After Cervantes had made the public wait nine years for the promised second part of his Don Quijote, in the year 1614 appeared an apocryphal second part under the title Segundo Tomo del ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha por el Licenciado Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda. This book would certainly have received as little attention in the following years as other inferior sequels to important works, had not Cervantes himself in his second part drawn posterity’s attention to it. The crime of plagiarism, however, was not so rare for that epoch and not so great in that instance as it might seem from Cervantes’ behavior and the statements of later critics of Avellaneda. We see in the false Quijote merely another example of the mania for sequels that arose in the Spanish literature of the 16th and 17th centuries and by which few works of any significance were left untouched. The Celestina by Fernando de Rojas opens the series with about twenty sequels and imitations. It is followed by the Amadis de Gaula and other famous chivalric romances, the Diana by Jorge de Montemayor, and the Lazarillo de Tormes. Under very similar circumstances to the false Quijote, p2 a sequel to Mateo Alemán’s Guzman de Alfarache was published in Valencia in 16021 under the pseudonym “Mateo Luxan de Sayavedra.” Thanks to Alemán’s clear clues we can easily identify Luxan de Sayavedra as Juan Martí, a Valencian lawyer; but the question of who authored the false Quijote has never yet been answered satisfactorily. Here, too, we deal with an assumed name. Since the book itself offered no clues, the investigation has focused mainly on Avellaneda’s preface and on Cervantes’ statements. This is why Avellaneda’s work has not yet been examined for its literary value, or at least for its literary status. I have attempted to do so in this work; I hope that a comparison of the false Quijote with its model will also be fruitful for the assessment of the original work. Avellaneda’s book has some significance for French literature because Lesage began his career as a novelist with a free adaptation of it. That novel of Lesage’s will be the subject of the second part of this essay.

Avellaneda’s sequel to Don Quijote seems to have met with no literary success. Contemporaries are completely silent about it; even in Lope de Vega’s extensive correspondence with the Duke of Sessa,2 in which otherwise all important literary events were reflected, it is never mentioned. The only evidence of Avellaneda’s book from the 17th century is a short note in Nicolás Antonio’s Bibliotheca Hispana Nova (1672–1679),3 containing little more than what is given in the book’s own title. In the 17th century no new edition appeared, so that the book was p3 by Lesage’s time1 already extremely rare. It is therefore incomprehensible to me that Puisbusque2 would ask: “How is it that Avellaneda’s so-called continuation, filled with invective against the author, had more success than the work itself?”

Avellaneda’s Don Quijote has been published in Spanish six times.3

It has been translated twice into French,1 and three (really, two) times into English.2

Of Lesage’s adaptation there p5 have been six French editions, as well as translations into English, Dutch, and German.1

This demonstrates that only in Lesage’s adaptation has Avellaneda’s sequel found much reception. Of the six Spanish editions, three are of purely academic interest. Nevertheless, we find no traces left by Lesage’s book in the later French literature.

A translation of Lesage’s Don Quichotte must also have come into Alexander Pope’s hands and provided him with material for a remark in his Essay on Criticism.2 A passage in Laurence Sterne’s Sentimental Journey3 cited by Becker4 has its original in Lesage’s Chapter 6.

The frequent allusions that Cervantes makes to Avellaneda, from Chapter 59 of Part II onwards, and the keenness with which he responds to his attacks, must have amazed every reader of p6 a later period. His contemporaries may have known exactly who they were dealing with. As long as there has been interest in Cervantes’ biography, his imitator has therefore also received unusual attention. Once it was established that they were dealing with a pseudonym — there was no need for the proof of Isidro Perales1 — the question of the true author of the spurious second part came to the fore. It was hoped that its solution would also provide information about Cervantes’ literary disputes and the allusions contained in the first part. But despite about one hundred and sixty years of effort by the Cervantists to unmask the plagiarist, no satisfactory solution to the authorship question has yet been provided.

Gregorio Mayáns y Siscár,2 the first biographer of the famous Spaniard, expresses himself reservedly: “Those words (in the Prologue to Cervantes’ Part II) señor and grande are mysterious to me; whatever the truth was, I am persuaded that Cervantes’ foe must have been very powerful, since a writer, a soldier, bold and dextrous with both the pen and the sword, did not dare to name him. Or else it is that he was a man so low and contemptible that Cervantes wished nobody even to learn his name, so as not to raise him, by infamy, to fame.” If Cervantes calls Avellaneda señor autor, this hardly expresses respect; but he never calls him grande; it seems to me that this is based on a misunderstanding. Cervantes writes: “la (afflicción) que debe tener este señor sin duda es grande ...”

While Padre Murillo in his Geographia historica (1752) [X.1] claims that Avellaneda must have been a clergyman, Vicente de los Ríos3 goes further and says that he must have been a bishop. He also assumes that he was of Aragonese origin, per D. Q. II.59; and suspects that he was a comedy writer who felt offended by some hidden criticism of his comedies in the first part. Pellicer4 tries to substantiate the former assumption even further by p7 giving some examples from the language of the book. He also claims that Avellaneda was a Dominican, because of the frequent mention of the Dominican order in his book and because of the prominent role played by the cult of the Virgin Mary and the devotion to the Rosary. He believes he has found allusions to Avellaneda’s work in two vejámenes contained in the Codex Fernán Núñez and taken from a certamen that took place on 16 October 1614, on the occasion of the beatification of Santa Teresa de Jesús in Zaragoza. However, this is unlikely. Rather, it likely relates to a student1,2 who took part in the certamen in the guise of Sancho Panza and received no prize. It reads: “Á Sancho Panza, estudiante, / Oficial ó paseante, / Cosa justa á su talento, / Le dará el verdugo ciento,3 / Caballero en Rocinante.” The content of the other satirical poem is very similar. The relatively gentle treatment that Cervantes bestows on his opponent Pellicer tries to explain by saying that Avellaneda, as a Dominican and an Aragonese, enjoyed the protection of the king’s confessor, Fray Luis de Aliaga.4

Thus we have established some points toward the identity of the author. For the hypotheses now to be discussed, each to be aimed at a specific personage, the foregoing materials lead us to draw up the following guidelines:

1.  Avellaneda must by Cervantes’ Book I have been insulted in some way (see his Prologue).

2.  This insult was delivered via some personal allusion (“sinónimos voluntarios” [“gratuitous aliases”]?), in the escrutinio (D. Q. I.6), or in the criticism of comedy (D. Q. I.48).

3.  He was a writer of comedies; or at least he was a writer.

4.  He was a friend of Lope de Vega’s (see Avellaneda’s Prologue).

5.  He must, if not been a monk, at least have studied theology p8 (cf. Pellicer, op. cit., pages 159 ff.).

6.  He was Aragonese (D. Q. II.59).

7.  He knew Zaragoza and Alcalá (Av. Cap. XXII, XXIII, and XXVI).

Ceán Bermúdez, in 1808, was the first to identify a specific person as the author of the Don Quijote, namely Fr. Juan Blanco de Paz of Estremadura; since then a host of new hypotheses have emerged. Some of these are self-refuting — Luis de Granada (d. 1595), Pedro Liñán (d. 1609), Gabriel Téllez (who did not emerge as a writer until 1613) — and some have been refuted elsewhere (Juan Ruiz de Alarcón, Bartolomé Leonardo de Argensola, Andrés Pérez, etc.), so we may here restrict ourselves to those theories which, due to their recent origin or due to the support they have found, require particular discussion.

The most successful was the Aliaga theory, put forth in 1846 by Adolfo de Castro.1 Despite the counter-evidence provided by Tubino2 in 1872, this theory has recently gained so much importance that Don José María Asensio3 in 1901 tried to support it with new evidence. From time to time, therefore, the Aliaga authorship is presented as completely certain.4 Its supporters have included La Barrera5 and Don Cayetano Rosell.6 The reason for Adolfo de Castro’s hypothesis was the following poem by the Conde de Villamediana7:

This poem, one of many satirical verses that accompanied the fall of Aliaga1 in 1621, refers to a trial by the Duke of Osuna, in which Aliaga had rendered services to him and had been paid for it.2 The proponents of the Aliaga theory claim that Aliaga had in fact been nicknamed “Sancho Panza” since his youth, and see allusions to him in the above-quoted cuadrillos from the certamen of Zaragoza. The insult lay in Cervantes’ having given the same nickname to his comic squire. It is probably more reasonable to assume that Villamediana gave the confessor Sancho Panza’s name, in ironic reference to the squire’s unselfish administration of the island of Barataria. Whether Aliaga, who did not leave his monastery in Zaragoza until 1602, was known to Cervantes during the writing of Part I it is not possible to determine. Cervantes did take part in a poetry competition3 in Zaragoza in 1595. However, it is not known whether he was there in person.

As for Aliaga’s being known as a writer, he was credited with a pseudonymous pamphlet against Quevedo: the Venganza de la lengua española contra el autor del Cuento de Cuentos, por Don Juan Alonso Laureles, caballero de hábito y peón de costumbres, aragonés liso y castellano revuelto (Huesca, 1629).4

To the question of stylistic similarities between the Venganza and Avellaneda’s Don Quijote I will return later. But Aliaga cannot have authored the Venganza because this polemic was written in 1628, while the ex-confessor died in 1626. This dating p10 is required by the allusions to Quevedo’s Sueños (1627)1 and to his Discurso de todos los Diablos (1628).2 La Barrera believes that in D. Q. II.61 he has spotted an allusion to Aliaga (the word aliaga meaning “gorse”). Finally, Asensio has read an acrostic from the opening words of Avellaneda’s work: "El sabio Alisolan, historiador no menos moderno que verdadero, dice que siendo expelido los moros agarenos..." Above all, the purpose of an acrostic is to catch the reader’s eye; but this one does not. Finally, what makes Aliaga’s authorship seem completely impossible is his position. In the years 1609–1613, when a large part of the royal business rested on his shoulders, he would hardly have had the time to write a novel. If he had wanted to revenge himself on Cervantes for some insult, he had other means at his disposal. I think that even this somewhat cursory examination of Adolfo de Castro’s hypothesis has shown that we cannot identify Fray Luis Aliaga with the author of the false Quijote.

This hypothesis, in its use of evidence, is somewhat similar to that put forth by Marcelino Menendez y Pelayo.3 Among the poets mentioned in the Zaragoza certamen, he chose one — Alonso Lamberto — who suited his purpose in that nothing at all is known about him. In the letters of the first four words of the book he made out the name, and he explained the name Solisdán (the sonnet “De Solisdán á Don Quijote”) as a transposition of Don Alonso. Groussac4 might have been more correct when he saw in Solisdán a near-anagram of Lasindo.5 Any close relationship between Lamberto and Lope de Vega is just as unproven as his kinship with Don Martín Lamberto Iñiguez, which incidentally would not be sufficient to characterize him as a professional writer.

Menendez y Pelayo considers it not impossible that the p11 above-mentioned Venganza de la lengua española too comes from Alonso Lamberto. One would have first to establish whether there really exist stylistic similarities1 between Laureles and Avellaneda. The Venganza is a product of the opposition to Quevedo that emerged from strict religious circles and which produced even more polemics2 against him. The polemic against Quevedo’s critical aspirations in the Cuento de Cuentos (1626) — which reopened the battle against colloquial expression in Spanish that the author had with the Pregmática (1600)3 begun and in the Visita de los chistes continued — serves the pamphleteer only as the pretext for other accusations. In philological terms, we may admit after all that he was right. But he spends little time on these questions, and soon, in accordance with his actual intention, he moves on to the key point of his opposition by pointing out the moral4 and religious danger inherent in Quevedo’s works due to their mockery of the clergy.5 The whole cleverly calculated nature of his polemic, in which he repeatedly returns to the fact that at root he wishes the author well and advises him to be a little more cautious and imitate Lope de Vega, is fundamentally different from Avellaneda’s careless, clumsy attack. I have not been able to find the alleged similarity in the style of the two writers, especially as it is not said in what this p12 similarity actually consists. Moreover, the Venganza has a stylistic peculiarity that in Avellaneda I did not notice — I mean the playing with words of similar sound but different meaning. For example: “me duele su tentada flaqueza, desatentada lengua, y papeles hechos á tiento de pintor” etc. and “mire que es religioso, y debe ser sacro lego, pero no sacrilego”. I therefore cannot believe that the Venganza’s author is identical with the false Quijote’s.

Thus the hypothesis of Menendez y Pelayo (to which he himself attaches little importance) we must abandon.

An improvement in method is represented by Groussac’s1 solution to the authorship question. He relies on observations of a linguistic nature, by which he intends to prove that Avellaneda and Juan Martí, the author of the false Guzman, are one and the same. He presents the Aragonisms already cited by Pellicer and some new examples as Valencianisms and looks for equivalents in Juan Martí. Pellicer2 describes the following expressions as Aragonese: “He (Cervantes) identifies the language (of Avellaneda) as Aragonese, because sometimes he writes without articles; and he could have alleged other proofs as numerous as they are convincing, such as: 1. en salir de la carcel, for en saliendo or habiendo salido; 2. á la que volvió la cabeza, for habiendo vuelto la cabeza; 3. escupe y le pegaré, for le castigaré; 4. hincar carteles, for fixar or pegar; 5. poner la escudilla en las brasas, for poner la taza sobre las asquas; 6. el señal, for la señal; 7. menudo, for mondongo; 8. mala gana, for congoja, desmayo, or vaguido; and 9. some treatment of persons via the impersonal form, as in mire, oyga, perdone.”

