale University in November of 1996 to celebrate Manuel Durán's many contributions to the field of Hispanic studies on the occasion of his retirement. Georgina Dopico Black and Roberto González Echevarría coordinated the publication of the papers presented at the symposium, titled «Cervantes, A Celebration: Symposium in Honor of Manuel Durán». The fourteen essays contained in this collection are truly a noteworthy contribution to Cervantine scholarship. María Rosa Menocal, a former student and colleague of Manuel Durán, initiated the proceedings with an affectionate retrospective of Durán's life.

John J. Allen and Patricia Finch open this collection with «Don Quijote en el pensamiento de Occidente: una selección». Allen and Finch have compiled testimony of the impact of Don Quijote from over fifty of the Western world's most   —169→   influential people, including philosophers, artists, writers, and presidents of the United States. Eighty slides depicting different artistic interpretations of Don Quijote accompanied their presentation at the symposium; an index of the paintings and where they can be found follows the essay. Allen and Finch's essay provides a refreshing perspective on Cervantes' genius and attests to the magnitude of the impact of Don Quijote on the Western world.

In «'De gracia estraña': Cervantes, Ercilla y el Nuevo Mundo», Diana de Armas Wilson discusses the presence of Colonial literature, specifically Alonso de Ercilla's La araucana, in Cervantes' works. Wilson's novomundista reading of Cervantes produces many examples that effectively illustrate the influence of the New World on Cervantes. The influence of La araucana is evident, according to Wilson, in La Galatea, La Numancia, Don Quijote, El gallardo español, and Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. The latter receives the most attention as Wilson explains that it represents the last words of Cervantes on imperial expansion in the New World. This study is a valuable contribution towards a greater appreciation of the influence of New World literature on Cervantes.

Antonio Carreño examines the narrative connection between the ungrammatical language of Don Quijote and the contrasting, established rhetoric of Sancho in «Los concertados disparates de Don Quijote (I, 50): sobre el discurso de la locura». The basis of this connection, according to Carreño, is the oxymoron, which «configura y estructura el andamiaje artístico de Don Quijote» (57). As a form of antithesis, the oxymoron represents Don Quijote's inability to distinguish between objects and words and acts as the vehicle of his madness. In his analysis of the different manifestations of the oxymoron in Don Quijote, Carreño successfully illustrates the various ways in which the «concertados disparates» contribute to the essence of the novel.

Alicia de Colombí Monguió's «El cantar de Preciosa» looks at one of the many attributes of the gypsy Preciosa as «una Ariel con faldas» (77). The poetic musicality of the verses spoken by Preciosa inspires Andrés to interweave his love of poetry with his love for Preciosa in a manner, as Colombí astutely points out, reminiscent of the mystic poetry of Fray Luis de León. After Andrés spends more time with Preciosa, his words reflect the neoplatonic love he feels for her. Colombí addresses the issue of Cervantes' Próspero to Preciosa's Ariel: «Es sabido que la doncella tiene mucho de señora Poesía, pero en su desenvoltura, ironía, gracia a veces socarrona, Preciosa tiene aún más de Cervantes» (90-91). Colombí Monguió parallels the development of Andrés' neoplatonic love for Preciosa with the increasingly symbolic language of his verses.

Georgina Dopico Black investigates «La herida de Camila: la anatomía de la evidencia en 'El curioso impertinente'.» Dopico suggests that the «cuerpo de la prueba» represents another side of the relationship between Camila, Anselmo, and Lotario. When Camila cuts herself in front of her husband, she transforms her body from a «cuerpo del delito» to a «cuerpo del deleite», thus satisfying Anselmo's suspicions. Dopico considers this concept a manifestation of Cervantes' critique of the honor code during the Golden Age.

Roberto González Echevarría's essay «Don Quijote: visión y mirada» takes up the following questions: «¿Cómo miran, cómo ven los personajes del Quijote?   —170→   ¿Con qué ojos?» (110). The manner by which the characters look at each other and their actions determines what they see; the way objects and people appear throughout the novel determines how they are represented as well. González Echevarría underscores the importance of vision and perspective in Cervantes in the following manner: «Cada uno ve las cosas de manera diferente y la verdad vendría entonces a ser la suma y síntesis de las varias visiones en conflicto» (117).

Javier Herrero's illuminating analysis of «La genealogía de Dios: amor en 'La gitanilla'» looks at the process through which Preciosa passes from a utopian discourse to one of degradation. After citing characterizations of Preciosa by several critics, including Casalduero, Weber, and Forcione, Herrero writes: «Preciosa es ciertamente una figura revolucionaria cuya configuración contradice las limitaciones con que los moralistas confinan el ideal femenino» (129). Preciosa's «libertad cristiana se marchita y se seca» (139), however, when it is revealed that Preciosa is the daughter of an aristocratic magistrate and his wife.

