Cervantes y los géneros de la ficción by Valentín Núñez Rivera (review)

Cervantes y los géneros de la ficción is a bold title fit for an equally bold undertaking. One that suggests that the book will either engage in a comprehensive investigation of genres of literature informed by Cervantes's texts post-publication, or that El Manco de Lepanto informs his own writing with genres of fiction previous or contemporary to his own time. Valentín Núñez Rivera opts for the latter, researching an abundance of Medieval and Renaissance literary traditions of the late sixteenth and early seventeenth centuries that influenced Cervantes's oeuvre. The book is divided into two parts: Trayectorias y pervivencias and Modulaciones Cervantinas. Each part is further partitioned into chapters and subchapters that take up specific themes or genres that Núñez Rivera proposes had some impact on Cervantine narrative. The author makes a deliberate effort to focus this study on the Cervantine novel, particularly Don Quijote, but also Las novelas ejemplares, thereby avoiding most Cervantine theater and poetry in the analysis.¹ He endeavors to elucidate the multiple literary traditions that influenced Cervantine writings: "la ficción caballeresca o los libros sentimentales […] los esquemas bizantino, pastoril, morisco y picaresco" (11), all of which represent the majority of the genres touched upon in this book. Nonetheless, an enterprise of such scope is bound to leave behind certain influential characteristics of the nearly endless possible European—and dare I say, World—literary traditions on Cervantine prose. Núñez Rivera is keenly aware of this possible shortcoming to his project and thus primarily directs his attention toward the impact of Spanish and Italian fictions on Cervantes.

The first half of part one, Trayectorias y pervivencias, takes a hard look at chivalric literature and the Novela sentimental as obvious precursors to Cervantes's mad knight-errant as well as certain other characters of his Novelas ejemplares. Subsequently, Núñez Rivera gives particular attention to the picaresque tradition, specifically Lazarillo de Tormes, as an informing literary genre to Cervantes's Ginés de Pasamonte, El Rufián dichoso, Pedro de Urdemalas, and of course "Rinconete y Cortadillo" and "El Coloquio de los perros."² Part one of the book then concludes with a wink toward a Cervantine metafictionality that incorporates and expands upon the structural underpinnings of those earlier prose genres.

The sentimental novel, spearheaded by authors such as Juan de Flores and Diego de San Pedro in the Spanish literary tradition, reaches its apex during the reign of the Catholic King and Queen, Fernando de Aragón and Isabel de Castilla. Núñez Rivera dedicates several pages to the analysis of sentimental works such as Cárcel de amor, Grisel y Mirabella, La Penitencia de amor and La Celestina. His investigation, however, is not centered on the peculiarities of one particular piece of literature, but rather it is thematically driven. Thus, for example, the author seeks out precise elements of the sentimental novel that may or may not demonstrate consistency across all works of the genre. For instance, in section 1.1 Casos de amores, the details of varying types of love are explored. Whether or not an alcahueta forms part of the story, or if there is a duel and how its resultant battle might resolve amorous conflicts, is a small sampling of the thematically oriented sections that this investigation avails itself of to expound upon the particulars of each respective literary work touched upon in the genre.

Similarly, chapter two of part one tackles the picaresque and its precursors in an effort to unveil the literary patterns that developed within this genre prior to Cervantine narrative. An underlying leitmotif of the umbrella of Núñez Rivera's interpretation of the picaresque is the recurrent appearance of Lucius Apuleius Madaurensis's second century Metamorphoses. Commonly recognized as El asno de oro, it is the only known complete work of Ancient Roman prose written in...