The criterion ascribed to Cervantes for Avellaneda’s Aragonese origin loses a great deal of weight when one considers the cases in which Avellaneda omits the article: “ello es verdad que no todas (las) veces nos salían las aventuras como nosotros querían” and “con esto hacía toda (la) resistencia que podía para soltarse.” In the Catalan language,3 just as in the older Spanish, todo occurs without the article: “en todas guisas” (Amadis), “porque en invierno p13 no es menester fresco, y en verano no lo hay todas veces” (Pedro Mejía, Coloquio del porfiado), “no podían ejecutar las temas de sus locuras todas veces” (Quevedo, Casa de locos de amor). [The latter two examples are due to Borao, op. cit.] Rather than because of this usage, Cervantes probably arrived at the conclusion that the author was Aragonese because the book was printed in Tarragona.

Of the other examples given by Pellicer, escudilla, menudo, pegar, brasas are listed in the Academy’s Diccionario as Castilian. The impersonal form of address, according to Borao,1 is a feature of liturgical language. The following points remain to be dealt with:

Groussac enriches Pellicer’s list with several more: zorriar, buen recado (bastante), repostona, otorgar (confesar), aun (así), aunque (puesto que), hendo (haciendo), repapo, pedir de (preguntar por), partera (parida).

So there remain from Catalan only partera, mala gana, and (perhaps) repapo. It is not impossible that Avellaneda was, after all, Aragonese. It merely seems to me that the above-mentioned peculiarities are useless in proving his identity.

Contrariwise, Avellaneda has a preference for certain phrases that we do not find in Juan Martí; e.g. ello es verdad, no entender la música, hacer pelillos á la mar, etc. Particularly characteristic, as Morel-Fatio has noted, is his extensive use of the preposition tras. The proportions in which each writer used this preposition are as follows (but note that the false Guzman is one-third shorter than the Don Quijote):

On the other hand, Juan Martí has a particular fondness for the formula aunque — pero (resp. empero), which he uses 24 times compared to none in Avellaneda. E.g. “Y aunque yo tampoco miraba por el mío (provecho), pero tenía hecha costumbre de casa de monseñor.”

Avellaneda also prefers to connect sentences using a demonstrative; not only tras esto but con esto, en esto, oyendo esto, con esta quimera, etc. Any stylistic similarity between these two writers is, consequently, out of the question.

But, as Groussac observes, we must not place too much confidence in a linguistic comparison, since one’s style might change considerably over the span of ten years. He therefore seeks to demonstrate that the same personality is reflected in both works. Certain quotations seem to him to be based on the same education. But I have the impression that Juan Martí in his profuse quotations shows more erudition than Avellaneda with his few scraps of Latin, which are not even always correct (“parcere prostratis docuit nobis (should be nos) ira leonis” [Cap. III]; the phrase “est deus in nobis”1 [Cap. XXV] is not from Horace but from Ovid). The two mentions of Cenobia in Guzman are said to allude to the Cenobia of Don Quijote; a single mention of Lope de Vega, to Avellaneda’s friendship with him; even Guzman’s detailed observations on prison and theater life, to Avellaneda’s sparse judgments on the same subjects. The knowledge of secular and canon law that Avellaneda, like Juan Martí, is supposed to possess is limited to a single mention of the bula de composición [Cap. XXVII]. The false Guzman is pervaded by a spirit wholly different from that of the false Quijote. Nothing lies further from Avellaneda than the love of philosophizing and moralizing which often leads Juan Martí p16 to page-long reflections on all kinds of things. Avellaneda is terser in his depictions and more familiar in his expressions. In short, one will find more differences than similarities between the two. We must thus condemn also Groussac’s hypothesis; so we arrive at our last-to-be-discussed attempt to solve the authorship question.

Avellaneda says in his Prologue that he wants to revenge the insults given by Cervantes to Lope de Vega. Could it be, behind the pseudonym, Lope de Vega himself? Given the rivalry between the two poets, which impelled each to compete in the other’s field — Lope de Vega in prose, Cervantes in comedy — the idea seems obvious. But there is much to be said from the outset against this hypothesis, which was put forth by Maínez.1 Firstly, the relationship between the two poets, which was extremely tense when the first part of Don Quijote was published, must have improved somewhat over time. For in 1612 we find both of them in the Academia Selvaje. Lope de Vega himself tells us in a letter to the Duke of Sessa that at one meeting of the Academia, in order to read a poem, he borrowed from Cervantes a pair of glasses which “looked like a couple of badly made fried eggs.”2 In their later works, both speak only in a tone of the greatest respect of each other. Secondly, there is not the slightest similarity between the style of Lope and that of Avellaneda, although Maínez claims the opposite.3 I dare not judge this point more aptly than did Menendez y Pelayo: “That Lope is the author of Avellaneda’s Don Quijote is highly improbable. The characteristic style of this novel bears no resemblance to Lope’s manner as a writer of prose. It resembles not the poetic and Latinized prose of the Arcadia and Peregrino en su patria; nor the unforced and elegant historical prose of the Triunfo de la fé en los reinos del Japón; nor again the pleasant, natural, expressive, and graceful diction of many scenes of the Dorotea, which sometimes rivals p17 the Celestina; nor, finally, the buffoonish wit of the private letters, which, although they do little honor to their author, are of great value in judging his spirit and his humor. But even in this private correspondence, where the great poet often gracelessly transgresses all bounds, there is nothing that can compare to the indecent crudeness of Avellaneda. Whenever Lope writes for the public he proceeds, in drawing pictures of bad morals — the which could not be omitted from his immense theater, if it were really to be a perfect depiction of the human comedy — with a certain economy and good taste never displayed by Avellaneda. As in the Dorotea itself, so in the Ansuelo de Feniza, the Rufián Castrucho, the Arsenal de Sevilla. Never, not even in the loosest sense, can the noble muse of Lope and Tirso be compared with the brutal realism of Avellaneda, which is to him, among all the writers of that century, unique.”

Here I intend to close my discussion of the authorship question, without being able to agree in good conscience with any of the solutions put forth so far. Nor am I in a position to solve the riddle in a new way, since the names of the available novelists of that time have already been exhausted. Unless new evidence is added, it will hardly be possible to give a satisfactory answer to the authorship question. Nonetheless I do not believe that the last word has been spoken about Avellaneda. For whenever anyone speaks of the immortal work of Cervantes, his bold imitator will also be mentioned — with contempt. He will continue to play his role as the Ahasuerus of literary history, and may yet turn up several more times under new names.

Even if our consideration of the authorship question has yielded no definite reward, it has brought us one benefit, at least: It has led us to form a judgment of the style and personality of the author. This will be of particular use to us as we now proceed to examine the work itself.

When Cervantes announced in the Prologue to his Novelas exemplares that the second part of his Don Quijote p18 was about to be published, his imitator — who evidently knew nothing about Cervantes’ also writing a second part — had almost completed his sequel. It is therefore understandable that Cervantes’ announcement caused him great agitation. For the pecuniary gain with which he was no doubt initially concerned was thereby endangered. He then hit upon the device of giving his book traction by means of a Prologue full of dark allusions and brazen attacks on Cervantes. That it was not Avellaneda’s original intention in his book to offend Cervantes personally seems to me clear from the fact that the work itself lacks personal allusions1 of any kind.

Cervantes was deeply hurt by the insults contained in Avellaneda’s Prologue and responded with more passion than needed. He felt most hurt by Avellaneda’s mockery of his age and his one-armedness. For he had lost his arm in an honourable battle, and the experience of his age could only be of use to his books. Cervantes was just writing the 59th chapter of his second part when he became aware of the apocryphal Don Quijote. From this chapter on he criticizes it continuously. However, he did not here target the weakest points of the book.

If Avellaneda calls Sancho’s wife Mari-Gutierrez, Cervantes himself is to blame. He continually fiddles with the name: sometimes he calls her Mari-Gutierrez, sometimes Juana Gutierrez, and only in the second part Teresa Panza. He is also to blame when Avellaneda portrays Sancho as gluttonous.2 This merely reiterates a characteristic of Sancho that is briefly mentioned in Cervantes’ Part I. Incidentally, at Camacho’s wedding (II.21), Sancho displays a gluttony that would do Avellaneda’s Sancho credit. But Cervantes is absolutely right when he accuses the book of obscenity.

The false Quijote was not without influence on the final chapters of the real Don Quijote. Since Avellaneda leads his hero, following a hint given by Cervantes in the last chapter of Part I, p19 to Zaragoza, the poet had to deviate from his original plan and send his knight to Barcelona instead.

The chapters that follow are not up to par with the rest. One can see the anger and resentment that Cervantes felt after the blatant plagiarism that was committed against him. The depiction of the events in Barcelona is dull and colorless. Don Quixote’s madness rarely plays a role. On the whole, he seems less crazy than the people who want to make fun of him. The narrative’s faster pace resumes only when the deus ex machina Sansón Carrasco puts an end to Don Quixote’s career as a knight errant. The original plot comes again into focus, and the action moves quickly and logically toward its end.

Cervantes wants us to believe that he has not read his rival’s book, but some perhaps unintentional echoes of its wording prove the opposite. Compare the following passages:

The three tocadores [nightcaps] stolen from Sancho by the robbers (II.67) p20 recall the three dozen agujetas [suspenders] that a picaro takes from the squire in Zaragoza (Av. Cap. XI).

The similarities, which can also be found in chapters 1–58 of Part II, have given rise to various speculations. That Cervantes imitated Avellaneda in these places seems to me impossible. On the other hand, Avellaneda’s knowledge of the original Part II would have left clearer traces. The similarities of this kind are briefly as follows: The duel between the squires Sancho and Tomé Cecial (II.14) resembles the planned duel between Sancho and the black squire (Av. Cap. XXXIII); Don Quixote‘s behavior during the puppet show (II.26) resembles a corresponding scene in Avellaneda during a theater performance (Av. Cap. XXVII); the events at the Duke’s court resemble those in the house of the Archipámpano. I have not noted any word-for-word similarities. Ultimately, there is nothing for it but to suppose that the cited similarities in style are explained by the similarity of substance.1

Much more striking than the above-discussed echoes of Avellaneda in Cervantes are (naturally) the relationships between the false Quijote and Part I. The author was careful to avoid coincidences of wording, as he lived in a literary-minded age that would have taken offense at that kind of plagiarism. Avellaneda prefers to imitate situations of coarse comedy. Thus he has carefully scraped together all the grime of Part I and, with the obscene products of his own imagination, augmented it.

The exposition of the sequel is given by the end of the first part. Don Quixote, thanks to the good care of his housekeeper and his niece, is once more completely sane. He reads edifying books (Villegas’ Flos Sanctorum, Fray Luis de Granada’s Guía de pecadores, and the “Evangelios y Epístolas de todo el año en vulgar”) and diligently attends Mass. Then Sancho, by the mention of a book of knightly romance, awakens in him p21 the old madness, which fully emerges after some nobles spend the night in the village on their way to the tournaments in Zaragoza. One of them, Don Alvaro Tarfé, leaves with Don Quixote a suit of Milanese armor, which he immediately appropriates, calling it a gift from the wise Alquife. One fine morning, he leaves the village with Sancho, intending to go to the tournaments in Zaragoza. At the first inn1 everything occurs according to the pattern of Part I: This inn has its own Maritornes;2 Don Quixote takes her for a captured princess and wants to return her to her own kingdom;3 Don Quixote as he leaves refuses to pay.4 There is no lack of echoes in the wording, e.g.:

After six days the two travelers arrive at Ariza, where Don Quixote has a new device painted on his shield. Because he has received from Dulcinea an unkind reply to a letter5 he wrote, he decides to give up his love for her and to call himself the Caballero desamorado [“Loveless Knight”]. He has an adventure with a melon farmer, whom he calls sometimes “Orlando furioso,”6 sometimes Aglante, sometimes Bellido de Olfos. The knight and Sancho are beaten and their mounts are taken.7 The priest of Ateca hosts them for eight days and, when they leave, advises Don Quixote in the same way as the canon of Toledo (I.48) about the mendacity of chivalric tales. Don Quixote goes p22 to Zaragoza, where he tries to free a prisoner, following the example of the freeing of the galley slaves (I.22). He then attacks a notary, who saves himself from the thrust in the same way as the barber (I.21), namely by sliding backwards off his donkey. The knight is saved from the threat of flagellation only by the intervention of Don Alvaro Tarfé, who leads him to his house.1 From here on, the author relies on his own invention. As the tournament is already over, Don Quixote takes part in a ring-jousting contest: “It is not unusual on such festive occasions for the knights to bring lunatics into the plaza, dressed up and adorned, wearing fanciful headdresses, and have them do tricks, tilt, joust, and carry off prizes, as has been seen sometimes in big cities and in Zaragoza itself” (Cap. XI). At the house of the referee, Don Carlos, where they eat that evening, Don Quixote receives the challenge of Bramidán de Tajayunque (= Anvil-Cleaver), King of Cyprus, a giant carnival figure carried on the shoulders of the host’s secretary. The following night, the knight dreams that Bramidán has broken in and is trying to kill the entire household. In his delusion he pummels Sancho and the servants,2 until Don Alvaro calms him. The secretary reappears in the role of the giant’s squire and summons Don Quixote to a duel in Madrid, where Don Alvaro and Don Carlos, because of the marriage of the latter’s sister, also want to go. On the way to Madrid, Don Quixote makes the acquaintance of a soldier and a hermit, in whose company he calls again at Mosén Valentin’s in Ateca.