John B. Hughes studies two types of dialogues in «El diálogo cervantino»: the dialogue between characters (Don Quijote and Sancho or Rinconete and Cortadillo) and the implicit dialogue between Cervantes and his readers. The dialogue between the two characters represents more than the themes of the novel: «Es ante todo a través del diálogo que don Quijote y Sancho van adquiriendo realidad, dándonos la ilusión de su autonomía, de su existencia fuera del texto, como verdaderos personajes de carne y hueso en el sentido que más tarde se llamaría 'novelístico'» (142). The dialogue between Cervantes and the reader should be described as a pseudo-dialogue because Cervantes is the only one who speaks. Hughes compares Cervantes to a master of ceremonies who invites his readers to participate in the world of the novel in an indirect and ironic way.

In «La economía política del alma: el 'Soneto al túmulo de Felipe II'», Jacques Lezra proposes to analyze the cultural value of Cervantes' literature. He describes the poem as «un encuentro, del honor, del valor, y de la muerte» (152). Written in 1598, the «Soneto al túmulo de Felipe II» resembles Don Quijote in many ways, including structure and narrative technique. After a richly-detailed explication of the poem, in which Cervantes takes up the theme of mourning and its Renaissance systems of discourse, including theology and allegory, Lezra concludes: «El valor cultural cervantino, gloria y valor que nos reúne hoy, se manifiesta en forma de compensación y de olvido, túmulo o fuero que erige la cultura literaria» (178).

Giuseppe Mazzotta asks the question, «¿qué vínculo podríamos proponer existe entre la experiencia política del hidalgo y el vuelo visionario a lomos de Clavileño?» (180) in his essay «La perspectiva lúdica de Don Quijote: Clavileño y la Cueva de Montesinos». Mazzotta examines Don Quijote's and Sancho's visions of their respective adventures in a political context. Don Quijote's visionis utopian, a vision, however, that is «políticamente irrealizable» (192). Sancho's vision, on the other hand, «se trata de la ficción de una totalidad teórica que queda revelada como el inevitable cimiento de un proyecto político que podría realizarse» (192).

For Ciriaco Morón Arroyo in «Dulcinea», there are four protagonists in Don Quijote: Don Quijote, Sancho, Cervantes, and Dulcinea. Morón Arroyo studies the character of Dulcinea in three different contexts: the textual Dulcinea, Don Quijote and Sancho's Dulcinea, and Cervantes' Dulcinea. The author examines the many faces of Dulcinea in the novel and what she means to Cervantes, Don Quijote, and Sancho, concluding as follows: «Dulcinea es, pues, para Cervantes parodia con respecto a los libros de caballería; ironía con respecto a don Quijote; creación de la creación, es decir, de la respectiva capacidad fabuladora de don Quijote y Sancho, y una original aportación a la historia de la literatura» (211).

David L. Quint's essay, «Entrelazamientos cervantinos: la 'Historia del cautivo' y su lugar en Don Quijote», looks at the function of the stories inserted within the novel, specifically the role of the Captive's Tale. This story consists of what Quint describes as a «yuxtaposición intergenérica» (217) of three narratives: the story of the captive, Don Quijote's own adventures as a knight-errant, and finally Cervantes' telling of Don Quijote's adventures in the guise of Cide Hamete Benengeli. Cervantes' ability to weave together different narrative discourses represents «una técnica formal de novelización» (227).

Hugo Rodríguez Vecchini's «El prólogo del Quijote: la imitación perfecta y la imitación depravada» examines the Prologue as an «imitación perfecta» of what a prologue should be. Rodríguez Vecchini begins his essay by stating that Cervantes did not know how to write a prologue: «El Prólogo del Quijote cuenta la historia de un autor que no podía escribir» (229). He discusses what the Prologue's perfect imitation consists of in the context of the canon's critique of Aristotle's Poética and López Pinciano's Filosofía antigua poética in Part I, Chapters 47of the novel. Rodríguez Vecchini concludes, however, that Cervantes' imitation is really «una imitación intencionalmente imperfecta» (257), for he writes a prologue to a book that by its nature is a parody.

The collection closes with Gonzalo Sobejano's essay «La prosa del mundo en el Quijote: ilustraciones». Sobejano illustrates using examples from the novel that Cervantes must have recognized the concept that two centuries later would become known as the «prosa del mundo» (261). Citing examples, specifically the first and last chapters of the novel, Sobejano shows how Cervantes successfully utilizes the concept of «prosa del mundo», defined as «un concepto que abarca todo lo necesario para que la sociedad funcione como un sistema ordenado al general provecho», in a concordant manner with its contrasting concept, the «poesía del corazón» (261).

The fourteen essays that comprise En un lugar de La Mancha: Estudios cervantinos en honor de Manuel Durán, while diverse in approach and scope, are superbly written and researched. Both specialists and non-specialists alike can appreciate this collection of engaging essays, one that represents a useful contribution to Cervantine studies and a fitting tribute to Manuel Durán's distinguished career.