From: Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America
19.1 (1999): 149-53.
Copyright © 1999, The Cervantes Society of America
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Clamurro, William H. Beneath the Fiction: The Contrary Worlds of
Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares. New York: Peter Lang, 1997. 317
pp.
The decade of the 1990s resonates with
a renewed interest in Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares. Thomas R. Hart,
Joseph V. Ricapito, Francisco J. Sánchez, and Theresa Ann Sears, among
others, have all recently published book-length studies of the
novelas. In addition, numerous articles, dissertations, and theses
have focused their attention on these shorter companions of Don Quijote.
Poststructural critical tendencies have allowed scholars to view the Novelas
ejemplares, previous critical investigations, and the reading process
itself in creatively new yet textually valid ways. Many scholars have discovered
that the novelas provide a rich synthesis of the themes, devices,
and novelties that Cervantes employs in his other narrative and dramatic
works, particularly in Don Quijote. In Beneath the Fiction: The
Contrary Worlds of Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares, William H. Clamurro,
a seasoned reader and an impeccable writer, adds fresh, thoughtful insights
and delightful prose to the ever-expanding roster of interpretations that
contribute to our interaction with the corpus of Cervantine works and
criticism.
What Clamurro sees “beneath the fiction”
or beyond the plot in the majority of the novelas is a search for
identity played out within the often “contrary worlds” of discourse
and meaning, of narration and interpretation, and of dominant versus deviant
cultures. Clamurro contends that although most of the tales champion a
conservative view of society and morality, in so doing they
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| 150 | ERIC J. KARTCHNER | Cervantes |
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also uncover social inequalities, prejudices, and repressed cultures. The
ironic and inconsistent presentation of non-favored cultures problematizes
the question of exemplarity and the message received by the reader. As implied
in Cervantes's prologue, reading becomes a game; the text, a mystery. Clamurro
suggests that by playing the game, the reader gains an “exemplary
education” (13) and (re)confronts the mysteries of his or her own life.
Clamurro demonstrates through his own approach one reader's interpretation
(albeit with extensive and careful consideration of previous scholarship)
of the highly complex novelas, giving special attention to questions
of identity, of language, and of social order.
Chapter 1, “La gitanilla: Value
and Identity,” recognizes the elements of romance present in the text
but emphasizes the subversion of romantic conventions. Money, economic exchange,
and the objectification of women all tend to dissipate the clouds of romantic
illusion. Andrés and Preciosa, for example, are both partially defined
by their unwillingness to participate in the less savory aspects of the gypsy
lifestyle, particularly theft. Ironically, Preciosa finds her identity by
losing her autonomy or, as Clamurro aptly states, through restoration and
subsequent loss —the opposite of the normal sequence of events in romance
(32). Among the many other interesting points that Clamurro successfully
argues in this chapter is that Clemente, the paje-poeta, is best viewed
as a complement of don Juan de Cárcamo (Andrés), not as his
rival.
Chapter 2, “The Frontiers of Identity:
El amante liberal,” emphasizes the importance of the world of
the Turks in the transformation of the main characters' identity. Clamurro
suggests that in order to understand Ricardo's dilemma more fully, we must
recognize the dangerous parallels between his plight and that of the renegade
Mahamut. The Ottoman Empire held an enticing, exotic appeal to single, young,
educated, Christian males who were willing to embrace Islam. “For Ricardo
and Mahamut, captivity and apostasy are destinations, destinies, or detours
that mutually intersect and illuminate each other” (51). Each character
chooses a distinct path, and each depends upon the other in order to regain
his true identity. Clamurro also demonstrates that the discourse reflects
Ricardo's general evolution from egotism to liberality. Leonisa, represented
or bound throughout the story by Ricardo's narrations, regains her own voice,
her own verbal space in the text, as her bonds of captivity are loosed. Although
her freedom is still subjected to the will of her father, she nevertheless
emerges from her ordeal with a limited autonomy and freely chooses her
husband.
In chapter 3, “The Carnival of Crime:
Rinconete y Cortadillo,” Clamurro entertains the notion that
this novela serves as an entremés within the collection
as a whole. Whereas the majority of the novelas focus on problems
of identity, Rinconete y Cortadillo lacks plot and character development
and emphasizes, rather, “questions of language and social order”
(73). The two boys, in a state of pre-sexual innocence, serve as guides into
Monipodio's subworld of violence and sex, viewing, experiencing, and commenting
on a previously unexplored world with fresh eyes. Yet, although the criminal
world is unveiled, little attention is
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placed on the social implications of the deviant behavior. The text seems
to decriminalize Monipodio's world at the same time that it launches a
conventional condemnation. The emphasis of the text, Clamurro explains, is
on language. The characters are mere “masquers, actors in an
entremés” who “evaporate as soon as the clatter of the stage
and the banter of the dialogue ceases” (97).