The next day, because of the great heat, they take a longer rest at a spring and pass the time by telling stories. The soldier tells the novel of El rico desesperado, the hermit the Cuento de los felices amantes, Sancho a story p23 — the Cuento de nunca acabar1 — which is identical to the one recorded in I.20 except that here it is geese (there, sheep) that have to cross the river. The next adventure is a clumsy travesty of the Dorotea episode. In a forest they discover, bound to a tree and howling, a dirty, ugly woman of about fifty: Barbara la de la cuchillada, a cook from Alcalá de Henares. She was lured into the forest and robbed by a student who had promised to marry her.

Don Quixote dubs her Zenobia, Queen of the Amazons, and puts himself in her service. Her ugliness does not bother him. She is enchanted. This unsavory woman — a fair substitute for Dulcinea — accompanies the knight on his further journeys and sullies his ideal aspirations with her filthy presence. This part and everything that follows until the end are decidedly the worst parts of the book: tedious because of the constant repetition of the same motifs, brawls, and ridicule of the knight; and repulsive because of the lewd situations brought about by the presence of Barbara, who is basically a cunning alcahueta [= bawd].

Don Quixote makes crazy speeches; a mob forms; Sancho is imprisoned, teased by some picaros in the jailhouse, and then released again. Everywhere the two of them and their female companion provoke the public’s amusement. On the way to Alcalá, Don Quixote meets two students who pose riddles for him. At an inn outside Alcalá he disrupts a performance of Lope de Vega’s comedy El testimonio vengado.

As a joke, an actor challenges him (just as Don Carlos did) to a duel, again to take place in Madrid, and gives him the tail-strap of a mule as a token, which leads to a dispute between Sancho and the owner.2 Upon their arrival in Madrid, Don Quixote attracts the attention of a high dignitary and is invited to his house, where he argues with a page and with a policeman. After the trio have been sufficiently mocked, they are taken to the house of another dignitary, who calls himself the Archipámpano. Meanwhile, Don Carlos’ secretary, p24 who has arrived at the same time as Don Alvaro, appears again as the giant and is now revealed as the Infanta Burlerina, who has sought out Don Quixote in this enchanted guise so as to summon him to Toledo to save her from the Prince of Córdoba. Thus Don Alvaro and Don Carlos hope to draw the knight to Toledo and put him in a madhouse (casa del Nuncio) there. Barbara will go to a home for reformed prostitutes (casa de arrepentidas). Sancho and his wife, whom he summons by letter, are to stay with the Archipámpano. The author thus bids him farewell, promising a wonderful story about his future fate.

Don Quixote is admitted to the madhouse in Toledo. At the book’s end it is reported that he was released as a cured man and once again set out on his travels as a knight errant, in the company of a new squire, who later turned out to be a woman, and in this way wandered throughout Old Castile, “llamándose el Caballero de los Trabajos, los cuales no faltará mejor pluma que los celebre” [“calling himself the Knight of Hardships, the which will surely not lack a better pen to celebrate them”].1

To draw a conclusion from this analysis: We see that the author has attempted to continue the first Part in a matching spirit. But it would really be a miracle if the sequel’s author were to have penetrated so deeply into the first author’s conception and identified so well with his spirit as to produce a work comparable with its model. The designs of the original work, in the hands of the imitator, will always lose something of their unspoilt freshness and power. They will be either washed-out and weak, or overdone and caricatured. Avellaneda’s manner is to overdo it, picking out individual traits that he considers to be particularly characteristic of his model and unnaturally emphasizing them.

For his Don Quixote character, Avellaneda had to keep the original idea. Don Quixote remains the “overexcited reader” who takes the world depicted in his books for real, or at least for capable of being realized. But much else has been altered in Don Quixote’s character. The knight’s vanity, which here degenerates into foppishness, Avellaneda makes downright unpleasant. Sometimes he calls himself Cid, sometimes Fernán González, sometimes Achilles or p25 Ferdinand of Aragon. This trait stands out all the more because the author has neglected to describe another side that is capable of softening the unsympathetic characteristics of Don Quixote’s character: his disposition. For we can be truly interested in his hero only so long as we also feel real sympathy for him and view his madness compassionately.

Cervantes had already reprimanded Avellaneda for letting his knight relinquish his love for Dulcinea. He who had taken the most loyal of all knights errant, Amadis de Gaula, as his model had to remain true to his lady. His fantasy love life was his whole happiness, his support, his muse. Cervantes twice1 expresses this thought very beautifully: “A knight-errant without a lady is like a tree without leaves, a building without foundation, a shadow without body to cast it.”

Avellaneda has tried to treat the pathological side in the same way as Cervantes. In both cases, Don Quixote is a loco entreverado, “a madman shot through (with sanity).” Nevertheless, certain differences still appear. Since we would not get far on this point with purely aesthetic considerations, I would first like to identify and classify the symptoms of Don Quixote’s illness with the help of psychological criteria.

The causes of his illness are easy to see. He is by nature weakly built, poorly nourished, and prone to enthusiasms. Day and night he reads chivalric romances, so that from so much reading and so little sleep he eventually goes mad. His brain dries up, says Cervantes; a modern doctor more learnedly might call it cerebral atrophy. The poor hidalgo’s idea of reviving knight-errantry by example is a kind of megalomania.

The symptoms of his illness consist of sensory illusions. Most of the time he is subject to apperception illusions; that is, to the kind of false perceptions that arise from actual sensory impressions distorted by subjective elements from his own imagination. The inclarity or ambiguity of perception encourages the emergence of illusions. In sick or merely psychologically weakened individuals, they take on p26 the sharpness of real sensory impressions.1 The conditions are extremely favorable for the emergence of distorted perceptions: strong, pleasant stimuli, great vividness of ideas, and finally the inability to intelligently examine and correct the material of experience.2 These environmentally caused false perceptions are to be sharply distinguished from hallucinations, i.e. those false perceptions in which an external source of stimulus is not present at all. A simple resemblance suffices to produce phantasms that are equivalent to actual sensory impressions.3 False perceptions of this second kind we seldom find in Don Quijote.

In Don Quixote’s case, so as to delineate the individual phases of the illusion process from onset to conclusion, I will use the episode of the rams4 as a model example. Since the individual moments, as I will simultaneously show, recur in the other adventures, they may be considered typical for the course of an attack.

Avellaneda does not always succeed in presenting the entire psychological process with the same consistency as does Cervantes. When Don Quixote takes an inn for a castle, but in the next moment speaks of a “ventero andante” [“innkeeper-errant”] (Cap. IV) or says: “¡Entramos en la venta!” (Cap. XXVI), this is certainly a mistake on the author’s part. No trace of realism or psychological grounding is found in Don Quixote’s behavior during the ring-joust in Zaragoza. The illusion process is actually carried out in the episode of the melon farmer, and in the discovery of Barbara. In the former, the lance serves to induce the illusion; in the latter, a scream from the bushes.2 In both cases we also find the characteristic corollary illusions. The adventure of the giant Tajayunque is on a level with the Micomicona episode (I.29), in that these are artificially created situations that require Don Quixote’s own belief in giants and in exiled princesses in need of aid. Dreams are the illusion-inducing moment in Don Quixote’s nocturnal battle with the supposed giants (Av. Cap. XIII) and in his attack on the wineskins (I.36). Real fits of rage of a hallucinatory nature, as occur in Avellaneda Cap. III and X, cannot be considered an enrichment of the Don Quixote motif; they arouse rather more displeasure than amusement. The hidalgo appears clearly insane. Such a mental state would lead necessarily to the asylum. Cervantes, in his Part II, takes on the problem differently. He portrays Don Quixote in a new stage of his illness. p28 The symptoms of impending recovery become more and more numerous, the relapses become less frequent, so that his recovery at book’s end does not come unexpectedly. The individual adventures are all of a kind requiring only that the knight believe in the possibility of knight-errantry and in the existence of fabulous creatures. The hallucinatory element recedes completely into the background. The knight no longer sees inns as castles; twice this is particularly emphasized. The adventures approach him in such a form that they no longer require transformation by the imagination. Don Quixote’s reactions are, however, determined by his memories of the chivalric romances. Into this category fall: the fight with the Knight of the Mirrors; the encounter with the actors of the Auto de las Cortes de la Muerte; the brilliant episode of the lion; and finally all the adventures orchestrated by the Duke and Duchess. The corollary illusion is in most cases unneeded. In the episode of the puppet show, Don Quixote is subject only to that theatrical illusion1 which sometimes occurs even in normal men. It is significant, too, that he does not look for an excuse in his usual way, but rather acknowledges his mistake and compensates the puppeteer. The experience in the cave of Montesinos is a dream, and therefore does not fall into the class of sensory illusions. Don Quixote himself later begins to doubt the reality of what he dreamed.

In summary, the hidalgo is in Cervantes’ Part II interpreted in a wholly new mode. Still, I cannot put this volume on an aesthetic level with Part I. Goethe seems to me to have spoken rightly when he said: “So long as the hero has his illusions, he is romantic; so soon as he is merely teased and mystified, real interest ceases.”2

Avellaneda, on the other hand, one could accuse of having unsuccessfully altered his adopted character.

Avellaneda’s Sancho, who aroused Lesage’s admiration, p29 brings little new beyond his role model. I find also that he lacks Sancho’s likeable traits: his kindheartedness and his loyalty. Of the new characters introduced by Avellaneda, only one is of importance. Dorothea, in Part I, corresponds in Avellaneda’s Don Quijote to Barbara, an ugly old woman who uses her job as a tripe-seller as a pretext for all kinds of dishonest business. The relationship with Celestina is obvious. She is the clever procuress who, from the Middle Latin Pamphilus de amore to the brilliant treatment she received from Juan Ruiz as Trotaconventos and from Fernando de Rojas as Celestina, has earned her place in the literature of Spain. If of Barbara it is reported that her nickname in Alcalá was “la de la cuchillada” because of a scar on her cheek, we learn the same of her famous predecessor: “aquella vieja de la cuchillada, que solía biuir en las tenerías, á la cuesta del río” [“that old woman with the scar who used to live among the tanneries down by the river”].1 The persignum crucis has its counterpart in the “fermosa con aquel su Dios os salve que traviessa la media cara” [“beautiful one with that God-save-you across the middle of the face”].2 Barbara is also said to have the same skills as Celestina. In one thing they differ: Barbara is base and mean. She lacks that genius in vice that makes Celestina somewhat demonic, and that knowledge of the weaknesses of the human soul that gives her mastery of the situation. That Avellaneda gives her the name of the Empress of Palmyra, Zenobia,3 and makes her the Queen of the Amazons, does not seem to me to be founded in any book of chivalry. Still, Zenobia is mentioned in Orlando Furioso.4 Orlando Furioso’s hag Gabrina5 also bears some resemblance to Barbara.

Avellaneda’s introduction of this character, as we have seen already above, has no aesthetic benefit.

As he explains in the preface, Avellaneda’s intention too is to eliminate those corrupting books of chivalry. Cervantes satirizes the chivalric stories by portraying a knight who takes the p30 chivalric stories for histories and wants to realize their contents, because he believes that the age in which he lives, compared to the world of those books, itself represents corruption. The absurdity of this undertaking, which continually founders in its contact with everyday life, is intended to reveal the complete untruthfulness of the chivalric books. The individual episodes are parodies of similar situations in the ridiculed books. Every aspect is translated to a lower sphere. It is not knights against whom the hidalgo fights, but muleteers; not giants, but windmills; not entire hosts, but flocks of sheep. A satire that makes use of such methods is better called burlesque than (as Schneegans1 does) grotesque, if we consider the essential characteristic of the grotesque to be immoderate exaggeration, but of the burlesque to be the mixture of the dignified with the trivial.

To further delimit Cervantes’ use of satire, we might compare his work to the Orlando Furioso.

“The means of comic representation lies, for Ariosto, in the naturalness and realism of his representation, even if he applies it to the most wonderful and fantastic things.”2 He has no interest in polemicizing against the chivalric literature. He delights in the fabulous inventions of the troubadours’ tales and presents them with a skepticism characteristic of the Renaissance. Cervantes, on the other hand, does not want to emphasize the aesthetic inferiority of chivalric books so much as the harm they can do with their one-sided encouragement of fantasy life. This didactic trait is the most important feature that separates the satirical approach from the ironic.

