The humble story of Don Quixote: reflections on the birth of the modern novel

IX. The Pastoral Precedent

c h a p t e r i x The Pastoral Precedent [In] ogni libro, in ogni foglio, misero amante, infelice amante e si legge e si scrive. Senza fallo esso Amore niuno è che piacevole il chiami, niun dolce, niuno umano il nomò giamai: di crudele, d’acerbo, di fiero tutte le carte son piene. Leggete d’Amore quanto da mille se ne di crudele, d’acerbo, di fiero tutte le carte son piene. Leggete d’Amore quanto da mille se ne di crudele, d’acerbo, di fiero tutte le carte son piene. Leggete d’ scrive: poco o niente altro in ciascun troverete che dolore.1 (P. Bembo, 334) (P. Bembo, 334) (P Lysander.—Ay me! For aught that ever I could read, .—Ay me! For aught that ever I could read, .— Could ever hear by tale or history, The course of true love never did run smooth. (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, (A Midsummer Night’s Dream, ( 1.1.142–44) 198 1. “In every book, on every page, what one writes and what one reads is [always] miserable lover, unhappy lover. Nobody has ever called that love pleasant, sweet, or humane ; [on the contrary,] contrary,] contrary the pages are full of [words] like cruel, bitter, violent. Read what thousands have written about love: little or nothing you would find there other than pain.” Piénsese bien: el amor feliz no tiene historia literaria propia. Siempre que el amor ha sido eje argumental ha tenido un signo trágico, o bien se ha tratado de un amor contrariado.2 (Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce, “Estudio preliminar,” in La Diana, ed. Juan Montero, 14) In the Italian passage quoted above from Pietro Bembo’s dialogues Gli Asolani, the character speaking, Perottino, is violently against love because he suffers grievously from it. Some other character will answer him by saying that what he feels is not love because love is rational and temperate. If he really loved, he would not suffer for things that have not happened, or desire and look for that which he cannot have. “Because...... it is a most stupid thing and intemperate beyond measure to keep on looking for and desiring that which cannot be had as if it could be had.”3 In the highly stylized world of the pastoral novel, everybody seems to be suffering from Perottino’s problem. Everybody is looking for something they cannot have. And what is even worse, if they finally get what they want, their interest seems to dwindle rather quickly as they become attracted to something else beyond their reach. In the interminable web of love relationships that structures these novels, two lovers who love each other at the same time is indeed a rare and fleeting sight. What keeps these novels going is the rather simple fact that when A loves B, B does not love A, usually because he or she loves C, who, of course, does not reciprocate, because, in turn, he or she loves D, who does not reciprocate, because......., and so on, in principle, endlessly. Given the fact that in literature “the course of true love never did run smooth,” that is to say, given the fact that “happy love does not have a literary history of its own,” obviously these characters are true to type. They all feel and act as if inspired by their reading of poetically painful love stories. They seem to embody the very spirit that keeps the poetic love story alive. For they are attracted to all those obstacles that keep the genre alive, which means those same obstacles that keep attracting us, we avid readers of poetic love 2. “Think carefully: happy love has no literary history of its own. Whenever love has been central to the plot, it has always ended tragically or it has encountered obstacles.” 3. “Perottino, tu non ami....... Perciò che se tu amassi, temperato sarebbe il tuo amore, et essendo egli temperato, né di cosa che avenuta ne sia ti dorresti, né quello che per te avere non si può disidereresti tu e cercheresti giamai. Perció che...... stoltissima cosa é e fuori d’ogni misura stemperata, quello che avere non si possa, pur come se egli aver si potesse, andare tuttavia desiderando e cerchando” (410). The Pastoral Precedent 199 stories. Their desires seem to be a reflection of our own desires as readers of love fiction, or the other way around. When critics...