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Introduction
- Purdue University Press
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Introduction Some years ago in a conversation after a lengthy and enjoy~ able dinner at La Carmencita in Madrid, Stephen Gilman summed up a part of our conversation by saying that one believed either that literature was a product of creative imagination , or that it was inspired by life. Knowing his work as I do, there was no question that his answer favored the latter. For myself I must say that there is no vacillation either. I fully embrace the notion that literary production is largely from life and experience (my best models being Fernando de Rojas and Miguel de Cervantes), where the "circumstance," as Ortega y Gasset would say, molds and structures our thoughts and works. Itis with this premise that I have written the following chap~ ters. My title reflects this history/creativity (i.e., literature) dichotomy. It does not imply or intend a "crunch" between the two. I am using the term history to signify the author's time (the time period in which the author lives), and creativity to mean the verbal, literary, communicative mode. I have explored this dichotomy in some of the novelas of Cervantes that illustrate the human dimensions and existential correlations to his.. torical experience. Although I am interested in the historical part ofthe history/ literature equation, considerable artistic creation and manipulation goes into any literary work. The artistic considerations occur at a stage after the writer's initial involvement in the writing task. One can agree with Benedetto Croce that there is a crucial moment in a writer's psychological and intellectual makeup that we can call, for lack of a more precise term, inspiration. To be sure, alongside Cervantes, the social and political critic, there was Cervantes, the humanist, the literary critic, and the 1 Introduction polemicist. It would be an incredible task to pinpoint with any degree ofaccuracy when and how the process ofresponse, selection , and literary activity took place. Suffice it to say that one of the stages ofpostinspiration deals with literary tradition. The creation had to belong to a body or genre that Cervantes thought important and worthy. In my view, the only truly worthy vessel into which Cervantes poured his creatio was the one that had achieved prominence in all ofEurope-Boccaccio and the Italian frame novel tradition. Even where the Spanish tradition was autochthonous, Boccaccio and the Italianate tradition were at the literary forefront and created an ideal of literature with which Cervantes obviously wished to be identified. The public expected such an association for a writer who hoped to achieve recognition beyond the borders ofhis country. Cervantes chose to associate himself with the tradition that had achieved success in Spain either through the Italian originals or through translations printed by Valencian publishers. Attachment to the Italianate tradition represents the second part of the division between history and art, but it is a secondary stage of praxis rather than the initial conception ofthe urge to create with words. There are other features to the external incentives that serve as the creative impulse in the works. The statement of Gines de Pasamonte (Don Quijote 1.22) has assumed an almost independent existence and has become .. an index ofCervantes's awareness of literary vogues and styles. When he speaks of his Vida, he associates it with Lazarillo de Tormes and other similar works. In this enunciation by the wily Gines, the absences and silences are just as important as the words spoken. In approaching the study of Las novelas ejemplares, I see two important keys that may easily have determined the path that Cervantes chose. Perhaps one of the most important prose writers of Cervantes's time was Mateo Aleman. His Guzman de Alfarache achieved great popularity, and his work became a model. The Guzman, with its interpolated stories carefully composed to complement the moral-didactic purposes of the work, stood as a monument of literary accomplishment. But Aleman's masterpiece offered a one-sided view of human experience .1 His stories treated love, but love was subordinated to other concerns. The resulting product failed to include other, 2 [54.163.195.125] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 08:17 GMT) Introduction more regenerating features of love and experience. This was a challenge for Cervantes. To return to Gines's silences, one involved the Guzman and Aleman, and this reticence is perhaps understandable. Guzman de Alfarache was a very significant work. It contained many of the features that Cervantes believed should go into a narrative -an identifiable...