"Tropelía" or "novela": Cervantine notes on "Que yo soy el primero que ha novelado en lengua castellana"

Abstract

Cervantes' Don Quixote may be seen as a practical and ironic contribution to the contemporary controversy on Aristoteles' Poetica meaning. Prom this point departure this paper studies the first part of the novel (1605) "dispositio" so as to reach two different conclusions:

l. DQ puts at play the neoaristotelian notions of "fábula" y "episodio" in order to create a new kind of narrative. The distinguising feature of the new artifact will be the coexistence of two different and interplaying text levels: narration and discourse. The discourse level will show how the characters strive to establish a clear distintion between fÏction and truth (esthetic, moral, sentimental), and how they suceed in doing so. The narrative level, on the contrary, will show how those same characters act against the principies they had so clearly, and theoretically, adhered.

2. This textual formula is the base a new genre: the modern novel. However, DQ is not a mere literary experimenl. In fact, Cervantes creation is the final result, beyond the neoaristotelian debate of a moral and intelectual need to ponder on the position man within the world. And so, DQ is an intelectual exercise that aim at showing how the modern individual conscience is a battlefield where conflicting ideas ahout reality come in question: on lhe one side, the potentialy unlimited new and subjective visions of reality; on the other side, visions -readings- imposed by tradition.