Satire measures its object against some ideal, some Should-Be, so that the situations with which it deals appear petty, miserable, even harmful. Although the satirical and the comical are related in that both aim to reduce their object to absurdity, one cannot consider them identical. Satire, in pursuing its didactic, ethical, or frivolous aims, employs comedy as merely its expressive mode.

Humor, in the context of satire, has another special task. It aims to counteract satire’s corrosive tendencies through its optimistic and conciliatory substance.

The means and the end of satire were, for Avellaneda, given quantities. The only question is whether he has hit the mark set by Cervantes. p31 Of course, we need consider this question only in respect to the situations he himself invented.

His knight travels through all sorts of villages and towns, gains companions, and challenges to combat the local nobility — although these are by no means the main activities of the novels’ heroes. It is more in the spirit of the chivalric books when Avellaneda gets his Don Quixote involved in an adventure via a shout from the bushes, or has a giant challenge him to a duel. The ring-joust in Zaragoza acts rather to show how the gory tournaments of olden times had become a mere game, than to satirize the combats depicted in the stories.

Cervantes also pokes fun at the form of the knightly tales, by imitating the eccentric style that is typical of most novels of this kind (apart from the first books of Amadis, which are written in exemplary prose). In form he does not exaggerate. Even the most chivalresque gibberish of Don Quixote fails to approach some of the stylistic feats of Feliciano de Silva. The comic effect comes merely from the juxtaposition of two different styles. Since the caricature is missing, this technique is better classified as irony; in Cervantes the ironic and the satirical forms of humor are commingled without clear distinction.

Avellaneda has used the same device with skill, but only when Don Quixote speaks. Otherwise he does not stray from the simple narrative tone. Of those preludes1 that Cervantes, following the example of the chivalric romances (namely the Caballero del Febo [Phoebus Knight]), uses as an introduction to individual episodes and chapters, and which often give a pompous description of the sunrise, we have in Avellaneda only a poor copy: “Tres horas antes que el rojo Apolo esparciese sus rayos sobre la tierra, salieron de su lugar” (Cap. IV). Otherwise the chapters flow into one another without noticeable introduction or conclusion. Nowhere are there any personal reflections by the author, remarks by the chronicler, or any direct address to the reader. With this objectivity the false Quijote stands quite alone in that era’s literature, in which everywhere the personality of the author — in the first person or in the guise of a chronicler — shines through.

The direct polemic against the books of chivalry, which Cervantes p32 uses so skilfully in the escrutinio (I.6), is nowhere used by Avellaneda. He is content to call the novels of chivalry “lying” and “corrupting.”

To the level of sustained social satire — which Cervantes employs quite casually and yet which grants his book universal significance1 — Avellaneda is unable to rise. However, he does not omit individual remarks of satirical import. On the model of the picaresque novel, he dwells on the poor quality of the inns’ food (Cap. V and XXVII) and on the violent nature of the students in Alcalá (Cap. XXVIII). Finally, Sancho’s remarks on the theme of “la vida de palacio es vida bestial” (Cap. XXXV) also belong under this heading.

I have already indicated that there is a fundamental difference between satire and comedy in the narrow sense. Namely, whereas comedy arises when two sets of ideas, initially distinct in our minds, are suddenly and unexpectedly juxtaposed in some new relationship, satire deals with the conflict between an object with an ostensible claim on our esteem and an ideal that is proper to the poet. The destruction of the ostensibly valuable through the perspective of the satirist — which by empathy we make our own perspective — results in a mix of pleasant and unpleasant feelings similar to those resulting from the same process in comedy. This effect will be all the greater if the viewpoints presented by the satirist are new to us.

So it is that a later era can never achieve full understanding of a satire. On the one hand, it lacks knowledge and appreciation of the satirized subject, and on the other hand, it lacks the dispassion of the contemporary reader. Modern man will hardly receive the special satire of the Quijote with the same conflicting feelings as did his contemporaries. For him, the book will be primarily a work of humor. From this shift in perspective the work’s purely aesthetic effect can only benefit.

The knight’s striving to do things that suit neither his abilities nor his circumstances must, in its certain failure, p33 bring about a number of purely comic situations.1 The situation is different when the comedy stems from artificially created situations, the success of which is predicated on his foolishness. This creates a peculiar kind of comedy: “the farcical [das Possenhafte].”2 It is somewhat deliberate, manufactured, something that gambles on the intellectual weakness of the one it wants to portray in a comic light. The aim of the person being mocked to comprehend something that he cannot comprehend increases the comic effect. If Cervantes in his Part II gives preference to the farcical, the reason for this lies in the psychological development of his hero.3 Comic literature in Spain before Cervantes — stage comedies, entremeses, picaresque novels — partakes almost exclusively of the farcical. Cunning, which triumphs over stupidity, gullibility, and good nature, is everywhere the main theme.

Avellaneda works with the same material as Cervantes. The almost logical execution of the illusion mechanism had necessarily — in conjunction with the parodistic imitation of situations from the books of chivalry (the part of the comedy linked to satire) — to produce the same comic effects.

The comedy of Don Quijote is essentially based on the self-deception4 in which the hero is caught. This self-deception is of a twofold nature: firstly the illusion resulting from his mental state, and secondly his mistaken belief that the means at his disposal are sufficient for his purposes. The second type — although dependent on the first, since the knight believes himself to be strong and his weapons to be keen only by the power of his illusion — is nonetheless significant to the comic effect. For if the hero were strong and well equipped, his delusion would probably appear more tragic than comic. In addition to the comedy of self-deception, there is also the comedy of external appearance. If modern man — p34 who is accustomed to putting mental injuries on a par with physical ones and therefore for the comedy that can arise from them has less appreciation than the naïve man — feels when reading Don Quijote no displeasure at the fact that a poor sick man is made the butt of the joke, it is simply because the comic effect of the disproportion between means and ends and the comic effect of external appearances cheat him out of such humane reactions. If when reading Avellaneda’s book we are more likely to feel a sense of disgust at the knight’s foolishness, this is at least due to a lack of variation between the comedy of illusion and the comedy of appearances. Avellaneda rarely succeeds in painting a vivid picture of the external appearance of the “Knight of the Sorry Figure.” Much more significant than this difference between the two works — Cervantes’ and Avellaneda’s — is another: the real Don Quijote is grounded in a truly humorous worldview.

According to Eduard von Hartmann,1 humor arises from a combination of the comic with the touching, with the tragic, or with both simultaneously. The moral and aesthetic significance of humor lies precisely in the fact that it draws higher values into the whirlpool of the comic imagination, yet ultimately allows what is morally valuable to emerge and crystallize.

Cervantes’ Quixote is really humorous because the author has endowed him with noble qualities that prevail over the comical aspects of his character and secure him our sympathy. In Avellaneda he is merely comical, because only his ridiculous aspects emerge. The difference between the two treatments is best seen in the endings. How touchingly comical is the end of Don Quixote’s knightly career in Cervantes! First his pain at his unlucky defeat; then his sincere joy at Don Gaspar Gregorio’s return; his comical decision to turn shepherd; and finally his mental recovery and his death, through which he, Alonso Quijada the Good, leaves his relatives and friends deeply saddened — all this is portrayed by the author so humorously and touchingly that the finale of Avellaneda’s novel, that locks up Don Quixote in a madhouse, cannot but seem crude and tasteless. In the former p35 the humor rises to such a high degree of pathos that it borders on the tragic; in the latter the merely comic descends into banality.

The brave squire Sancho in both works requires special consideration. He is naturally humorous; he acts humorously according to his nature, his disposition. Avellaneda’s Sancho is definitely his best character. In this respect we can agree, albeit cautiously, with Lesage’s judgment:1 Avellaneda was best at coarse comedy. However, to me his Sancho does not seem free of extraneous influences. While in Cervantes we still see pure character comedy in the squire, we find on the other hand that Avellaneda exaggerates individual traits that have a comic effect — his rustic mode of speech, his enormous appetite, etc. — in such a way that they almost become ends in themselves. Sancho thus moves into the sphere of the “figure of fun” [lustige Person], specifically the gracioso of Spanish comedy. This relationship with the gracioso is particularly evident in the caricature of the knight by the servant.2 In front of the Archipámpano, for example, the squire imitates his master in posture and speech.3 I will quote both speeches verbatim, as to me they seem characteristic of Avellaneda’s style.

Don Quixote: “... Don Quixote, still standing in the middle of the room, looking around very seriously, with the point of his lance, which had been brought him by a servant, grounded, stayed quiet ...; and when he saw that they were silent and waiting for him to speak, in a calm and serious voice he began: Magnanimous, powerful, and ever-august Archipámpano of the Indies, descendant of the Heliogábalos, Sardanápolos, and other such emperors of old, today has come into your royal presence the Loveless Knight, in case you have not heard of him, who, after having traveled over the most part of our hemisphere, having therein killed and conquered an infinite number of ogres and extraordinary giants, disenchanted castles, liberated maidens ...”

Sancho: “Then Sancho got between them, and looking back he said to Don Quixote: Give me that lance, so that I may look as your honor looked when you talked to the Arcapámpanos ... then steepling his hands without taking off his cap, which caused no little p36 laughter among the onlookers, he remained quite a while without speaking, until, seeing that they were silent, he began to speak, trying to begin like his master Don Quixote, to whose words he had paid no little attention: Magnanimous, powerful, and always-August harto de pámpanos [lit. “sick of vine-shoots”] ... Your honor is to know, sir descendant of the emperor Eliogallos y Sarganápalos, that I am named Sancho Panza, the squire, husband of Mari-Gutierrez both forward and backward, in case you have not heard of him ... and, its having been days I’ve been roaming about on my donkey with my master over the most part of our... — And turning to his master he said: What the devil do you call it? — Curse you! answered Don Quixote; hemisphere, you idiot. — Well, what do you want now? answered Sancho; ... do you think a man should have a memory as long as the missal? ... Then I’ll say, continued Sancho, going back to my story, sir king of the Hemisphere, that up to now I haven’t killed nor dissipated any such giants as my master says ...”

Sancho’s cowardice can also be seen as a characteristic trait of the gracioso; cf. his behavior during the adventure of Barbara’s discovery.

The mostly very lame jokes may have been inspired by those jokers who, in the costume of his squire, accompanied Don Quixote in the processions.1

One comic element deserves special mention because it is foreign to Cervantes’ Don Quijote: the obscene. The obscene has forever been a branch of literature in its own right, but sometimes it gets so out of hand that it afflicts even true art. Avellaneda’s Don Quijote dates from such a time. Just note the turn to pornography that the picaresque novel took with Andrés Pérez’s Pícara Justina. On a higher artistic level we may find this phenomenon when we observe the transition from Lope de Vega’s charming lightheartedness [graziöser Leichtfertigkeit] to the jocular frivolity [spielenden Frivolität] of Tirso de Molina, which led him to stage the most daring scenes. This agrees also with the complaints which have occasionally been raised about the people who take such pleasure in the immorality portrayed on the stage.2 A part of Avellaneda’s guilt, therefore, we can assign to his era. A dirty joke, whether it is cleverly disguised or clumsily exposed, is alike immoral. Though Sancho himself is not given to well-chosen expressions, yet it falls to Barbara to bring smut into the Don Quixote–fable. One example will suffice:

“Sir knight, she (Barbara) replied, I wish I were fifteen p37 years old and more beautiful than Lucretia, so that I might serve you with all the faculties I have or can ever have; but you can believe that if we arrive in Alcalá, I’ll serve you there, as you’ll see, a couple of tarts [truchas, lit. ”fish“] not over fourteen, marvelous good and not very costly. Don Quixote, who did not understand Barbara’s tune, replied: My dear lady, I am not a man given overmuch to eating and drinking; I leave that to my squire Sancho Panza; still, if those tarts are hardy [si esas truchas fueren empanadas] I’ll pay for them and we’ll take them for the road in our saddlebags; although in truth my squire Sancho, in grinding his mill, will leave hardly a crumb behind” (Cap. XXIII). Thus, Barbara’s offer is intended to put the knight’s virtue in a comical light, as in several other instances is Sancho’s harmlessness. How much more ingenious is the satirical treatment of the same motif in Cervantes! Don Quixote, who, following the example of his role model Amadis, always boasts of his virtuous constancy,1 imagines himself nocturnally sought out by lovelorn princesses.

