51
Only if the reader has remained totally impervious to Don Quixote's «buenas partes» adduced as well by the canon -will he not find this description somewhat humiliating for the knight. The humor is no longer unmixed for the modern (Romantic?) reader. Of course, realist (Close, Russell) critics point out that the 1605 reader was not so inclined. For a response to the «funny book» critical point of view, see John Weiger's The Substance..., and Lowry Nelson. (N. from the A.)
52
The curate's inconsiderateness has been variously noted; see, for instance, Manuel Ferrer-Chivite. (N. from the A.)
53
Note also that the ludic treatment of names, characteristic of the novel's opening, is again engaged in with regard to Sancho's wife. (N. from the A.)
54
On the hoax of the «plomos granadinos», see Francisco Márquez Villanueva, 314-316. (N. from the A.)
55
In a personal communication Helena Percas de Ponseti
reminded me of the double meaning of «el mismo
crédito que suelen dar los discretos a los libros de
caballerías»
, indicating that: «1.
los discretos dan poco
crédito a los libros de caballerías; 2.
los discretos admiran el sentido
subtextual cervantino de este libro de
caballerías»
. (N. from the
A.)
56
The epitaphs complete the circle initiated by the introductory poems. On this and other points pertinent to the gap between the end of the adventures of Part I, and the epitaphs, see Dian Fox, «The Apocryphal Part One of Don Quijote». (N. from the A.)
57
In his analysis of the «sub-genre of Arthurian
romances in Spain», Williamson suggests that «The two basic
features of this subgenre are the device of the historian-narrator in the guise
of a wise magician, and the absence of an inherent principle of structural
necessity»
(69). Both notions are given a recapitulative
satirical turn in the last lines of Don
Quixote I. (N. from the A.)
58
Cf. Karl-Ludwig Selig: «The quote (...) is a
tribute, homage, and evocation, a reminder to alert us once more at the very
end of Part I to the significant creative function and paragonic centrality of
Ariosto-author-opus for our narrative (look back, and reflect once more on that
critical matter, the author-artificer seems to say); and formally, topically,
the quote is suitable at the very end of the open-ended text (Part I); the
citation fits and is pertinent formally and topically as it fits the
open-endedness of Part I and/ or what is or will be the simulacrum of
open-endedness of the book at this point or stage of the narrative»
(70). The quotation is, as well, an «openended»
invitation to «another» to take up the pen and write a sequel,
which is precisely what Avellaneda did. (N. from the A.)
59
Lukács, The Theory of the Novel, trans. Anna Bostock (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1971) 101-04. (N. from the A.)
60
Perhaps the best recent work on the modern understanding of historical time is Reinhart Koselleck, Futurcs Past: On the Semantics of Historical Time, trans. Keith Tribe (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1985). It is my ambition to enlist the theory of history in the analysis of fiction to demonstrate how narrative forms express their own sense of history. (N. from the A.)