The Play of Illusion in Cervantes's Interludes

Taking as a point of departure Julián Marías's inquiries into the particularly Spanish phenomenon of ilusión, Johan Huizinga's study of the play element of culture, and Cornelius Castoriadis's notion of the "social imaginary," this study explores the ways in which Cervantes made use of the multifaceted concept of ilusión through an analysis of the four interludes that center on a hoax. Although the element of play and the concept of "illusion" clearly serve as a theoretical support for all dramatic literature, what we find in Cervantes's interludes is a masterful blend of these ludic ingredients that come together to stage forms of reality that reflect the social imaginary of seventeenth-century Spain, as well as the human condition. The social imaginary in these pieces consists of an endless series of hopes and expectations, continually executed through the Cervantine play of "engaño a los ojos." Ultimately, these pieces represent the never-ending reading/writing of a never-ending action, an ilusión in the "negative" sense (i.e., deception) that ultimately imbues the reader/spectator with the "positive" sense (i.e., hope, expectations) of this "dramatic" phenomenon.