Chapter 4, “The Sins of the Father: La
española inglesa,” highlights the ignominy of Clotaldo's
kidnaping of Isabela. Clamurro suggests that Clotaldo's motivation for abducting
Isabela was sexual. Ricaredo's later attraction replaces his father's suppressed
desires, and the lovers' pain and suffering in their trials partially redeems
Clotaldo's sin. Clamurro points out, however, that while it may appear that
Ricaredo, a noble, would be honoring Isabela, a merchant's daughter, by marrying
her, perhaps that was not the case. Ricaredo, though noble, was English.
Isabela, lacking aristocratic titles, was nevertheless rich and, more
importantly, Spanish. Clamurro concludes that the story “suggests a
quite radical inversion of social hierarchical values, identities, and
conventional beliefs” (121). With Cervantine complexity, the
novela ends without resolving serious questions regarding paternal
redemption and the social status of the protagonists.
Chapter 5, “Anonymity, Madness, and the
Decadence of Empire: El licenciado Vidriera,” discusses the elusive
identity of the protagonist and extrapolates parallels in Spanish society.
Tomás's futile death in Flanders and his insignificant wanderings
in his early years tellingly remind us, suggests Clamurro, of the decline
of Spain. Throughout the novela, Tomás demonstrates an aptitude
for adaptation but an inability to adopt a single persona. His identity,
therefore, remains ambiguous. In a similar fashion, Spain at the time was
having difficulty defining its national boundaries, both cultural and
geographical. Through Vidriera's invectives, the text exposes the social
prejudices and attitudes that marked the day. Tomás Rueda/Vidriera/Rodaja,
an anonymous man with multiple or no identity, represents “the many-faceted
decadence” (148) of the Spanish Empire.
In chapter 6, “Redemption and Identity:
La fuerza de la sangre,” Clamurro focuses on the problem of identity.
On the one hand, identity is determined by social rank; on the other, through
individual conflicts. Clamurro suggests that the inferior social status of
Leocadia's family places them in a position of weakness from the beginning
of the story. As a result of Rodolfo's social status and violence, Leocadia
is forced to abandon her identity, to suffer her shame in silence. Her eventual
marriage to Rodolfo restores her honor, and, suggests Clamurro, her identity.
Yet at what cost? Clamurro hints that it is improbable that Rodolfo did not
recognize Leocadia upon his return from Italy; he also, however, highlights
the darkness, swiftness, and confusion of the abduction and rape. Clamurro
notes that Rodolfo does not ask for forgiveness, but he does not mention
that the rapist might be impenitent. Is it not possible, and even probable,
that both times that Rodolfo sees Leocadia his hormones blind his vision,
making it unlikely that he will remember the delicate physical details of
a face? Perhaps, Leocadia's identity is blurred forever. As Clamurro suggests,
she is woman
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| 152 | ERIC J. KARTCHNER | Cervantes |
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returned to “silence and conventional submission” (162), submission,
that is, to male authority and desire.
Chapter 7, “Eros, Material, and the
Architecture of Desire: El celoso extremeño,” convincingly
demonstrates the absence of love, the emphasis on materiality, and the brilliant
construction of a plot driven by non-erotic desires. Carrizales uses his
wealth to stifle rather than to stimulate erotic desire. Loaysa penetrates
the home to satisfy vanity, not lust. Leonora's betrayal of her husband's
trust owes more to curiosity than to lechery. Clamurro highlights the selfishness
of Carrizales, the feminine aspects of Loaysa (his seduction of Luis, the
display and adoration of his body, his inability to violate Leonora), and
the non-adulterous yet destructive infidelities of Leonora. The denouement,
concludes Clamurro, is disturbingly difficult to interpret: Carrizales is
selfishly magnanimous; Loaysa, a weak imitation of Carrizales, departs for
the New World with high hopes and poor possibilities; Leonora enters a convent
without clarifying the mystery surrounding the violation of her vows. In
the end, we are not sure how to view “personal identity, moral values,
or social order” (189).