Sancho is also responsible for most of the stylistic comedy. Here we find the same methods of comic representation as in Cervantes: rustic idiom, the quotation of proverbs, malapropisms (see the previous page’s example), etc. Added to this is Sancho’s friendly relationship with Rocinante and the donkey and the way he invests the animals with human traits. Here too Cervantes was the model.2

Occasionally Avellaneda attempts a grotesque style, e.g.: “I swear by the order of my knighthood that, only because of what you have said, and so that you will understand that there can be no fear whatsoever in my heart, I’m ready to return to the village and challenge to single combat not only that priest, but also all the priests, vicars, sextons, canons, archdeacons, deans, preceptors, prebendaries, and curates in all the Roman, Greek, and Latin churches, and all the barbers, doctors, surgeons, and veterinarians who fight under the flags of Aesculapius, Galen, Hippocrates, and Avicenna” (Cap. IV). The descriptions of Sancho’s p38 tremendous appetite are also reminiscent of similar ones in Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel and Luigi Pulci’s Morgante maggiore.1

Avellaneda’s comical locutions arise not infrequently from the associating of things that do not belong together [that is, syllepsis]; for example, “Here there is no castle nor fortification [fortaleza]; or if there is, it is that of wine” (Cap. IV). Again: “With those [eighty ducats] and notable pleasure we left together one afternoon for Alcalá” (Cap. XXIII). Such things we also find in other comic poets, in Heinrich Heine, and often in French.

In a discussion of the literary influences (aside from Cervantes’ Part I) that contributed to the false Quijote I should hardly be able to come anywhere close to completeness, since most of the books of chivalry have become bibliographical rarities and have been therefore inaccessible to me. But this is not so important, since from the little available to us we can see how little knowledge of chivalric romances the author himself possessed.

Almost everything from Amadis de Gaula2 which we find in the false Quijote has been already introduced by Part I. The novel (Cap. XXXII) cites an episode in which the hero is said to have been almost killed by a sorcerer using a concoction of sand and cold water; but there is nothing corresponding to this in Amadis de Gaula. Perhaps we are dealing with a parodistic imitation of a similar enchantment in Amadis (I.19). Urganda’s imprisonment by the sorcerer Fristón (Cap. XXII) has no direct model either: although in Esplandián (Ch. 121) we do find Urganda in the power of the Infanta Melia. In Feliciano de Silva’s Amadis de Grecia there appears an unknown knight who turns out [II.18] to be the Infanta Gradafilea: this could have served as a model for the Burlerina episode. When at the end of the false Quijote it is reported that the hidalgo p39 continued his adventures in the company of a woman disguised as a man, we find something similar in Silva’s Florisel de Niquea (III.78), where Finistea attends Amadis de Grecia dressed in men’s clothing. The Belianis de Grecia is quoted at length: the adventure of the hero and another knight (Av. Cap. XII) with some savages, and the rage of Roland (Cap. VI) modeled on the Espejo de Caballerías. The adventure of a Greek prince in an enchanted castle reported in Cap. XXVI1 is reminiscent of an adventure experienced by Cirongilio de Thracia (cf. D. Q. I.32). Otherwise Avellaneda mentions only names, but even then he is imprecise, e.g. “Amadis de Gaula,” “don Belianis de Grecia y su hijo (!) Esplandián,” etc. (Cap. II). (Esplandián is in fact the son of Amadis). The giants who, with iron maces, block the castle entrance (Cap. IX) are known to me only from the Huon de Bordeaux2 — which, to my knowledge, has never been translated into Spanish.

To compensate for his limited knowledge of the chivalric tales [der Ritterbücher], Avellaneda made even greater use of the romances [die Romanzen]. My opinion is that these poems of patriotic spirit are ill fitted for a satire that aims primarily at chivalric romance’s ideals of courtly love and courtly life. However, courtly elements also find their way into later Spanish romance poetry.

Personal names from the Cid cycle appear frequently in the false Quijote (Cap. II, III, VI, etc.); specifically mentioned are the conquest of Zamora (Cap. VI) and the insult to the dead Cid by a Jew, and the latter’s punishment (Cap. VI). Also cited are the romances which deal with the conquest of Spain by the Moors (Count Julian, Don Rodrigo, Florinda, Pelayo, Sandoval, etc.) and the Calaínos stories which belong to the Carolingian cycle (Ya cabalga Calaínos,3 etc., Cap. VII; cf. D. Q. I.9). From the poems Marqués de Mantua and Baldovinos comes the marquis’ oath4 (Av. Cap. IV and XII) also quoted in D. Q. I.10. The secretary (Cap. XII) parodies it thus: “I swear, by the order of secretaryhood that I have received, that I shall not eat bread from the floor, nor trifle with the queen of spades, hearts, p40 clubs, or diamonds, nor sleep on the point of my sword, until I take such bloody vengeance on Prince Don Quijote de La Mancha that his arms will remain hanging from his shoulders and his legs and thighs stay attached to his hips, his head will wander, and his mouth, despite all those now born or yet to be born, remain fixed under his nose.” Finally, the romance of the Fall of Troy is mentioned: “Fuego suena, fuego suena, que se nos alza Troya con Elena” (Cap. VIII).

A whole host of names and allusions have been provided by the lives of the saints and Biblical stories, and in such abundance that one might call Avellaneda’s Don Quijote more orthodox than the genuine one. Almost exclusively it is antiquity that is represented. From contemporary literature, Avellaneda mentions Lope de Vega (Testimonio vengado, Filis, Celia, Lucinda) and Cervantes (Escarramán, Cap. XXXI, from Cervantes’ entremés titled El rufián viudo); from the older literature, the Celestina, Ariosto, and Petrarch. —

Just as Cervantes in his Part I included the novella of El curioso impertinente, Avellaneda does not fail to embellish his Don Quijote with novellas. The first bears the title of El rico desesperado.

If we ignore the brutality expressed in this story, it is the best that Avellaneda has written. The style is more meticulous than usual. Namely, the tragic effect is heightened by the succinct depiction of the catastrophe. The manner in which the somewhat offensive material is handled is genuinely Spanish. Even the fatalistic conceit that this unfortunate outcome is a punishment for leaving the monastic life corresponds perfectly to the religious worldview that then prevailed in Spain. Self-revenge also seems here to be completely justified. Every Spaniard who has offended a member of his family is himself the “physician of his own honor” [alluding to Pedro Calderón’s El médico de su honra, 1637]. So must this material, with its deeply tragic content — an unconscious adultery that obliges the husband to revenge and the wife to atone — have appealed peculiarly to the Spanish mind.

The same motif is widespread in other world literature. The most famous version is Boccaccio’s story1 of Agilulf and the Stablehand, which treats the material in a humorous way: A horse-groom lies with the wife of King Agilulf, who learns the fact, keeps his own counsel, finds out the groom and shears him. The shorn shears all his fellows, and so comes safe out of the scrape (Decameron, tale III.2). Of all the adaptations of the same material recorded by Landau2 the closest to our novella are the Old English ballad Glasgerion and the Scottish Glenkindie, in which the deceived woman kills herself and her husband kills both the villainous servant and p42 himself.1 Even more similarities are contained in the twenty-third story of Marguerite de Navarre’s Heptaméron (not mentioned by Landau): Three murders in one house: to wit, the husband, his wife, and their child, by the wickedness of a Cordelier [= a Franciscan friar]. Either this novella served as a source for Avellaneda, or both authors made use of a shared source. Not mentioned in Landau are a number of Spanish comedies in which the motif of involuntary adultery recurs. It is the starting point for the plot of Juan Grajales’ El bastardo de Ceuta: Elvira, the wife of Captain Melendez, when in the darkness she thinks she is receiving her husband, is visited by the ensign Gomez de Melo. A son is the fruit of this adultery. The husband takes revenge only many years later. The same nocturnal deception plays a role in Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla’s El médico de su amor; in Lope de Vega’s La prudencia en el castigo; and in the Audiencias del rey don Pedro, which Schack attributes to Lope de Vega. In this last comedy, the insulted woman takes revenge upon herself. The motif appears, to comic effect, in Ricardo de Turia’s La burladora burlada.

The most well known is the nightly deception perpetrated twice by Don Juan Tenorio in Gabriel Téllez’s El burlador de Sevilla: once upon Isabella, the fiancée of Duke Octavio, and the second time on Doña Ana, Don Gonzalo’s daughter and the bride of the Marqués de la Mota. Since this play is sufficiently well known, a detailed discussion may be omitted.

Also born of a Catholic-religious spirit is the other tale, that of Los felices amantes (Cap. XVII–XX).

This story is a novelistic adaptation of the Marian miracle story known as the Legend of Beatrice.1 In the Middle Ages, ever since Caesarius of Heisterbach (1223),2 this legend was often treated in Latin3 and in the common tongues;4 and in modern times by Charles Nodier,5 Gottfried Keller (Sieben Legenden, 1872), and Maurice Maeterlinck (in drama).6 It is one of the Marian miracles that support the view that the Mother of God, to even the greatest sinner, for even the smallest service, grants her help and grace. Watenphul (op. cit.) has studied the relationships among the medieval framings. He tries to trace them all back to the form provided by Caesarius of Heisterbach and distinguishes, in the further development of the legend, two groups:

The identification of the source for Avellaneda’s novella is not immediately resolved by the reference to the Discipulus.2 This is because his tale contains much more than the Discipulus,3 which itself only copies Caesarius. The content of that version is as follows:

The sexton Beatrice, an ardent admirer of the Virgin Mary, leaves the convent to follow her lover, entrusting the keys to Mary. Abandoned by her seducer, she lives fifteen years as a prostitute. Finally she returns; no one has noticed her absence, because Mary has taken her place.

The motif of the theft of the money by the lovers and its miraculous reinstatement by the Virgin is borrowed from the legend of the Knight’s Wife and the Cleric.4 The returning nun’s question at the monastery door resp. in the neighboring house — characteristic of all descendants of Caesarius von Heisterbach — is missing; in its place is Gregorio’s inquiry. The legend does not tell of the further fate of the seducer. Avellaneda’s whole section dealing with Gregorio’s return was significantly influenced by the Vie de saint Alexis. In common with some later versions (Old Icelandic,1 Middle Dutch,2 and Nodier), but in any case independently introduced by Avellaneda, is the assumption of a childhood acquaintance between the prioress and the young man. From his mind also come the names of the characters and the geographical setting of the narrative. Details, the conversations of the lovers, the stay in Lisbon, in Badajoz, etc., are presented novelistically, so that the old legendary aspect is almost completely overshadowed. After subtracting the legendary elements, our novella has a certain likeness to François Prévost’s Manon Lescaut (1728). The hero of this novel, after having gambled away the dregs of his fortune, remains with his lover, who by her shame supports both him and herself.

I complete the list of versions given by Watenphul by citing two Spanish adaptations:

A final judgment on Avellaneda’s Don Quijote can be p47 given in a few words. That it is far inferior to Cervantes’ work, after the foregoing considerations, cannot be in any doubt. But anyone must admit that it is, in the reading, wholly entertaining. The comedy is crude but plentiful. Tubino1 sums up his opinion in the following words, with which we happily agree: ”The Quijote of Avellaneda is an entertaining novel; the Quijote of Cervantes, an eternal imitation of humanity in all parts of the world, at all times and in all gradations and walks of life. It amuses firstly by making us laugh, secondly by bringing melancholy to the soul and putting tears in our eyes.”

Fitzmaurice-Kelly’s verdict2 is more favorable: “It is, in fact, a work of considerable interest and entertainment and, were Cervantes not in possession of the field, it would still find readers.” Yet if Cervantes’ Quijote had never been written, we can surely say that Avellaneda would never have authored his.

After Lesage had broached the dramatic arena with translations from the Spanish (Théâtre espagnol, 1700), he established himself as a novelist with another translation from the Spanish. Or so he describes his adaptation of Avellaneda’s Don Quijote, although the first volume is a very free translation, and the second is almost entirely original.

The book did not meet with particular success, although the Journal des Sçavans (1704, page 207) described it favorably: “The French reader will not notice Avellaneda’s crudity in the translation that is today given to the public; its style is easy and without blunder. We are obliged to the author for the care he took to give his translation so French a turn and mannerism that we no longer recognize the faults that Cervantes found in the original. But one fears it will be said that he has fallen into another fault; that is, to repeat too often certain popular mannerisms, such as Par la gerny, Mardy, Oh dame, and p48 many others. True, it is in Sancho’s mouth that he puts them; but can one not say that they are too frequent and that one tires of them?”

I.  Avellaneda’s thirty-six chapters correspond to Lesage’s seventy. As the story progresses, the editor ranges further from his model.

Avellaneda’s Capítulo I — corresponds to Lesage’s Chapitres 1 and 2, and part of 3.  On the Sunday after his first visit, Sancho brings the chivalric novel Florisbran de Candarie [thus in Lesage; Av. has Florisbián, and meant Philesbián], the reading of which awakens the knight’s old madness. He resolves upon a fourth sally, promising Sancho a new donkey and sending him to Dulcinea with a letter. Only some insignificant things are omitted.

Av. Capítulo II — the rest of Chap. 3 and 4 (in part).  Dulcinea’s answer is expanded to include a threat from her brothers. Quite literal.

Av. Capítulo III — Chap. 4–5.  Adds a quotation from the Belianis de Grecia: “It was in this way and through the ministry of the Infanta Impéria that the sage Belonie had weapons given to his favorite Don Belianis,” etc. Sancho buys the donkey of Tomé Cecial (D. Q. II). They find Quixote’s old lance being used as a broomstick. A copper washbasin is the “shield of Bandenazar.” Mention of Sanson Carrasco (D. Q. II).

