From: Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America
16.2 (1996): 118-20.
Copyright © 1996, The Cervantes Society of America
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Harrison, Stephen. La composición de Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda. Madrid: Pliegos, 1993. 219 pp.
Had this intensive analysis of Cervantes's
method of composition appeared in a more widely-distributed press, it certainly
would have attracted a good deal more attention and perhaps some controversy.
As it is, Harrison's substantial contribution has thus far been largely ignored
in English-speaking circles of Cervantine criticism, thereby depriving all
concerned of a potentially fruitful critical debate.
Harrison proposes here to shed light on the
murky question of where Persiles y Sigismunda belongs in the chronology
of the entire Cervantine opus. In the process he intends to add to our
understanding of the way Cervantes worked and the methods he might have used
in composing his longer works, as well as how he evolved as a literary artist.
Harrison also seeks to demonstrate that various critical studies on Cervantes
and especially the Persiles “son totalmente erróneos en
su interpretación del propósito del autor, por haber creído
poder pasar por alto el problema de las fechas y del proceso de composición
de esta obra” (19). In the process he confronts —politely but
energetically— some of the giants of modern Cervantes studies (Forcione,
El Saffar, Avalle-Arce, and others), while reminding us of our indebtedness
to various earlier critics, such as Mack Singleton. He particularly objects
to assertions that Cervantes as writer developed or “progressed”
from realism to romance, that most of Persiles was a product of the
mature Cervantes and thereby the culminating point of his literary art, or
indeed that, as he puts it, “la humanidad de Don Quijote
estimuló el neoplatonismo en vez de atenuarlo” (23). Despite
the proofs Harrison adduces for the relatively early composition date of
the Persiles, however, he does not propose what he views as the simplistic
counter-argument that Cervantes's artistic evolution was a simple matter
of developing from “idealism” to “realism.” Rather, he
inclines toward the view of Blanco Aguinaga and George Hainsworth, among
others, that realism and idealism are in constant interplay in all of Cervantes's
works, but especially the Quixote.
Harrison cites Geoffrey Stagg's theories on
the way Cervantes went about composing Don Quixote, Part I as a starting
point for his study. Three are significant here: that Cervantes made substantial
revisions in the order of episodes of his original manuscript, with little
regard for the “incongruencias” that might
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| 16.2 (1996) | Review | 119 |
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result thereby; that it was important for Cervantes to establish some
“equilibrio” between the main thread of the narration and the episodes;
and that several features of Don Quijote, Part I (notably the role
of Cide Hamete) were interpolated relatively late in the composition process.
After a detailed introductory exposition of purpose, Harrison begins his
study in the second and third chapters with a thorough analysis of the
Persiles's probable sources, along with a reconsideration of the
historical references within the text and their relevance for establishing
dates and stages of composition. Although he inevitably goes over some
well-trodden ground here, I found his meticulous close reading of the text
and his thorough familiarity with Cervantine source material to be quite
convincing.
Also persuasive, although potentially more
controversial, are his observations in the fourth chapter (“Las narraciones
independientes y los comentarios sobre la teoría literaria”)
on the evolution of Cervantes's literary technique in Persiles y
Sigismunda, compared to Don Quixote and La Galatea. In
seeking to substantiate his claims, Harrison analyzes all of the interpolated
material in these three works and the critiques they provoke by listeners
within the text. It is his contention that the information gleaned thereby
constitutes the most important evidence of Cervantes's impatience with the
old romances as well as what is in effect an implicit literary theory.
One of Harrison's more interesting contributions
—already published in an important 1980 article and revised for the
fifth chapter of the present work— is that Cervantes added much of the
attenuation and rationalization of the magical and miraculous elements in
the Persiles at a much later date. Harrison speculates on Cervantes'
reasons: perhaps a result of his close connections with the Franciscan order
toward the end of his life, or perhaps “un deseo piadoso de hacer las
paces con la iglesia que una vez le descomulgó y con el Hacedor que
Cervantes esperaba ver pronto” (144). Indeed, the noticeable contrast
between Cervantes's smooth inclusion of such rationalizations in the
Quijote, for example, and the tacked-on quality of these statements
in the Persiles, as well as the inconsistency with which they appear
and the incongruencies that they leave in the text, provide further evidence
for placing the composition of most of the Persiles at an earlier
date. In his sixth and final chapter Harrison summarizes his findings and
further develops his central point: that Persiles was a relatively
early work, and that parts of it were written even before La Galatea.
That is, despite the poignant “Con el pie ya en el estribo” of
the Persiles's dedication, at the end of his life Cervantes actually
wrote only small portions of what is commonly called his last novel.
As a very minor point, I would quibble with
Harrison's decision to cite the Peyton edition of Lope's El peregrino
en su patria (1971), given the easier availability of the Avalle-Arce
edition in Castalia (1973). In any case, however, it would be much more
convenient for the reader to know which book of the Peregrino is being
cited —a practice followed scrupulously in citations to Don Quixote
and Persiles. The only major gap in Harrison's otherwise excellent
study is his curious failure —despite the 1993 publication date—
to engage significantly with Cervantes criticism (particularly on the
Persiles) of the past dozen years.
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| 120 | JUDITH A. WHITENACK | Cervantes |
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Although he acknowledges that a substantial portion of his theory was formulated around the time he completed his dissertation in 1979, it would be interesting to hear his comments on various recent studies, whether or not they would have any effect on his own theories. I will look forward to such engagement in the future —perhaps as a kind of afterword in article form.
| Judith A. Whitenack |
| University of Nevada, Reno |
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Prepared with the help of Sue Dirrim |
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| Fred Jehle jehle@ipfw.edu | Publications of the CSA | H–Cervantes |
| URL: http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/cervante/csa/articf96/whitenac.htm | ||