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Indiana University

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha. Ed. Tom Lathrop. Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 1998. xxxii + 871 pp. in two volumes. (Volume I, «revised and corrected edition.») Lathrop, Tom. Don Quijote Dictionary. Newark, Delaware: Juan de la Cuesta, 1999. vi + 150 pp.

Cervantes's contemporaries waited ten years for his second part of Don Quijote, but the wait is over for American undergraduates. Just two years after the appearance of Tom Lathrop's El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha (Parte I), Juan de la Cuesta has published Lathrop's Part II and the Don Quijote Dictionary as well as a revised and corrected Part I. These volumes, an alternative to Spanish editions of Don Quijote, will enable English-speaking students to read and understand Don Quijote more easily.

Based on the Schevill-Bonilla edition (192841), Lathrop's Part I and Part II, with modernized spelling except when pronunciation would be affected, have special features to make Don Quijote more accessible. In addition to frequent vocabulary glosses in English in the right margin of each page, Lathrop's Don Quijote also has abundant lexical, grammatical, and cultural explanations in English in footnotes at the bottom of the page. In the windmill episode in Chapter 8 of Part I, for example, Lathrop's 51 footnotes and approximately 130 vocabulary glosses outnumber John Jay Allen's six notes, Martín de Riquer's twenty, and Luis Andrés Murillo's thirty-three. Lathrop's entries are generally more appropriate for undergraduate readers.

Lathrop has also included headlines in English that summarize highlights of the text at the top of each page, a tool that students can use as a pre-reading summary, a comprehension check while reading, or a review soon after reading or right before an exam. Gustave Doré's illustrations offer readers visual support as they move through the story, and the line numbers in the left margin and section numbers at the top of left-hand pages are useful for finding references during class discussion. Lathrop's introduction clearly explains these features. Although Lathrop's edition lacks an extensive bibliography of critical works, which would appeal to graduate level readers, this does not seem to be a serious omission, given the undergraduate target audience.

The revised version of Part I is very similar to the first edition, which was published in 1997, in content and format, although many of the typographical   —180→   errors have been corrected. The introduction still includes sections on Golden Age grammar, Cervantes's life, the contradictions and supposed errors in Cervantes's text and chapter titles, the characters Marcela and the fictional Cervantes, the clergy, and the editions of Don Quijote consulted. One significant change is the improved wording in the footnotes. Instead of giving only one Spanish word to help readers locate the place in the text, the revised entries usually begin with several words or a phrase.

Part II, which begins with page 425, where Part I ended, follows the format of Part I. The second volume includes an introduction in which Lathrop discusses Cervantes's reaction to Avellaneda's continuation of Don Quijote. After mentioning the tradition of sequels published by authors who had not written the original texts, Lathrop suggests several reasons why Avellaneda would not have felt it improper to continue Cervantes's work. Then Lathrop offers examples of some ways in which Cervantes's Part II responds to the spurious sequel. The introduction ends with the note that Life magazine listed Don Quijote as ninety-seventh of the one hundred greatest events of the millennium.

Since many students do not have dictionaries with Golden Age words and definitions, and even large dictionaries sometimes require supplements, the third volume of this set is especially useful. Lathrop prepared the Don Quijote Dictionary to help undergraduates easily find the right nuances of words. According to the introduction, the 7,800 entries include 12,000 definitions. Since each meaning of a word is only glossed once in the margins of the text, the dictionary allows students to verify meanings that they have forgotten. Uncommon and quite common words and meanings appear in the dictionary, and the entries list the part and chapter numbers of where each definition is first used. Lathrop aimed to enable students to read Don Quijote without referring to a translation, and a close consideration of the windmill adventure in the first section of Part I, Chapter 8, shows that students will need to look up few, if any, words in another dictionary because so much of the vocabulary is explained in the margin, notes, and Don Quijote Dictionary. In many lines, several words or phrases are defined. Although students will still have to read carefully in order to understand the text while consulting Lathrop's dictionary and notes, the definitions in these volumes will speed up the reading process. Lathrop's soft-cover dictionary is also more portable than a large one for students who study at different places on campus between classes and at home.