Av. Capítulo IV and V — Lesage’s Chap. 6.

Av. Capítulo VI — Chap. 7–8. — ”The magnificent palace which before presented itself to my view has disappeared ... One should not be surprised if you, who are only a peasant, see things only as a peasant. But I — who am dubbed knight, and who in consequence see things as they really are — I have reason to be surprised at seeing here nothing more than a simple inn.” (Cf. Lesage’s Chap. 32, below.)

Av. Capítulo VII — Chap. 9–11. — At dinner (Chap. 10) they discuss Part I of Don Quijote, by Cid Hamet Benengely. Don Quixote leafs through it and erupts in anger at the image the author paints of him (cf. D. Q. II.59). Then he speaks on poetry and recites a sonnet addressed to Dulcinea.

Av. Capítulo VIII — Livre Second. Chap. 12.

”Unfortunate Knight of La Mancha, cries the sage Alisolán at the beginning of this chapter, may fortune ill-assist your great enterprises!” etc. (Imitating similar chapter openings; cf. D. Q. I.15, I.22, II.8, II.10, II.24, II.27, etc.)

Av. Capítulos IX and X — Lesage’s Chap. 13–14. p49

Av. Capítulo XI — Chap. 15.  Tournament in Zaragoza greatly shortened. The knights’ mottos are omitted.

Av. Capítulos XII and XIII — Chap. 16–18.

Av. Capítulo XIV — Livre Troisième. Chap. 19.

Av. Capítulos XV and XVI comprise the novella of El rico desesperado, which Lesage omits.

— Chap. 20.  Of the death of Frère Jacques, and what happened at his funeral. A deceased hermit, Brother Jacques, is recognized as a woman in disguise. At the sight of her, Brother Stephanus (Avellaneda’s hermit) faints. In the rectory of the next village, to explain his reaction, he tells the novella of Los felices amantes (Chap. 21–22). He is Don Gregorio; the deceased hermit is Luisa. The legendary element is omitted.

In this way the novella is connected with the main narrative.

Av. Capítulos XXI and XXII — Chap. 23–25 (in part).

Av. Capítulo XXIII — Chap. 25 (continued) is purged of its obscenities by Lesage.

— Chap. 26.  They encounter a carriage. Its occupants are the brother of Antonio de Bracamonte (Av. Cap. XIV), who is returning from Peru; his wife; and his mother-in-law. Cf. the reunion of the judge and the captain in D. Q. I.42.

— Chap. 27.  The story of Don Raphaël de Bracamonte. Don Raphael comes to Peru at the same time that Pizarro seizes power there. He does not join Pizarro, but rather the royalist officer and governor of the island of Caxamalca, Melchior Verdugo, whose friend he becomes. As the fight against Pizarro is going poorly, there arrives from Spain, as president of an audiencia real, the licenciate Pierre de la Gasca. Some of Pizarro’s officers submit to him. Pizarro himself is defeated at Xaguixaguana. As a reward for his services, Don Raphael receives some Indians and founds a silver mine, which earns him 100,000 écus in eight years. With this money he sets sail for Lima. Near Panama he is shipwrecked, narrowly escapes with his life, and is taken in by Don Michael. He wins the love of a wealthy lady: Doña Theodora, Doña María’s daughter. Before Doña María gives him her daughter, she tells him her story.

She, to save her brother, who had killed the governor’s nephew, gave herself to the governor. From this union sprang p50 Theodora. Her brother was killed anyway; the governor punished her; she and her daughter were shamed; and so she wishes to go to Spain, where nobody knows her. Raphael marries Theodora, despite the stain attached to her birth, and returns with her to Spain.

— Chap. 28.  How Don Quixote prevented the enchanter Panphus (Don Raphael’s coachman) from kidnapping Queen Zenobia.

Av. Capítulo XXV — Chap. 29.  With one of the students he meets, who is a playwright, Don Quixote converses about comedy (cf. D. Q. I.48).

Av. Capítulo XXVI — Chap. 30.  The theater director enchants Don Quixote for three hundred years and takes away his power of speech, so that he dares not speak; but he is soon freed from the spell.

Av. Capítulo XXVII — Chap. 31.

— Chap. 32.  Of the deep pain that Sancho felt, not to see things as a knight-errant does. See Lesage Chapitre 8 and D. Q. I.25.

— Kap. 33.  For the beginning (“Comment se porte ... la fleur & la perle de La Manche, la marguerite des Chevaliers”), cf. Avellaneda page 86b (“muy buenos días tenga la flor de los Cavalleros”). Sancho is to be disenchanted, i.e. he is to learn to see things as his master does. The ceremony, a parallel to the resurrection of Altisidora (II.69), fails because Sancho breaks the rule of silence imposed on him.

Av. Capítulo XXVII (continued) and XXVIII — Lesage’s Chap. 34.

Av. Capítulo XXVIII — Livre Quatrième. Chap. 35–36.

— Chap. 37.  (beginning — Av. Cap. XXIX–XL.)

The noblest and most useful deed of Don Quixote. The freeing of a girl from the clutches of some robbers. A young nobleman is supported by Don Quixote in this.

One of the robbers, mortally wounded, tells how years ago he murdered a rich farmer and a nurse, whose infant he gave to a widow to raise. Then the beautiful Engracia — that being the girl’s name — tells her story. She is the daughter of Don Fernando de Peralta, who fell commanding a ship in the Armada. Shortly after his death a son was born, who, going out one day with his nurse, disappeared without a trace. Engracia grows up in the care of her uncle Don Diego. She makes the acquaintance of Don Cristobal de Luna, grows to love him, and lets him visit her secretly at night. One day, when she goes to admit him, she finds him murdered. Because she believes her life also to be in danger, she flees to one Mrs. Paule. This woman betrays her to the very robber band from whose clutches Don Cesar p51 and Don Quixote have just freed her. Don Cesar, who knows Don Cristobal, tells her that Don Cristobal was not dead, but only wounded; but that because of his unfaithfulness he does not deserve her love.

Next appears Engracia’s uncle Don Diego. It transpires that Don Cesar is the long-lost son of Fernando Peralta.

Av. p. 92a — Lesage’s Chap. 41.  Don Quixote’s arrival in Madrid.

Av. p. 93b and 96a are elaborated upon by Lesage’s Chap. 42.

— Chap. 43–44.  As the gentlemen (Don Alvaro, Don Cesar, etc.) remark that there is no knight without a lady — which is wrong, by the way, since the Knight of the Sun deserted Claridiana — Don Quixote decides to make Zenobia his lady love. As the Chevalier des Amours, he has a new device painted for himself.

— Chap. 45.  A literary conversation. Critique of Cervantes’ Don Quijote.

Av. Capítulos XXIX–XXXII are omitted by Lesage.

Av. Capítulo XXXIII — Chap. 47.  Some things omitted. Sancho’s fight with the Black Squire is modeled on Av. Cap. XXXII.

— Chap. 48.  Adventure with a gentleman who offers a serenade. Barbara is given ten ducats and sent home, rather than to the Casa de Arrepentidas.

— Chap. 49.  Departure of Queen Zenobia and arrival of Don Fernando de Peralta (that is, Don Cesar).

— Chap. 50.  Fernando de Peralta’s story. At the age of fourteen he ran away from his foster-mother to become a soldier. Don Pedro de Luna let him be raised alongside his own son. After three years he goes to Flanders, where alongside Don Pedro and under the Cardinal-Infante Archduke Albert he takes part in the battle. He distinguishes himself, receives the title of Don, and is promoted to Lieutenant-Colonel. On the way home he has an adventure in a castle, where he surprises an unknown lady in the bath. Shortly afterward he frees her from the clutches of a kidnapper. He falls in love with her without learning her name. In Madrid he has a rendezvous with Anna de Montoya, the beautiful unknown woman; but soon thereafter he must return to Flanders.

— Chap. 51.  Sancho discovers Zenobia’s departure. Don Quixote proposes to send him after her, and in the process displays an astonishing knowledge of geography.

— Chap. 52.  Fernando continues his story. After having distinguished himself once again in Flanders, he returns. By a mistake he wounds Don Cristobal, his foster brother (see Lesage’s Chap. 39). After Engracia’s disappearance (Chap. 39), p52 Don Cristobal becomes engaged to Anna de Montoya — Fernando’s love — and refuses to give her up. But when Don Cristobal learns that Engracia has been located, his old love reawakens. He again pairs off with her, and Fernando with Anna de Montoya.

— Chap. 53 (in part) = Av. Cap. XXXIII.

— Chap. 54.  The Archipampano explains the reason for his visit, referring to an episode from the Belianis de Grecia [I.42]. Enchanted tent with the Caliph and his daughter Cerizette.1 Contest of beauty. Abduction of the Archipampano’s daughter Burlerina.

Av. Capítulo XXIV — Lesage’s Chap. 55.

— Chap. 56–57.  Burlerina’s story in Lesage parallels the Countess Trifaldi’s story (D. Q. II.36 ff.).

Burlerina is kidnapped by a magician and taken to Australia. Fristón, whom she spurns, throws her into the water; but she saves herself by swimming. Pastoral episode; see pages 63–64 of the present essay. Her stepbrother is killed by five giants. The black magician, whose love she spurns, transforms her into a giantess. Don Quixote has lifted this spell (Chap. 55); but she remains black (cf. Trifaldi remains bearded).

— Chap. 58 and 59.  In order to make her white again, Sancho must fast for twenty-four hours. He cannot sustain it. The disenchantment is nevertheless successful.

— Chap. 60.  Critique of the Curioso impertinente.

— Chap. 61–63.  The love of Don Quixote and Burlerina.

— Chap. 64.  While hunting, adventures with a tenant farmer’s child whom Don Quixote calls Belfloran, the son of Belianis.

— Chap. 65.  An evening ball (cf. D. Q. II.62).

— Chap. 66.  While hunting, Don Quixote meets a duenna, who asks him in Dulcinea’s name to take revenge on her unfaithful knight. He resolves to return to his former beloved.

— Chap. 68.  He says goodbye to Sancho and Rocinante (cf. I.25), planning in solitude to do penance for his infidelity and to await his death.

— Chap. 69.  The barber brings him a letter from Dulcinea, who calls Don Quixote to her because she is being laid siege by the Emperor of Trebizond. Don Quixote resolves, after the example of Belianis, not to speak for four days.

— Chap. 70.  p53 On the way home, Don Quixote has an argument with some troopers of the Santa Hermandad, kills an officer, and is himself shot.

These chapters represent the ending indicated in Avellaneda’s Cap. XXXV and XXXVI. This fulfills the second possible outcome of Don Quixote’s madness. If he failed to end up in a madhouse, he would necessarily eventually come into conflict with the order of the world. This conclusion, which is related to the outcome of Part I, is definitely an improvement; although it is, in aesthetic terms, far inferior to the conclusion of the real Part II.

Comparison of the two works — the original and the adaptation — shows how freely Lesage treated the material of his source. Here and there I have pointed out how his deviations were influenced by the real Don Quijote. In revising the book he also benefited from a good knowledge of the novels of chivalry. He not only refrained from excessive citations of romances and the lives of the saints, but also inserted from his own hoard allusions to the chivalric romances. He particularly favored the Belianis de Grecia. He also used the Orlando Innamorato, which he translated in 1721,1 and the Orlando Furioso.

II.  As to Lesage’s translation technique, if one takes into account his other translations,2 beyond his great liberties with the original no general principles can be established. In each case his task was different. He had in the case of the Diable Boiteux (for example) to replace Guevara’s cultish and overladen style with a lighter language free of allegorical elements; in the case of Avellaneda, to liven up its somewhat cumbersome and often overly matter-of-fact language. His methods, in each case, are of different natures.

He breaks up long constructions. This already shows a hallmark of his later style: his love of short clear sentences.

The following passage, otherwise reproduced quite literally, is an example: p54

Av. Cap. I: “They addressed him no longer as Don Quixote, but as Señor Martín Quijada, which was his right name; but when he wasn’t in earshot they had some amusing moments with what they’d say about him, and what they all remembered, such as the affair of the rescuing or freeing of the galley-slaves ... So it happened that there came over his niece, in the month of August, one of those fevers that physicians call ephemeral, which last twenty-four hours, whose effect was such that within that period of time his niece Madalena died, leaving the good hidalgo alone and disconsolate ...”

Lesage Chap. 1: “ Finally, Señor Martín Quexada, since he was no longer called Don Quichotte, was considered a man entirely returned to his good senses, for which everyone gave thanks to Heaven. Nobody, however, yet dared to say to him anything that might have any relation to his past madness; in which, certainly, they displayed much prudence. It is true that the jokesters of the village compensated one another for this discretion by recounting his adventures. It happened at that time that the heat of the season caused in his niece one of those fevers that the physicians call ephemeral, and which though ordinarily lasting for only one day, do not fail to be sometimes very dangerous. In fact, the effect was such that poor Madelaine died. The eight hundred ducats that fell to Don Quichotte from her estate did not prevent him from keenly feeling her death.”

