Women and the Prologue. Imitations, Myth, and Magic in Don Quixote I by Carolyn A. Nadeau (review)

102 Reviews D Nadeau, Carolyn A. Women and the Prologue. Imitations, Myth, and Magic in Don Quixote I. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2002. 192 pp. ISBN 0-8387-5510-0. One of the thornier theoretical and methodological problems facing twentyfirst-century literary critics is that of imitation. Whereas the “source” studies undertaken by late nineteenth- and early twentiethcentury philologists are clearly based on assumptions concerning the nature of the text and authorship now rendered intellectually unacceptable by structuralist and post-structuralist theory, the fact remains that in many cultural contexts, not least of which includes early-modern Spain and the New World, writers consider imitation of earlier texts an essential element of literary creation. Perhaps it is our own bias against imitation, based not only on the suppositions concerning language of the above-mentioned theoretical movements, but also the modernist idolization of originality that has prevented contemporary critics from analyzing the tension between imitation and invention that has clearly contributed to the writer’s imaginative labor. What few contemporary studies of imitation in Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic literature exist are largely confined to poetry (for example, Anne Cruz’s and Ignacio Navarrete’s books on Petrarchism and David Darst’s book on imitatio as a rhetorical trope). Carolyn Nadeau’s study on Cervantes’s imitation of classical female figures in Don Quixote I is, therefore, a welcome addition to the field. The first two chapters of Nadeau’s book bring to light the difficulties of undertaking such a project within the current theoretical context. After paying cursory homage to Derrida and Bourdieu, the author provides a useful, albeit brief, overview of the theoretical understanding of imitation in the early-modern period. Then she grants a final nod to Thomas Greene (The Light in Troy). Setting aside the now seemingly compulsory mention of the great white fathers of the theoretical canon, I would like to insist that what Nadeau herself suggests about Cervantes’s practice of literary imitation is far more interesting. First, she demonstrates to a reasonable degree the extent to which Cervantes requires the reader’s participation in the process of imitation. This is a development far more radical than any suggested by Greene’s categories of eclectic, heuristic and dialectic imitation, since it now expands the duad of competing authors to a triangle including the reader. Secondly, she intimates, although fails to develop, a parallel between Cervantes’s struggle with imitation and the struggle of his female characters to find their voice (20). Surprisingly, given the book’s topic, the author does not consider the gendered aspects of imitation, seen, for example, in Fernando de Herrera’s characterization of the Reseñas D 103 “effeminate” Italian authors taken as models by the “virile” Castilian writers, or the metaphor of writing as engendering, seen in Cervantes’s characterization presented in the first prologue of his authorial relation to Don Quixote . Either of these two observations offered by Nadeau merit further critical and theoretical discussion (dare I suggest that our deification of a reduced number of theorists is limiting our own reflective capacities?). Precisely because they exemplify the power of employing a more nuanced notion of imitation as a hermeneutic tool, Chapter 3 (“Recovering the Hetairae: Prostitution in Don Quixote) and Chapter 4 (“Medea’s Metamorphosis: How Cruel Can She Be?”) are the most substantial. Here Nadeau reveals how reference to the classical models of the educated and courtly prostitutes Lamia, Laid, and Flora, as well as the tragic figure of Medea, can illuminate the female characters created by Cervantes. By positing Cervantes’s use of imitation as primarily limited, the author can interpret both the parallels and the discrepancies between the figures presented in the “source” or “original” texts and this early-modern novel. With respect to the representation of prostitutes, the comparison made between Antonio de Guevara’s misogynistic condemnation of the hetairae in the Letra para don Enrrique Enrríquez and Cervantes’s multifaceted and subtler depiction of Maritornes and the other inn prostitutes serves to highlight the latter’s understanding of the social conditions that would force a woman either into the illicit sexual commerce of the street and the brothel or the legal sexual commerce of...