Lathrop's Don Quijote offers an alternative to Spanish editions for instructors who do not mind having extensive notes and glosses in English. In addition to the comparative ease of reading Don Quijote in this format, the attractive covers and illustrations and compact size should make Lathrop's Don Quijote popular with students, although most of them will not have struggled through a Spanish edition previously. At $20 for Part I, Part II, and the dictionary, this set will save students time, energy, and money. In his introduction to Part II, Lathrop mentions that Juan de la Cuesta is considering publishing other works with a similar format, and judging from this careful student-oriented edition of Don   —181→   Quijote, these books would be welcome options among Spanish editions of long or difficult texts.

Macalester College

Cervantes, Miguel de. El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. Edited with critical commentaries, notes, and glossary by Salvador Fajardo and James A. Parr. Asheville, NC: Pegasus Press, 1998. xxii 984 pp.

Siempre es una buena noticia el lanzamiento al mercado de una nueva edición de un clásico literario. En este caso, el acontecimiento es de especial notoriedad por tratarse de una nueva edición del Quijote, el clásico de la literatura española más leído dentro y fuera del mundo hispánico. El reto es en ese sentido enorme: por una parte, publicar el Quijote implica el hecho de sumarse a una lista larguísima y prestigiosa de editores del texto; por otra, supone contribuir a que la obra maestra cervantina siga deleitando a una masa de lectores cada vez más amplia y diversa. El trabajo de los profesores Fajardo y Parr se concentra fundamentalmente en el segundo aspecto de este reto editorial, siendo su objetivo declarado el de «facilitar la lectura del texto» (xiii). Para ello, los editores han optado por no «interponer opiniones críticas,» limitar «a lo más esencial y escueto» cualquier «precisión histórica,» y redactar «notas principalmente lingüísticas» que allanen la comprensión literal e inmediata de la obra cervantina (xiii).

Esta edición, que utiliza el texto del Quijote fijado por John J. Allen, se presenta en un solo volumen, con una tipografía cómoda de leer y unas pocas ilustraciones (no listadas). El profesor Parr es el encargado de una «Guía del lector neófito» (xivxvii), en la que ofrece cinco consejos básicos para la lectura del texto. Aunque algunos de estos consejos son quizás cuestionables (como por ejemplo anotar los nombres de los personajes a medida que aparecen hasta un total de más de seiscientos), James Parr acierta a ofrecer algunas claves temáticas y técnicas literarias fundamentales de la obra que de seguro ayudarán al lector neófito. El «Prontuario de gramática» (xviiixxi) que sigue se propone dar una orientación sobre la gramática y ortografías de la época que Allen no moderniza en su edición, aunque se utilizan también notas a pie de página con el mismo propósito siempre que el texto lo requiere. Al final de la primera parte Salvador Fajardo incluye un epílogo que titula «La aventura de una lectura» (431). En un brillante, condensado análisis, se interpreta el Quijote como un «manual de lectura» (431) que «socava... todo andamiaje de autoridad intelectual extratextual que no surja de la lectura misma» (432). El ensayo estudia el prólogo a la parte I, el escrutinio de la biblioteca de don Quijote y su   —182→   conversación al final del libro con el canónigo como momentos claves en la reflexión cervantina sobre la lectura y en su consecuente «crítica a la "autoridad" extratexual» (438). En último término, el Quijote se caracteriza como una invitación a la multiplicidad de interpretaciones y a la aventura de leer. También Fajardo es el encargado de la «Introducción» a la segunda parte (441), en la que acertadamente reflexiona sobre los constantes vaivenes de la obra entre realidad y ficción, entre poesía e historia, a partir de la presencia del Quijote apócrifo de Avellaneda (1614) en la segunda parte del Quijote cervantino. Antes del «Glosario de términos anotados» (929) con que se cierra esta edición, James Parr escribe un breve ensayo, «Oralidad y orígenes» (917), que se apoya implícitamente en las teorías derridianas sobre oralidad y logocentrismo, y explícitamente en las estructuralistas de Gérard Genette. El autor analiza las diferentes voces narrativas del texto y la problematización de sus orígenes, a la vez orales y escritos, para demostrar «la crisis de identidad» de un texto que culmina en «la aporía... de la tradición oral que remite a una versión escrita que comenta de antemano la traducción problemática que se llevará a cabo más adelante en otro espacio y otro tiempo. La razón de la sinrazón» (927). Al mismo tiempo, Parr demuestra la modernidad literaria, la permanente actualidad de Cervantes, «que se confirma cada vez más por lo bien que [su obra] responde a la moda crítica del momento» (926).