Lesage is more sprawling in his expression, but also more humorous, more concrete, more personal than Avellaneda.

How the translator succeeds, by specializing a generic way of speaking, in giving a personal character to his language, is seen in the following examples:

Cap. II: “las (barbas) tengo más espesas que escobilla de barbero” [“my beard is thicker than a barber’s brush”]	Chap. 3: “j’avais ce jour-là par malheur la barbe plus épaisse que les vergettes de Maître Nicolas le Barbier” [“I had that day, unfortunately, a beard thicker than the brush of master Nicolas the barber”]
p55 Cap. III: “Una hora antes que amaneciese llegaron á la puerta de Don Quijote el cura y los alcaldes á llamar, que venían á despertar al señor don Alvaro” [“An hour before dawn came calling at Don Quixote’s door the priest and the councilmen, who had come to rouse Don Alvaro.”]	Chap. 4: “Une heure avant le jour, on frappa cinq ou six coups de suite à la porte du logis. Nostre chevalier se réveilla ...” [“An hour before dawn were heard five or six quick knocks at the door of the house. Our knight roused himself ...”]
Cap. VI: “mal año para la guitarra del barbero de mi lugar, que mejor música haga, cuando canta el pasacalles de noche” [“you put to shame the guitar of my town’s barber, who makes better music when he sings marches at night”]	Chap. 9: “tu faisais une musique aussi agréable que celle du Barbier, quand il va la nuit jouer la guitarre et chanter sous les fenestres de la grosse Jeanne” [“you made music as agreeable as that of the barber, when he goes at night to play the guitar and sing under fat Joan’s window”]

Following the example of Cid Hamete Benengeli in Cervantes, Lesage often mentions the fictitious chronicler Alisolan, of whom Avellaneda after his first chapter completely loses sight; e.g. Chap. 8, 12, 15, 17, 34, etc.

Don Alvaro speaks of his beloved in the bombastic language of erotic novels. Lesage simplifies this passage as follows:

Cap. I: “... por mandado de un serafín en hábito de mujer, el cual es reina de mi voluntad, objeto de mis deseos, centro de mis suspiros, archivo de mis pensamientos, paraíso de mis memorias, y finalmente, consumada gloria de la vida que poseo. Esta, como digo, me mandó que partiese para estas justas y entrase en ellas en su nombre, y le trujese alguna de las ricas joyas y preseas que en premio se les ha de dar á los venturosos aventureros vencedores ...” [“... at the command of an angel in woman’s clothes, who is queen of my will, object of my desires, origin of my sighs, archive of my thoughts, paradise of my memories, and finally, consummate glory of the life that I possess. This one, I say, commanded that I leave for these jousts and that I enter into them in her name, and that I bring her some of the rich gems and jewels that must be awarded to those fortunate victorious adventurers ...”]

Chap. 1: “Une Dame, que j’aime, veut que je paroisse aux joûtes de Saragosse comme son Chevalier; et j’y vais, pour lui plaire, disputer le prix, qui doit être la récompense du Vainqueur.” [“A lady whom I love wills that I should appear at the jousts in Zaragoza as her champion; and I go, at her pleasure, to contest the prize which must be the reward of the victor.”]

Don Alvaro is a sensible man, and therefore must speak like a sensible man. Otherwise, Don Quixote’s pompous mode of speech loses its effect.

The description that Don Alvaro gives of his lady-love Lesage has placed into Don Quixote’s mouth, as praise of Dulcinea. It is really better suited for that purpose.

p56 “Fuera de la virtud del ánimo, es sin duda blanca como el sol, las mejillas de rosa, los dientes de marfil, los labios de coral, el cuello de alabastro ...” [“Aside from the virtue of her soul, she is beyond all doubt fair as the sun, her cheeks rosy, her teeth of ivory, her lips of coral, her neck of alabaster...”]

“Ses yeux et son teint ont l’éclat du soleil et l’incarnat naturel de ses joues ressemble à la rose qui s’épanouit: ses dents sont d’yvoire, les livres de corail et son col efface la blancheur de l’albâtre.” [“Her eyes and her complexion have the radiance of the sun and the natural color of her cheeks resembles the blossoming rose: her teeth are of ivory, her lips of coral and her neck outstrips the whiteness of alabaster.”]

This is the conventional description of beauty.1

The obscene passages Lesage has either omitted or softened; e.g.,

Cap. IV: “La disoluta mozuela ... contra la esperanza que ella tenía de dormir con don Quijote.” [“The dissolute girl ... against the hope she had of sleeping with Don Quixote”]

Chap. 6: “La Galicienne ... jugea bien que Don Quichotte n’était pas homme à imiter tous les muletiers qui passoient par cette hostellerie.” [“The Galician ... well judged that Don Quixote was not a man given to imitate all the muleteers who passed through that hostel”]

But largely Lesage translates so freely that one cannot recognize the original. Neither does he always leave the order of the material as he found it. From this one may draw conclusions about his working method. It seems as if he always first read a chapter and then wrote it down from memory. This may explain the seamless interweaving of the original passages and the insertions, and the thoroughly French diction. In his clear, pure language we see a good example of the classical school of the 17th century.

III.  Besides the novella of the Felices Amantes, Lesage has inserted two other stories. All three are connected into the main narrative. Raphael de Bracamonte’s story is grounded on events recorded in Inca Garcilaso de la Vega’s Historia de las guerras civiles de los españoles en las Indias,2 except that the role of Melchior Verdugo there is not so honorable as Lesage makes it appear.

Further, the Viceroy Blasco Núñez himself bears considerable p57 blame for the uprising of Gonzalo Pizarro and his officers, who believed they had older rights in the province and did not approve of the Viceroy’s harsh approach.

The second novella (the story of Engracia and Fernando; see pages 50–52 of the present essay) has as its historical basis events from the Dutch Revolt (from the siege of Hulst, 1596, to the capture of Ostend, 1604), which are reported most extensively by Bentivoglio.1

This is not to say that the plot of the novella was invented by Lesage. Rather, its entire structure suggests that it is a retelling of a Spanish comedy. The historical events have so little connection with the core of the story that they may well have been added by Lesage on the basis of his historical studies. Otherwise, we find the whole apparatus of a “comedia di capa y espada” in Calderon’s style: the theft of a child, kidnapping, rendezvous, nocturnal error, disguise, and finally the happy resolution of the whole mishmash in a double wedding. I have not been able to find the original of the novella among the materials available to me. I am nonetheless convinced that Lesage did not invent it.

The fragmenting of the story into the individual reports of the persons involved is a cheap means of creating tension, and was used again by Lesage in Gil Blas.2

IV.  “Verisimilitude, though not always found in history, is essential to the novel.” This law, expressed by Huet,3 is not derived from the ideal novel [Idealroman] of the 17th century, but rather was, from its origin in the dramatic sphere, transferred to novelistic sphere. Thus its application in novels becomes a generally accepted requirement only at the end of the 17th or the beginning of the 18th century. Lesage proceeds, therefore, entirely in the spirit of this new movement when in his Critique of Don Quijote he applies jargon such as bon sens, raison, vraisemblance — which French p58 classicism used mostly in relation to other genres of fiction — to the novelistic genre.

The first traces of the requirement of probability, however, one finds in the early days of the reaction against the ideal novel. As early as 1628, Charles Sorel, in his Remarques sur les XIV livres du Berger extravagant, applies this rule as a yardstick for his criticism of Cervantes’ Don Quijote.1 After defending himself against the accusation that he had copied Don Quijote, he offers a criticism of that book which, albeit unfair and partisan, is in some respects correct. This review of Cervantes’ work is important because it is the first attempt to regard the work from a definitely critical viewpoint.

If Sorel thinks that Cervantes treats the subject too extensively, boasting that he can condense all that can be said against chivalric books into four pages, yet he would hardly have had the same success with his four pages that Cervantes had with his book.

He further accuses Cervantes of vulgar language and a lack of subtle humor. He finds it improbable that the Duke would spend so much money to make Sancho a governor and yet not himself a witness to the squire’s embarrassment. Don Quixote, who takes windmills for giants and sheep for armies, otherwise seems to him too rational, his recovery both unmotivated and abrupt. “But finally,” he concludes, “to say in brief what I think of the story of Don Quixote: it does not care to go much against the romances, seeing that it itself is intermixed with an infinity of stories so very romantic and which have so little appearance of truth that, as such, one might place it in the ranks of so many others who have here encountered criticism.”2

Sorel, with his one-dimensional principle of realism, fails to measure up to the task of assessing Cervantes’ ingenious offspring. The strength of the Don Quijote lies precisely in that it combats the voluptuous decadence of fantasy by equally fantastical methods. How little can be achieved in this combat by rational argument is shown by Sorel’s Berger extravagant itself.

Otherwise, the 17th century (Clerville,1 Scarron, Huet,2 etc.) p59 did more justice to the Spaniard. Only Chapelain3 lifts his voice in favor of the romances: “If I were absolutely to condemn the gallantry of Lancelot, I would fear to fall into the error into which fell the author of the Don Quijote when he laughed at the expense of the knights-errant, failing to consider as we do the era in which they acted, and the mores that were practiced then.”

It was Lesage, in Chap. 45 of his Don Quichotte, who next attempted to criticize the Spanish Don Quijote in detail. It is a chapter “qu’il faut lire sans prévention” [“which one should read without prejudice”]; but it was not written without prejudice. The Count, in whose house the knight is staying, and Don Pedro de Luna undertake in Don Quixote’s presence to discuss Cid Hamete Benengeli’s book. Don Pedro attacks it; the Count defends it. Firstly, he criticizes digressions (Don Quixote’s speech about the military arts) and moralizing: “I would not have a comic novel stuffed full of frigid dissertations and sober moral treatises.” Then Lesage brings into play the rule of plausibility. Whether Lesage was aware of Sorel’s critique it is impossible to say with certainty. Nonetheless he agrees with him on many points: “He so little respects verisimilitude and rationality that there is hardly an adventure in the work that is not told along with some circumstance that eliminates its own possibility.” He reinforces this with the example of the farmer (I.5) who could not have remembered all the names given by the hidalgo; and with that of Sancho, who the morning after the adventure of the fulling mills repeats everything his master said during the night, though another time (I.26) he hardly remembers a word of the letter to Dulcinea. In the chapter (I.3) in which Don Quixote was knighted, too, Don Pedro finds various improbabilities. The Biscayan (I.8) cannot, in his opinion, use as a shield the cushion on which the ladies are sitting; and the galley-slaves (I.22) cannot be freed from their chains as quickly p60 as Cervantes makes out. But Don Pedro errs in seeing a mistake when Don Quixote orders Sancho, who never carries a sword, not to take up his sword in his (Don Quixote’s) defense. He observes that in the escrutinio the priest first praises the Orlando Furioso, but then congratulates the barber on owning it only in Italian, which he does not understand. That Cervantes’ book is full of factual errors and contradictions is well known. But no one would think of letting these little things determine their verdict as to its literary value.

Cervantes is concerned only with the immediate effect. He cares little if a scene which in its own place produces a good comic effect stands in contradiction with some other part of his work.1 When he fails to give the galley-slaves the necessary time to be freed from their chains,2 there we are dealing with a technique known in Shakespearean drama as “dual time.”3 The author knows how to concentrate our attention so much on the hero or on a new development that we utterly forget to consider carefully the just-interrupted action.

The episodes and novellas fare no better than the narrative itself. The story of the shepherdess Marcela is of “une longueur fatiguante” [“tiring length”], the inserted verses are bad, the novella of El curioso impertinente out of place; but “in books there are sometimes digressions that are more pleasant than the books themselves.” The story of Zoraida and the captain is “diffuse.” And how can Dorothea, who is preoccupied with her misfortunes, play a comedy role? “I’ll tell you what I think of Dorothea’s story,” says Don Alvaro: “it seems to me almost entirely beyond belief [presque toute hors du vrai-semblable]. I don’t believe that a well-bred young girl could have enough daring and resolution p61 to disguise herself as a man and go to serve a peasant in the middle of an awful forest. I also cannot believe that Dorothea could have spent three months with that peasant without anyone recognizing her for what she was. Even if her beauty didn’t betray her, she had long and abundant hair: how could she hide it under her cap? That’s not all: you never see anyone talking to themselves in a wasteland, and even less speaking loud enough to be heard clearly at thirty or forty paces.”

We see that Lesage makes significant demands in relation to outward plausibility. But hear now why he makes them: “This (such liberties as Cervantes allows himself) is good for the heroic novel, in which the miraculous is acknowledged; but not in the comic novel, where all the actions of ordinary life must be represented naturalistically.”

That last remark is important for Lesage’s view of the novel. He identifies the comic novel above all with the realistic, and he has a certain right to do so, since the whole 17th century had done so. From the outset, the comic novel had considered it its special task to depict reality. It achieves at first, however, merely a kind of realism that, through its stuffiness and exaggeration, approaches the comic anyway.

