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  • Heroic Forms: Cervantes and the Literature of War by Stephen Rupp
  • Grant Gearhart
Rupp, Stephen. Heroic Forms: Cervantes and the Literature of War. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 2014. 251pps. ISBN: 978-14-4264-912-5.

Stephen Rupp’s Heroic Forms: Cervantes and the Literature of War examines how Miguel de Cervantes blends different genres against the backdrop of Renaissance warfare throughout the Hapsburg Empire. Beginning with Don Quijote’s observations about a young page’s choice to enlist in the army (Don Quijote II.24), the “Introduction” examines the idea of martial “heroism” at a time when advances in weapon technology began to rapidly change the battlefield. At the center of this, according to Rupp, is the question of genre. Cervantes experimented in “multiple genres,” including “the insertion of one form into another, the mixing of the structures and repertoires of distinct genres, and the use of hybrid forms that characterize Renaissance drama” (18). This mingling challenges established ideas about accepted forms of heroism.

In Chapter One, “Warriors: Epic and Tragedy,” Rupp interprets Cervantes’s play La Numancia as a fusing of the epic with the tragedy. In this text, the Numantians defend their city against the besieging Romans and display their hardiness and valor through a collective suicide that leaves the Roman general Cipión with neither conquered city (the Numantians destroy all their possessions) nor glorious military victory. Hence, Cipión stands as the tragic figure while the Numantian victory, which extolls values associated with the Latin epic, embodies Spain’s future glories to be achieved through military excellence. Herein lies the heroic paradox the play illustrates: the Numantians, who favor a face-to-face fight (or at least a contest between two champions) and who martyr themselves in an act of unified courage, are lauded; and the Romans, normally models of heroic behavior but who betray their heroic ethos by avoiding open combat, are disgraced. [End Page 220]

Chapter 2, “Defenders: Pastoral and Satire,” states that European pastoral themes and patterns are central components of Cervantes’s writings. According to Rupp, Don Quijote critiques heroic values and the uses of violence by bringing the characters into contact with the pastoral’s tranquil setting. Don Quijote attacks a flock of sheep (DQ I.18) because he believes the dust kicked up by their seasonal migrations along the Castilian plains is in fact an army on the march. Blinded by the chivalric romances he has read, Don Quijote sees this encounter with the sheep-army as his chance for a glorious assault. The shepherds he encounters, however, necessarily defend their flocks, and thus assume violent roles that oppose the more peaceful shepherd-poets of pastoral romances. This distinction allows Cervantes to “explore the contrast between the artful idleness of shepherd-poets and the concerns of practical pastoralists” (98).

In the third chapter, “Captains and Saints: Lyric and Romance,” Rupp focuses on two plays – El trato de Argel and Los baños de Argel – each of which professes contrasting types of heroism: armed aggression (commonly seen in the epic) and the resilience displayed by captured Christians in Muslim territory. In both plays, Cervantes marks a shift from martial to spiritual heroism where Christians resist and endure at the hands of their captors. For the Christian soldiers taken captive by the North African corsairs, heroism is about endurance and resistance through faith. The protagonists from both plays recall two variants of romance: saints’ lives and Greek romance. Together, these narratives present a new definition of heroism applicable to the realities of warfare in the Mediterranean world.

The fourth and final chapter, “Soldiers and Sinners: Picaresque,” connects the soldier’s narrative to that of the Spanish ‘pícaro.’ Like the ‘pícaro,’ the soldier uses storytelling to improve his circumstances. Cervantes engages the class divisions inherent in a tiered military system by exploring how soldiers tell their tales. For Rupp El casamiento engañoso exemplifies the way soldiers seek to enhance their wealth and reputations through storytelling, and is therefore similar to other personal narratives such as Alonso de Cartrera’s Discurso de mi vida. The self-fashioning present in these tales adheres to certain patterns and linguistic devices...

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