Antes de lanzarse al mercado, la presente edición del Quijote ha sido probada en las aulas de tres universidades estadounidenses. Este hecho confirma la orientación pedagógica que los profesores Fajardo y Parr han querido imprimir a su trabajo. Aunque no se declara explícitamente en ningún momento, el objetivo de «facilitar la lectura del texto» expresado por los editores va asociado inevitablemente al contexto académico y a la necesidad de que los estudiantes (nativo-hablantes y no nativo-hablantes) de Cervantes, ante todo, comprendan su obra maestra a un nivel literal. En este sentido es en el que el proyecto editorial de Fajardo y Parr se demuestra más exitoso: el texto lingüísticamente complejo de Cervantes, del que nos separan ya casi cuatrocientos años, se nos ofrece considerablemente allanado, con unas notas fáciles de consultar que pretenden sobre todo contribuir a una lectura ágil y desproblematizada de la historia a un nivel literal.

Ahora bien, y considerando que todo trabajo conlleva siempre elegir unas opciones y desechar otras, habría que plantearse si el objetivo de «facilitar la lectura del texto» no se hubiera beneficiado también de, precisamente, alguna orientación crítica, una bibliografía básica, más notas históricas y literarias, y quizás incluso de esquemas temáticos -o de otro tipo- de la obra. Ciertamente, la presenta edición acierta a la hora de facilitar la lectura del Quijote, pero al mismo tiempo ofrece (u obliga a tomarse, según se mire) amplia libertad al lector y al estudiante para complementar su conocimiento de la obra con otras fuentes. Los diversos ensayos que enmarcan las dos partes del Quijote ofrecen una sugestiva, aunque extraordinariamente breve aproximación al texto. Por esa misma regla de tres cabría preguntarse: ¿por qué no ofrecer más guía, más información, más consejos? ¿Por qué no contextualizar mejor el texto con más notas históricas, literarias y críticas? ¿Por qué no acentuar su orientación   —183→   pedagógica y académica, como lo han hecho otras ediciones recientes de la misma obra a partir de notas explicativas y nuevas tecnologías como el CD-ROM?

En cualquier caso, sería injusto a todas luces juzgar un trabajo por lo que no se propone conseguir. En consecuencia, y ciñéndonos al objetivo explícito de su edición, el trabajo de los profesores Fajardo y Parr ciertamente logra poner al alcance de los lectores la obra maestra de la literatura hispánica en una edición de lectura ágil y llana a un nivel literal.

Washington University

Aylward, E. T. The Crucible Concept: Thematic and Narrative Patterns in Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares. Madison, New Jersey: Fairleigh Dickinson UP, 1999. 327 pp.

In this study, Aylward expands critical models used by other Cervantes scholars in previous studies of specific texts, and draws upon his own theories from Cervantes: Pioneer and Plagiarist (1982), to analyze the Novelas ejemplares (1613) as an ordered collection. He states in the introduction that his heaviest debt is to the late Ruth El Saffar, whose «alchemical» approach to the purification of the protagonists' values in Cervantes's posthumously published romance, the Persiles (1617), provides the basis for his own interpretation of the narrative process through which the novelas' overarching thematic coherence is achieved. In considering the Novelas, Aylward argues that «What these twelve stories have in common is the narrative technique by which Cervantes repeatedly subjects his protagonists' lives to a painful purification process that I call the crucible concept: a solutio or acid bath that strips away all the tangential elements of the human psyche and ultimately yields a pure nugget of psychological and spiritual integrity» (15). Characterizing the Novelas as an «otherwise curious and incongruous collection» (11), Aylward takes as his point of departure the assumption that Cervantes's narratives are structured upon a Christian romance subtext that makes their resolution predictable, despite the gritty, or novelistic, trials endured by the characters as their stories unfold (19). Aylward admittedly positions this study within a corpus of traditional Cervantes criticism with which he fundamentally agrees, and he cites such novelas studies copiously. Other approaches, particularly feminist and historicist readings of the novelas, are mentioned with the intention of dismissing their validity, with the exception of favorable reference to certain articles by Carroll B. Johnson. For example, when Aylward discusses criticism of «La fuerza de la sangre» in the second chapter, he dispatches an article by Patricia Grieve, stating that «Such feminist criticisms seem valid enough on the surface, but fail to take into account the peculiar circumstances in which Cervantes wrote...» (115). Similarly, in reference to historicist interpretations of «La española inglesa,»   —184→   concludes that «the aforesaid efforts have been wasted on a wild-goose chase» and that the work «simply happens to be one of the Spanish writer's more remarkable feats of legerdemain: Cervantes skillfully lays a veneer of pseudo-historical facts atop a totally imaginative moral tale» (133).

The contribution of his own most recent book, Aylward argues, lies in the discovery of a new series of formal principles governing the arrangement of thenarratives in the Novelas ejemplares collection as a whole. In the ensuing study, work by work, of the narrative strategies that accomplish the representation ofthe moral purification process in Cervantes's characters, Aylward aligns himself with critics (Sobejano, Riley, Gerli) who have found no corresponding formal evolution in the collection from novel to romance nor a polar relationship between groups of its narratives, but rather a hybrid in which novelistic, or realistic, elements are juxtaposed variously with archetypical romance patterns inindividual works. His study, aimed at the formulation of a «theoretical statement about Cervantes's general artistic plan for this unique collection» (31), uses the narratological categories of Seymour Chatman's Story and Discourse: Narrative Structure in Fiction and Film (1978) to tease out some new structural patterns and relationships between the novelas that are not immediately evidentin Cervantes's ordering of the collection. For Aylward, Cervantes's real exemplarity is not the moral «crucible effect» that drives each narrative; it is the author's invention of distinct narrative strategies that permits him to elaborate thetelling of a few basic moral tales in multiple ways, and his carefully orchestrated alternation within the collection of these formal variations on single tales, presumably so that diverse readers' understanding of the lessons will be enhancedby an appreciation of the Novelas ejemplares's artistry. To make sense of the order that Cervantes assigned his novelas in the 1613 Juan de la Cuesta edition, thecritic proposes that they reveal consistent underlying structural narrative patterns, derived from four basic types of story that are arranged in alternation, with incremental variations in the telling or retelling of each sort: novelas with Italianate or idealist story lines but innovative narrative techniques; less innovative, realistic biographical tales from a distinct source -the Porras manuscript; dramas in narrative disguise; and a layered narrative experiment. Of the four cited, according to Aylward, three categories are clearly composed according to the «crucible effect» design of the collection, and the fourth, the alleged Porras works, owe their anomalous elements to Cervantes's having opted to adapt external sources. Working through each of these groupings, Aylward proceeds to analyze the linear development of the narrative discourse that recountsevents in each work according to Chatman's five categories, paying particular attention to the type and number of analeptic narratives and ellipses with which the narrating discourse structures the sequencing of the story told. Finally, he arrives at a classification that is intended to lay bare Cervantes's artistic blueprint for the collection: «each of the Novelas ejemplares can be reduced to one ofseveral storytelling strategies» (34), or narrative patterns, which are alternated according to a balanced plan within the collection. This plan itself is eventually discussed and demonstrated by means of further schematic diagrams in the conclusion (277-88).