Lesage’s principal error lies in the fact that in his assessment of the Quijote he was unable to free himself from the aesthetic tastes of his era.

V.  Everything that we find in Lesage’s later books is already foreshadowed in his first endeavors. He everywhere repeats himself.1 Gil Blas is the heir of the Diable Boiteux, and whoever has read Gil Blas already knows half of the Bachelier de Salamanque. Even in Don Quichotte already occur individual elements of the satirical description of mores [satirischen Sittenschilderung] that colors Lesage’s later novels.

An opportunity for satirical remarks is provided by Sancho’s appointment as governor of the isle des andoüillettes [“Meatball Island,” Chap. 47]. Sancho learns from the secretary disguised as Maroquin l’Enfumé [“Morocco the Sooty”], squire to the giant Taille-enclume (Tajayunque), all manner of things about the conditions on his island.2

The sages there have invented methods of reducing four ounces of gold p62 to two, and of transmuting rental contracts and revenue-generating lands into coals. The poets Sancho resolves to pay well, so that they will say nothing bad of him: Lesage may well have experienced for himself that the poetic art provides her husband little nourishment. Meanwhile, the women there are so splendid that their constant good humor can irk their husbands. The judges are so clever that they can dispense justice in their sleep and ruin entire families. But they will not prevent Sancho from enriching himself, as governors are wont to do.1 And now to the doctors, a favorite theme of Lesage in his later novels. They are quite splendid on the island. For example: a president is treated for pleurisy by six doctors who take such good care of him that soon his end is near. Five doctors give up on him, saying that he will not live past Sunday; the sixth manages affairs so skillfully that he doesn’t die until Monday.

Even the literary relationships in Lesage’s Don Quichotte reappear in his later novels as if they were old acquaintances. With the two students Don Quixote discourses on Aristotle’s rules,2 the impracticability of which is demonstrated via the plot of a Spanish comedy. This speech reminds us of the dispute between the two authors in the Diable Boiteux3 and Gil Blas’ literary conversations with Fabrice.

The influence of the chivalric romances, which left its mark all over the novels of the 17th century,4 is also evident in Lesage’s novels. We have already demonstrated that he had an excellent knowledge of this literary genre. Gil Blas also finds chivalric tales in the library at Lirias: “I guiltily confess,” he says, “that I did not hate even these productions, despite all the extravagances of which they are woven, either because I was not then a reader inclined to inspect them so closely, or because the depiction of the marvelous renders the Spaniard too indulgent.”5 Perhaps it is Lesage himself who makes this confession.

Comparisons with the chivalric romances are not uncommon. Gil p63 Blas is struck by the beauty of the entering Antonia just as are the paladins at Charlemagne’s court by Angelica’s charms.1 Lesage calls some sword-fighters “Fierabrases,”2 some courtesans as dangerous for the young “as those beautiful noble ladies who arrested with their charms the knights who passed by their castles.”3

Elsewhere he pokes fun at the drawn-out style of the chivalric novels.4 He says of a printer of chivalric books that he enriches himself at the expense of good taste.5

In his adaptation of Avellaneda’s Don Quijote he parodies chivalric literature via Burlerina’s narrative. The pastoral episode contained therein interests us particularly as a satire on the pastoral novel.6

The sorcerer Fristón throws Burlerina out of the window with such force that from the neighborhood of the Black Sea she falls into the Lignon, the same river in which Céladon7 was almost drowned. Fortunately, she is fished out by the shepherd Persino. She, naturally, immediately tells him her whole story; in return he tells her his. He is a prince who, due to his unhappy love for Zenobia, has become a shepherd. He describes his idyllic life: “Sometimes I take my flute or my musette, and sometimes I compose verses on the marvels of nature. I depict the beauties of the countryside. In my poems one can hear the birds singing. One can see the playful lambs leap beside the loving ewes, and the murmuring brooks carry over the verdant grass their crystalline waves.” He lacks only a shepherdess to perfectly complete his tranquil happiness. By excellent happenstance, the shepherdess’s role tremendously amuses Burlerina. She calls herself Philis and takes over half of his flock and a dog named Melampe; this is also the name of Astrée’s dog. Her loving shepherd writes for her in less than p64 a year two hundred eclogues, as many elegies, and more than a thousand rondeaux. “On one of those days, which I’ll remember all my life, he sang me a song that, I’ll tell you, transported me. I lost my breath. I thought that I might die from an excess of rapture. Here are the words:

Their happiness, however, lasts little longer. One day Burlerina’s half-brother Rosinel comes and takes her away with him. Her shepherd dies of heartbreak: “He made the strand and the wood resound with his pitiable regrets; he threw down his flute, broke his crook, tore off his eyebrows; and, to use one of Homer’s most beautiful comparisons, he rolled on the earth as one sees a sausage roll on the coals. Finally the thrice- or four times unfortunate Persino played his last card and took his own life, in our presence, out of fine madness and pure love.” As they travel, Rosinel and his sister tell each other stories of chivalric adventure. She passionately loves the chivalric books and is sure that reading them will someday make her go mad.

Throughout the rest of this history Lesage skillfully employs the burlesque style. Burlerina’s story is one of the best satirical components of his book and surpasses the original by far in the soundness and freshness of its comedy.

Besides a mention of Don Quixote in the Valise trouvée,1 the Don Quixote motif recurs twice more in Lesage’s works. In the chapter on dreams in the Diable Boiteux2 it is said of a countess: “She is a reader of novels, with a head full of the ideals of chivalry. She has a rather amusing dream. She dreams that she is the Empress of Trebisonde; that she is accused of adultery; and that the knight who presents himself to champion her innocence is vanquished by her accuser.” p65 We find the “female Don Quixote”1 given detailed treatment in the Bachelier de Salamanque.2 The bachelor is hired, as tutor for her son, by a Marquise whose passion for chivalric romances — of which she owns a whole library — goes so far that she wants to reenact chivalric adventures of love. The clever Don Chérubin de la Ronda discovers her madness and is quite amenable to it. “So Monsieur le Bachelier of Salamanca was changed into a knight-errant. We began, the Marquise and I, to speak to each other as heroes of romance. I borrowed the style of the Knight of the Sun and she borrowed that of Princess Lindabrides. We conversed every day in the highest tones; but by misfortune it sometimes happened that the heroine became a little too tender and the hero too passionate.” The return of the Marquise’s husband puts an end to this idyll.

The Don Quixote motif, in this sketchy treatment, no longer has its original polemical sharpness and wide-ranging signification. That Lesage presents a female Don Quixote is suggestive. He apparently could not imagine that a man could be subject in such a high degree to aesthetic illusion. Amarylle, in the literarily significant 13th book of the Berger extravagant,3 defends novels as being the only means of education for the female sex, who in all matters are so poorly p66 and inappropriately informed. The natural consequence of this inadequate education is the inability of the female sex to view books’ offerings critically.

The other French imitations of Don Quijote, too, limit themselves to literary polemic. In addition to the already-mentioned novels Le Berger extravagant and Le Gascon extravagant, in the 17th century there remains to mention Du Verdier’s Chevalier Hipocondriaque1 (1632), which is directed against the heroic novel.

As Lesage, so Marivaux also ventures into the realm of the novel with an imitation of Don Quijote: Un Don Quichotte moderne (1712).2 The gentleman Pharsamon, who spends his days dreaming over countless chivalric books with his aged uncle, finally so fuddles his head that he does nothing but fantasize about supernatural heroisms, torments, tortures, and other such outrages. So it happens that his heart also becomes confused; he selects Cidalise as his impossible Dulcinea, lets slip the sweet Clorine, and finally is captured by a ripe old widow.

Another imitation of Don Quijote is found within Marivaux’s story La voiture embourbée (1714), a sort of Decameron. A party of stranded travelers, among them a lady steeped in the heroic-gallant novel’s modes of thought and speech improvises to pass the time a novel: Le Roman impromptu, ou les aventures du fameux Amandor et de la belle et intrépide Ariobarzane [“The impromptu story, or, the adventures of the famous Amandor and the beautiful and intrepid Ariobarzane”]. The heroes — Amandor the male and Félicie-Ariobarzane the female Don Quixote — perform a self-denying act of love, crazed by novels such as [Scudéry’s Artamène, ou] Le grand Cyrus and [La Calprenède’s] Cléopâtre. At their side are Pierrot, the image of Sancho, and the chambermaid Perette, a female Sancho. This pairwise grouping results in parallel scenes, as can also be found in Molière’s Dépit amoureux (1654). The two Don Quixotes set off on a journey. Félicie has a dream adventure in a cave. A farcical conclusion in a farmhouse unites the lovers in earthly love.

Somewhat similar to Wieland’s Don Sylvio de Rosalva (1764) is Jacques Cazotte’s novella La belle par accident (1742): Prince Kalibad, crazed by his reading of fairy tales, wants only to marry a fairy; etc.

Thus have authors sought to mock with Don-Quixotery in turn the chivalric novel, the pastoral novel, p67 the heroic-gallant novel, and the fairy tale. The conceit of the “overexcited reader” has become the traditional vehicle for satire against the writing of fantastical stories.

VI.  After the detailed treatment that we have given to Lesage’s work, it might easily seem as if we were giving it more importance than it deserves, when in fact for Lesage’s artistic development it signified little more than a stylistic exercise — and, for the novelistic form itself, since nobody was influenced by it, it signified nothing at all. Nevertheless, the book cannot be omitted from the general context of the development of literature. For, on the one hand, we recognise in it the conventional strokes characteristic of a beginner alongside the original style of the later master of the moral novel; on the other hand, according to the law of supply and demand, which even in literature applies to a certain extent, Lesage would hardly have thrown his Don Quichotte onto the market if he had not expected to find a suitable public.

Indeed, the interest in Cervantes’ Don Quijote, which had lasted through the whole 17th century, even in Lesage’s time had barely cooled. This is demonstrated by the imitations mentioned in the preceding chapter, and by the appearance of numerous translations and new editions of earlier translations at the end of the 17th and the beginning of the 18th century. The ground in France, for the reception of a Don Quijote, was extraordinarily favorable. The tendency toward mockery so inheres in the French national character that one might almost wonder that the Gallic wit has produced nothing equal to it. Even in the Middle Ages, the chivalric epic poems were travestied in poems such as the Chanson d’Audigier.1 Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, too, is basically a parody of the chivalric romance.2

If nonetheless the Don Quijote did not have the practical effect in France that it did in Spain, the reason for this lies in another aspect of the French national character. The esprit gaulois — which longs to be free and unfettered, does not disdain the ugly, and grinds the beautiful into the dust — is joined by an enthusiasm p68 for the sublime and a sense for formal beauty. The two sides are not mutually exclusive: they coexist, conflict, and yet stand multiply interrelated. Through the whole of French literature one can see traces of this doubleness. Often it coincides with the opposition between aristocracy and democracy, as in the Middle Ages with the opposition between the courtly and the popular. But nowhere is it more evident than in the 17th-century novel. On the one hand, there are the works of the esprit précieux, the novels of Gomberville, La Calprenède, and Scudéry; and on the other hand, the bourgeois novel with satirical tendencies of Sorel, Scarron, and Furetière. This opposition in novel-writing is concerned only with the material itself, not with the structuring of the material. In both camps prevails the same freedom of composition. It is as if the poets, constrained by the three unities in drama, in the novel aimed to compensate by utter indifference to those unities. Lesage, too, remains under the spell of this novelistic technique. So it is that Lesage took Avellaneda’s Don Quijote, which was well composed in itself, and with heterogeneous insertions so tore it apart that in his adaptation it appears unfinished and disunified.

But he also demonstrates the innovations brought about by the triumph of realism. The ever-waxing historical sensibility, the desire for historical verity even in poetical depictions of events, had in the last decades of the 17th century birthed a new genre, the autobiographical novel, which, while retaining many traditional features, outwardly resembled the then so popular memoir literature, with its title words Mémoires, Annales, Histoires véritables, etc. There was also an interest in psychological analysis, which we find perfectly formed in Mme de La Fayette’s Princesse de Clèves (1678) and in La Bruyère’s Caractères (1688).

Although the characterization in the original episodes of the work we are considering leaves much to be desired, there is, on the other hand, in the treatment of the historical background a significant advance. If we suppose the problem of the historical novel to be the extracting of a single man’s fate from the mass of history, and the depicting of his part in events and of their influence on him, we must admit that Lesage, in the history of young Don Fernando de p69 Peralta, has solved this problem in a satisfactory manner. The remove from historical truth demanded by poetic liberty is eased by the fact that the hero, who stands at the center of the action, is not any of those great movers of world history whose biography, in its main features and even in many details, is familiar to the great mass of readers.

In short, Lesage’s adaptation of Avellaneda’s Don Quijote is in language and in content superior to its model, but in composition unsuccessful. The parts which are original announce already the author of the Diable Boiteux and Gil Blas. One would therefore do well to give the author’s first work the place in his oeuvre it has, until now, been denied.

Besides those indicated in the footnotes, the following works were consulted: