Cervantes : Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America

Volume XXIII, Number 1, Spring 2003

John Jay Allen, First Editor of Cervantes

[Black and white version of the above photo, as it appears on the printed cover.]

THE CERVANTES SOCIETY OF AMERICA

President

JAMES A. PARR

Vice President

FREDERICK A. DE ARMAS

Secretary-Treasurer

THERESA SEARS

ELLEN ANDERSON	MW VALERIE HEGSTROM
MARINA BROWNLEE	NE DAVID BORUCHOFF
ANTHONY CÁRDENAS	PC HARRY VÉLEZ QUIÑONES
MICHAEL MCGAHA	SE SHERRY VELASCO
ADRIENNE MARTIN	SW AMY WILLIAMSEN

CERVANTES: BULLETIN OF THE CERVANTES SOCIETY OF AMERICA

Editor: DANIEL EISENBERG

Managing Editor: FRED JEHLE

Book Review Editor: WILLIAM H. CLAMURRO

JOHN J. ALLEN	MYRIAM YVONNE JEHENSON
ANTONIO BERNAT	CARROLL B. JOHNSON
PATRIZIA CAMPANA	FRANCISCO MÁRQUEZ VILLANUEVA
PETER DUNN	FRANCISCO RICO
JAIME FERNÁNDEZ	GEORGE SHIPLEY
EDWARD H. FRIEDMAN	ALISON P. WEBER
AURELIO GONZÁLEZ	DIANA DE ARMAS WILSON

Cervantes, official organ of the Cervantes Society of America, publishes scholarly articles in English and Spanish on Cervantes' life and works, reviews and notes of interest to cervantistas. Twice yearly. Subscription to Cervantes is a part of membership in the Cervantes Society of America, which also publishes a Newsletter. $20.00 a year for individuals, $40.00 for institutions, $30.00 for couples, and $10.00 for students. Membership is open to all persons interested in Cervantes. For membership and subscription, send check in US dollars to THERESA SEARS, Department of Romance Languages, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, Greensboro, NC 27402-6170 (tasears@uncg.edu). Manuscripts should be sent, if possible, as an attachment to an email message sent to DANIEL EISENBERG, Editor, Cervantes, daniel.eisenberg@bigfoot.com (postal address: Excelsior College, 7 Columbia Circle, Albany, NY 12203-5157). The SOCIETY requires anonymous submissions, therefore the author's name should not appear on the manuscript; instead, a cover sheet with the author's name, address, and the title of the article should accompany the article. References to the author's own work should be couched in the third person. Books for review should be sent to WILLIAM H. CLAMURRO, Division of Foreign Languages, Emporia State University, Emporia, Kansas 66801-5087 (clamurrw@emporia.edu).

Copyright © 2003 by the Cervantes Society of America.

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Dept. of Foreign Languages and Literatures
Purdue University
West Lafayette, IN 47907
mancing@purdue.edu

Jay Allen has referred to me as his «oldest living graduate student», a title I bear with pride, for I have known and admired him ever since my earliest graduate student days, exactly forty years ago. Not only did he direct my doctoral dissertation (in 1970 I became the first to complete one under his guidance), but Jay was the most influential of the several great teachers, mentors, and exemplars I have had in my life. He taught me how to read, understand, appreciate, and teach both Cervantes and Spanish poetry. My own Don Quijote course, as I have taught it over the years both at the University of Missouri and at Purdue University, is modeled on the one he taught at the University of Florida. I can still remember the excitement generated in that class, both by the readings of Cervantes' novel and the discussions with Jay and the other students. It was that class that convinced me to shift my interest from Spanish American narrative to Cervantes. It was the paper I wrote for that class that provided the basic theme for my dissertation, and it was the dissertation that provided the basic theme for my book on Don Quijote published in 1982.

But Jay has been more than a classroom teacher and graduate mentor to me over the years; he has also been one of the primary intellectual and moral standards in my life, as I have often in a time of crisis or stress paused to think, «What would Jay do in this situation?» In I, 25, Don Quijote tells Sancho that the person who aspires to distinction in any endeavor should imitate the best of models. Jay has been my model on more than one occasion and when I grow up I hope to be like him. Jay once said that if he could write his own epitaph it would be «He gave more than he took», and this is indeed a fair assessment of his life and works.

I will not cite other examples of his generosity, wisdom, and   —6→   scholarly rigor, but merely state that together with Patricia Finch, Jay Allen represents the best that our profession -our species- has to offer. I am honored to have known him.