Chapter 8, “Identity and Social Order:
La ilustre fregona,” highlights the heterogeneity of discourse
and by so doing underscores the complexity of individual identity and social
order. Clamurro suggests that in addition to mixing genres, in this
novela Cervantes creates textual spaces such as the inn in which
characters of different social ranks and linguistic abilities can mix and
associate, creating numerous languages and discourses. This particular
posada also serves as a theater that draws spectators and actors from
all levels of society in their efforts to observe or to “court”
(ironically, at the inn) the fregona. Heterogeneity also often manifests
itself in the speech of a single given character, mixing the languages and
registers of society. Clamurro concludes that in this novela questions
of personal identity are normally satisfied with reference to money, social
rank, and, significantly, to the written word. In addition, with the multiple
wedding of the denouement Cervantes expands the restoration theme from the
individual to the society, establishing, once again, conventional conservative
values.
In chapter 9, “Pathos and Melodrama: Las
dos doncellas and La señora Cornelia,” Clamurro
underscores the role of disguise, of sexual transgressions, and of broken
promises in defining personal identity and social relationships. As in previous
novelas, individual identity is defined according to the values of
the aristocracy. Women are allowed to cross-dress under certain conventional
circumstances, and while dressed as men, they enjoy masculine freedoms and
often extraordinary physical prowess. Clamurro notes that the clothes one
wears is so tied to one's identity that Cornelia failed to recognize her
baby when it was clothed in rags yet immediately identified it when its
“proper” clothes were restored. Clamurro also notes that wealth
and nobility seem to grant a certain licence to Cervantine aristocratic males
to mislead and to lie to members of the opposite sex. Later, whether repentant
or not, these young libertines are rewarded with marriage to a beautiful
woman and assume a respectable position in the traditional patriarchal society
in which his wife no longer has a voice.
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| 19.1 (1999) | Review | 153 |
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The final chapter, “Confession, Commentary,
and the End of Fiction: El casamiento engañoso and El coloquio
de los perros,” highlights the metafictionality of Campuzano's tales
and stresses the playfulness and openness of the collection as a whole. Clamurro
insists that the Casamiento/Coloquio is a text about how to read texts,
that it implicitly urges us to reread all the novelas. He strongly
disagrees with critics who only see chaotic episodes in these final tales.
Structurally and thematically ordered to near perfection, these stories,
Clamurro suggests, display chaos only in their disruption of our systematic
interpretation of the previous texts. Love relationships, personal identity,
the value of social relationships, and the act of fabulation itself are all
scrutinized and questioned in these tales. In the Casamiento/Coloquio,
identity is, “in its acutely complex and shifting nature, a device for
the exploring of larger questions. Social order . . . [is] revealed
as something other than the comforting, always renewed and renewable source
of affirmation” (289). Unlike the first ten stories, the
Casamiento/Coloquio purposely leaves loose ends and apparent disorder,
forcing the reader to reassess his or her interpretations of other
novelas and of previous assumptions regarding the dependability of
the patriarchal system.
Clamurro's interpretations expand the thesis
proposed by Theresa Ann Sears in A Marriage of Convenience (1994).
Sears appears to deny the validity of critical analyses that refuse to grant
priority to the hegemony of the patriarchal order in the novelas.
Clamurro confirms that most of the stories provide a prescriptive example
of submission to the will of the father, of eventual suppression of individual
identity for the betterment of the family, but he also emphasizes the presence
and the importance of the “other” (sub-cultures, doubles) in
Cervantes's texts. Although Clamurro does not explicitly counter Sears's
thesis, he seems clearly to suggest that the text itself invites the reader
to challenge the surface structure, to look for deeper issues. From simulated
gypsies to talking dogs, the Novelas ejemplares continuously stress
that things are not what they seem, that we always need to take another look,
to make an additional evaluation from a new perspective.
In the short amount of space that I have taken
to review a number of Clamurro's key points, I have only uncovered a small
portion of his original contributions. Clamurro's discussion tends to focus
on identity, language, and society; nevertheless, his insights range over
a wide variety of subjects and include commentary and references to numerous
scholars and critical approaches. His poststructuralist, reader-oriented
approach respects previous scholarship, recognizes the legitimacy of differing
opinions, and presents itself with clarity and conviction. In addition to
its value to cervantistas, the well-defined arguments, the concise
plot summaries, and the clear explanations of critical trends make Clamurro's
book an excellent choice for advanced and graduate novela courses.
Specialist and novice alike will enjoy examining the contrary worlds of
Beneath the Fiction.
| Eric J. Kartchner |
| University of North Texas |
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| Fred Jehle jehle@ipfw.edu | Publications of the CSA | H–Cervantes |
| URL: http://www.h-net.org/~cervantes/csa/artics99/kartchne.htm | ||