"A imitacion del hilo del laberinto de Perseo": El nexo narrativo de las ficciones laberinticas en Sierra Morena

In the labyrinth that emerges from the wilderness of Sierra Morena, Cervantes creates an iconoclastic artifice that highlights the theoretical and aesthetic concepts of both the imitation and invention of literature. In the labyrinthine Sierra Morena, Don Quixote attempts to imitate Amadís and Orlando, yet through his hybrid mimesis, he becomes an inventor of narrative labyrinths. The prolific allusions to labyrinths are not only emblematic of the narrative threads that are intricately interlaced throughout Sierra Morena and Don Quixote, but they also evince Cervantes' invention of the first modern novel, which may be termed a metalabyrinth of fictions.