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Ishaan Arora - ENG343 - Mid-Term Assignment
Ishaan Arora - ENG343 - Mid-Term Assignment
Ishaan Arora - ENG343 - Mid-Term Assignment
Ishaan Arora
Dr Teja Pusapati
ENG343
22 February 2020
Cervantes’ seminal work Don Quixote, begins with, as Charles Presberg puts it “an
unprecedented species of prologue”, which seeks to talk about the act of writing prologues while
at the same time making a case both for, and against that very act (219). This ‘Prologue’ flouts
consciously “a wholly fictional work … narrated by a fictional narrator” (Presberg 216). This
fact is brought to the fore in part, once the fictional narrator of the ‘Prologue’—and indeed the
book—introduces “one of [his] friends” within the ‘Prologue’ (Cervantes Saavedra et al. 7). This
friend of the narrator’s subsequently goes on to direct the latter on how to go about writing said
prologue and in this process the narrator purportedly incorporates his friend’s suggestions on the
topic as is, or verbatim (11). In addition, it is not once even indirectly alluded to, till the middle
of the first paragraph that the narrator is indeed not the author and neither is any literal evidence
provided to refute the same. To quite the opposite effect, the narrator mentions that he “longed
for this book, born out of [his] own brain” (7). He goes on to admit to not being the original
progenitor of the “putative” fiction or “history” (these terms being interchangeable given the
inherent ambiguity surrounding them) of Don Quixote (Presberg 216). He does so by referring to
himself as a mere “step-father” or editor of the work rather than its “’father’ [or] … original
author” (217), having dug up Quixote’s “history” from the “archives of La Mancha” (Cervantes
Cervantes continually conflates the words “history” with that of fiction (though only
implicitly) through the medium of the narrator, as is the case when the latter mentions—as if in
passing—that his “sterile, half-educated wit” could not have “give[n] birth to” anything but “the
history of a sniveling child” (7). The narrator upon discussing the contents of the book, uses
adjectives such as “totally unoriginal”, “lacking any … serious ideas”, once again blurring the
lines between what is to be considered the “history” of Don Quixote and what is relegated to the
domain of fiction (7, 8). Thus, in Presberg’s words, Cervantes “involves the reader in a paradox
concerning the relation between the shared language of historical and poetic discourse” (221).
Similarly, in the course of the same lament, the narrator mentions that he has failed to include “a
single annotation in the margins and absolutely no footnotes at the back”, which remains highly
uncharacteristic of a supposed historical account compiled, edited and retrieved using archival
sources (Cervantes Saavedra et al. 8). Furthermore, when the friend suggests that the narrator
could invent “all the sonnets and epigrams and elegies … supposed to be written by important,
titled people” himself, he goes on to agree with this advice and yet fails to follow through with it
(9, 11). By way of using his friend’s “exact words for [the] prologue”—a friend whom he deems
“clever, smart”—he incorporates the same erudite quotes which ostensibly the narrator has no
knowledge of; and those which the narrator’s friend had disparaged just moments ago yet
knowing them by heart, as it were (7, 11). This string of evidence laid down above then, goes on
to cement “the impossibility of our acting in a manner other than as … compilers, copyists” thus
rendering “our every utterance [as mediators of discourse] an instance of intentional truth-telling
Directing attention to a second formal feature, that of adherence to and transgression of,
the then contemporary definition of what a prologue constituted, by the ‘Prologue’ to Don
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from the first ever dictionary of the Spanish language, it is a book’s introduction meant to clarify
subsequent arguments, to capture the benevolence and attention of the audience in the case of
comedies while serving even there, the aforementioned function (Covarrubias). The ‘Prologue’
transgresses this definition on one count, specifically that of clarification since, not on a single
occasion is it able to properly introduce the readers to the protagonist or his squire, Sancho
Panza. The latter’s name too, only appears at first in the very last lines of said ‘Prologue’. These
lines are accompanied by a tongue-in-cheek remark by the narrator that the reader would have to
be “utterly free of confusion” without ever providing any information to ensure the former.
Though, contradictions abound here too. In part a clarification is indeed provided, that of
“shatter[ing] the authority of … tales of chivalry” (Cervantes Saavedra et al. 11). As far as the
latter half of the definition is concerned, since the ‘Prologue’ is for the most part in dialogic
form, its intimate nature pulls readers in and keeps them engaged; hence adhering to the same.
As has already been mentioned this prologue though would’ve thwarted “seventeenth-century
readers’ expectations” nonetheless (Presberg 216). It should be mentioned that loas (prologues to
Spanish comedias) at times were connected to their respective full-length plays, but more often
than not, didn’t (Rennert 281). And so, the ‘Prologue’ as well forms “an integral part of
Cervantes’ fiction”, as it constitutes a prologue about the writing of prologues, to a book about
the writing of books; while at the same time not being too closely related—in terms of content, at
least—to the rest of the novel, thus existing as a fiction unto itself (Presberg 216).
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Works Cited
Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de et al. Don Quijote. W.W. Norton & Company, 1999, pp. 7-11.
Presberg, Charles. “‘This Is Not a Prologue’: Paradoxes of Historical and Poetic Discourse in the
Prologue of ‘Don Quixote’, Part I.” MLN, vol. 110, no. 2, 1995, pp. 215–239. JSTOR,
Rennert, Hugo Albert. The Spanish Stage in the Time of Lope de Vega. Dover Puclications, Inc.,
1963, pp. 274–286.