The «desocupado lector» addressed in the Prologue. On the complexities of the narratorreader axis, I follow James Parr's excellent analysis: «The 1605 prologue begins by addressing an "idle reader" (...) It is important to realize that this initial gesture, serving to establish immediate although deceptive rapport, is addressed to an interlocutor explicitly encoded within this pre-text, the plot of which revolves around the quest for a prologue. An encoded entity such as this is customarily called a narratee. This entity may be dramatized, although this one is not, but will always be spoken to directly, by a narrator -in this case the narrator is the dramatized author- unlike the ideal reader of the text, whose presence is ordinarily not acknowledged overtly» (46). At the end of Part I the «idle reader», if s/he has been attentive to the text, has become the fully formed, sophisticated «inferred reader», corresponding to the «inferred narrator» who stands behind the whole array of narrative voices deployed in the text (Parr). I take this «inferred» reader to correspond to Eco's Model Reader. The Cervantine text calls for a re-reading. My notion of this re-reading is that it generates a self-division in the reader who observes his/her own formation as an «inferred» reader, or Model Reader, as s/he re-reads. Only then will s/he become the truly Ideal Reader of Cervantes' text. (N. from the A.)

On this topic see Bruce W. Wardropper, E. C. Riley, and Alban Forcione. The applicability of Aristotelian theory to Don Quixote is undercut by the novel's parodic thrust. In «El discurso...», Hugo Rodríguez-Vecchini says: «Significativamente Don Quijote halla su perfil en la parodia, es decir, en la mimesis crítica de otros discursos, el histórico y el poético indistintamente. En efecto, la re-escritura paródica no respeta el deslinde genérico de esos dos tipos de discurso, que origina la Poética de Aristóteles» (177). In the conclusion of his enlightening and anticipatory review of these problems («Cervantes' Theory of the Drama»), Wardropper states: «Cervantes, as on most questions of his day, straddled the fence. His enormous toleration saved him from siding with one particular faction in the polemics of the dramatic estheticians» (221). Martínez Bonati has some pertinent comments on the canon's theories, whose inconsistency, he points out, «lies (...) in the fact that the canon, in order to condemn the books of chivalry, takes the point of view of the ancients of sixteenth-century polemics, urging rigorous unity of action in the narrative work, strict verisimilitude and moral exemplarity; and then, in his praise of the possibilities of the genre, he assumes the position of the moderns of that century (...). Can it be doubted that Cervantes would be well aware of the incompatibility of these points of view? Can we, then, legitimately maintain that Cervantes deliberately confuses the poetological doctrines of his time? The more or less subtle introduction of inconsistencies into his characters' critical discussions not only ensures the novelistic verisimilitude of the dialogue and the subordination of theory to image but also underlines the ironic distance of the narrator and, a fortiori, of the author» (20). This ironic undercutting of the «theory» is dramatized by the canon's participation in the free-for-all of chapter 52. (N. from the A.)

Alban Forcione sees the general plan of the romance in the canon's theory, and points out that there is in the Persiles a continuing engagement with the neo-Aristotelians «as an undertone sustained in a dialogue within the narrative voices, but on two occasions as an undisguised literary debate. (...) [T]he literary debates which it contains, like those on the Quixote, generally move toward the assertion of an anticlassical position on literary theory» [ (169) Italics in the text]. Avalle-Arce also quickly relates the canon's theories to the Persiles in «Los trabajos...». (N. from the A.)

On this matter cf. John G. Weiger, The Substance..., Ch. 1 in particular. (N. from the A.)

The curate had persuaded the cuadrilleros that, owing to his madness, even if don Quijote were arrested he would have to be released as not responsible for his actions. (N. from the A.)

Don Quixote also is being withdrawn from society. (N. from the A.)

The curate is a graduate of Siguenza, one of the then more recent and definitely «minor» centers, of learning; thus, such critical authority as he may represent has been heavily laced with irony from the earliest pages of the book. I thank Frederick de Armas for reminding me of this. (N. from the A.)

Ruth El Saffar explores the problem in her now classic Distance and Control.... An important component of this paper arises from her views. (N. from the A.)

Cf. Avalle-Arce's comments on this item in «El 'Curioso' y el 'Capitán'» in Nuevos deslindes.... See also John G. Weiger, In the Margins..., Ch. 3. (N. from the A.)

Cf. René Girard, Cesáreo Bandera and Salvador J. Fajardo. It is interesting to note that, in Don Quixote's last adventures (Part 1), we have the same correspondence between acting out a role: flagellants, curate (there is a link between the curate and the flagellants through their mutual relationship to religion and also because our curate knows the leading ecclesiastic among the flagellants), and living a role: Eugenio, Don Quixote. (N. from the A.)