Aylward's study consists of the introduction, which positions his study with respect to selected trends in Novelas criticism and gives a plot summary of each novela, five chapters in which he again summarizes narrative structures of individual works while analyzing clusters of novelas according to the affinities he finds in their narrative patterns, and a conclusion that revisits the arrangement of the collection by Cervantes. Following are notes, and an accessibly structured bibliography plus a useful index of critics cited. Chapter One focuses on «La gitanilla» and «La ilustre fregona,» two works of his first loose Italianate grouping linked thematically by the restoration of marriageable daughters to theirproper identity. According to Aylward, both works are structured upon a smoothly flowing series of sequential scenes condensed by ellipses and interrupted two-thirds of the way through by analeptic summary. According to Aylward, the artistic flourish of the second telling (IF) lies in the doubling of scenes and analeptic summaries brought on by the doubling of the male protagonist into both Avendaño and Carriazo. Chapter Two examines structural symmetry in «El amante liberal,» «La fuerza de la sangre,» and «La española inglesa,» the remaining works of Italianate, idealistic type. His analyses and schemas propose that these works exhibit a narrative strategy either of regularly alternating narrative scenes and flashback summaries (AL), or halves (identical or inverse) each bisected by flashback summary (AE, FS). Chapter Three argues that, unlike either of the more complex groups above, the «biographical» works commonly seen as more realistic («Rinconete y Cortadillo,» «El celoso extremeño», and «El licenciado vidriera») are structured as a series of uninterrupted scenes characteristically linked with ellipsis, or the suppression of discursive commentary. Here Aylward invokes the argument of his Cervantes: Pioneer and Plagiarist, attributing this group's noticeably more streamlined narrative development to a common source predating Cervantes's own artistry, the Porras manuscript. Chapter Four focuses on the two novelas that other reader shave also noted for their theatrical elements («Las dos doncellas» and «La Señora Cornelia»), finding in them the shared structure of an extended scene interrupted by both comic interludes and analeptic blocks. He once again argues that the second of the two works further elaborates the techniques of the first by doubling all of its structural components to create an elaborate, «fuguelike» structure aimed at pleasing the tastes of his more sophisticated readers (239). Finally, his fifth chapter finds the two closing novelas, «El casamiento engañoso» and «El coloquio de los perros,» to be the culminating artistic experiment of the collection, two independent narratives fused as one, and hence properly placed at the end to draw the readers' attention to Cervantes's artistry. The Conclusion, sketching all the novelas individually for the third time in the study and offering fourteen more structural schemas for a total of fifty-two, argues that Cervantes deliberately ordered his collection for publication with the intention of alternating works according both to their thematic and their structural elements, closing with a hybrid of two tales focused on what he has been doing throughout-storytelling.

One might question the adequacy of the Chatman model to the study of the author in question, for it almost clinically severs the complex and playful   —186→   relationship between the planes of discours and histoire that many critics havepondered in Cervantes's exemplary narratives, and the question of irony is for the most part not considered. The relationship of narrative discourse to the stories told in the Novelas ejemplares in this study appears to be relegated to variations on formal sequencing, not the narrator's manipulation of the readers'perceptions in ways that challenge them to play an active role in thinking about the messages of the works they read. Aylward's claim to have «offered a new theoretical approach to the reading of Cervantes's 1613 collection of short stories» (288) may well strike readers as an overly ambitious assessment of his study. Nevertheless, in applying Chatman's paradigm to each of the novelas, he does, in a series of finely detailed analyses, offer further insights into the diversity of their narrative structures; his argument about Cervantes's concealed plan for the structural patterning in the collection's order will convince some readers and leave others skeptical. In addition to its narratological analyses, this study offers multiple detailed synopses of the novelas themselves and is informed by a broad knowledge of bibliography in the field, which should make it useful particularly for the non-specialist reader.