5—
The Burlesque Sonnets in Don Quixote

The Sonnets and Don Quixote

The sonnets that frame Part One of Don Quixote contain the same humorous spirit as the rest of the novel. They share in the same madness that envelops the entire work. Yet from within this all-encompassing humor, the poems have meaning on several distinct, yet overlapping, levels.^[1] First, they reflect outward as a comment on current literary practices. Through the encomiums our novelist parodies the accepted custom of including laudatory verse (especially sonnets) among the preliminaries to published books. The Argamasillian epitaphs mock the Spanish literary academies that were closer to cliquish tertulias than Cervantes would have liked. Next, the sonnets reflect inward to the "history" itself and comment upon it as a chivalric romance. The sonnets are also shaped a great deal by the literature of buffoonery. And within that broad context they contain many carnivalesque elements. Finally, the sonnets also have a personal, "underground" meaning. They are full of allusions to the surrounding literary mundillo and to Cervantes's circle of acquaintances, especially Lope de Vega.

In the first study done of the Quixote burlesque sonnets, Pierre Lioni Ullman notes that these verses form a framework which is "linked intimately with the very structure of the novel."^[2] Ullman feels that they are connected to the novel in three ways: they introduce Cervantes's perspectivist technique (by describing the reactions of different characters to the same situation); they are a prelude to the intricate ways in which he plays with the time dimension; and they "make the reader realize that his seemingly closed book not only merges at its con-

clusion with the flowing current of literature, but also issued therefrom."^[3]

Ullman's findings are valuable as the first attempt at interpreting the sonnets; however, his article leaves many levels of significance untouched. The poems help to create a balanced, coherent novel out of the jumble of Don Quixote's adventures. This they do both stylistically and in terms of content. The preliminary sonnets introduce the irony and paradox—the humor—that is the cornerstone of the great novel. The book is initiated with a paradox: in his introduction Cervantes states his wish to offer his story to the reader "monda y desnuda, sin el ornato de prólogo, ni de la inumerabilidad y catálogo de los acostumbrados sonetos, epigramas y elogios que al principio de los libros suelen ponerse [plain and unadorned, without the embellishment of a prologue (which—paradox within paradox—he is in the middle of creating) or the lengthy catalogue of the usual sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the beginning of books]." Nevertheless, the very next lines to issue from his pen are the accustomed poems he has just rejected. The sonnets that close the book also house a paradox. While they are supposedly epitaphs, they are written before Don Quixote's death, or at least before the cartapacios containing the history of the hero's third sally are found. Encomiums that are not encomiums; epitaphs that are not epitaphs. What, then, are they? As we shall see, they are many things and none in particular.

The panegyrics are paradoxical in other ways. Cervantes tells us his book will not have encomiastic verse, yet it does. However, he parodies the custom with ridiculous poems. In terms of logic, we have a double negative. Do the poems negate or affirm Cervantes's prologue statement? Are they a true praise of the book and its characters? Or are they really what we take them to be at first glance—attacks against the pretentious and false-ringing laudatory sonnets so ubiquitous in contemporary literature, and to which Cervantes himself contributed on more than one occasion? This ironic ambiguity naturally helps join the novel to the contemporary literature of buffoonery.

In his study of the Quixote prologue with respect to Praise of Folly, Antonio Vilanova argues convincingly for the Moria as

being known by Cervantes and as a source of inspiration for parts of Don Quixote . As he says, it is certainly not a question of plagiarism, but rather "bajo el estímulo y la incitación de la Moria erasmiana, la originalidad creadora de Cervantes ha adaptado genialmente a sus propósitos y ha hecho suyas una serie de ideas ajenas [With his original creativity Cervantes has brilliantly adapted a series of Erasmus's thoughts, expressed in the Moria, to his own purposes]."^[4] Vilanova points out a series of correspondences between Cervantes's prologue and the text of Erasmus's Praise of Folly . One of these is Erasmus's invective against foolish writers who inundate each other with mutual praise. Vilanova feels Cervantes's intent in the prologue is identical: to satirize the hyperbolic laudatory verse customarily interchanged by poets.

It is true that if Cervantes needed an immediate source of inspiration for his satire, Praise of Folly certainly provided it. However, he develops the satire far beyond Erasmus. Instead of being content with his prologue statement, Cervantes apparently contradicts it by incurring in the same "vice" he is criticizing. By making his panegyrics ridiculous, however, he advances the satire even more. His sonnets not only burlesque the practice in general, but also allow him to personalize his mockery by filling the poems with specific allusions. Unfortunately, at a distance of three-and-a-half centuries these allusions are in great measure obscure.

It should be remembered also that the authors of the sonnets are not professional writers but protagonists of other books and readers of Don Quixote . Just as Cervantes is the stepfather of the novel, he is necessarily also the stepfather of the sonnets. Written as they are by characters from romances of chivalry, the poems never leave the ambit of novelistic fantasy and are sheathed in several layers of fancy. They represent readers of a former age responding to a future hero, who are at the same time mythical heroes responding to their betters. But the chivalric sonnets also represent the reception of the culmination of a genre by previous works within that genre. In fact, Cervantes is creating a type of early and reverse Rezeptionsästhetik, anticipating and novelizing reception theory 350 years before it comes into vogue. The paladins' horizon of expectations (to use

the term coined by Hans-Robert Jauss) must of necessity be different than that of the contemporary reader. Precisely because of this, and because they themselves are chivalric heroes, Amadís and his colleagues naturally read Don Quixote as history rather than as fiction. In addition, this sheds even more light on how Don Quixote perceives himself. For the brave knights and fair ladies who author the sonnets, Don Quixote is hardly a funny book. It is instead what Don Quixote (in the second part when he becomes aware of its existence) perceives it to be: the history of the greatest knight errant ever. Thus the sonnets become novels within a novel: the protagonists of previous romances leap forward to react to and to help write the history of Don Quixote.

Cervantes has disavowed authorship in favor of Cide Hamete-like "first" authors. But just as Don Quixote has a second author (or narrator), so do the sonnets. If we go back to the prologue and review Cervantes's words to the friend who enters and finds him perplexed before his problematic prologue, we hear him announce:

También ha de carecer mi libro de sonetos al principio, a los menos de sonetos cuyos autores sean duques, marqueses, condes, obispos, damas o poetas celebérrimos; aunque si yo los pidiese a dos o tres oficiales amigos, yo sé que me los darían, y tales que no les igualasen los de aquellos que tienen más nombre en nuestra España.

[Also my book must do without sonnets at the beginning, at least sonnets whose authors are dukes, marquises, counts, bishops, ladies, or famous poets. Although if I were to ask two or three friendly tradesmen, I know they would give me some, and such that the productions of those that have the highest reputation in our Spain could not equal.]

As is well known, the barb is for Lope, whose multitude of works written immediately prior to the publication of Part One of Don Quixote each contained a plethora of encomiastic sonnets written by just such personalities as Cervantes describes.^[5] Needless to say, many of these sonnets were actually written by Lope himself and christened under another's name. This practice is subsequently satirized by Cervantes, when the friend in the prologue tells him that the problem with the sonnets he lacks:

se puede remediar en que vos mesmo toméis algún trabajo en hacerlos, y después los podéis bautizar y poner el nombre que quisiéredes, ahijándolos al Preste Juan de las Indias o al Emperador de Trapisonda . . . y [si] hubiere algunos pedantes y bachilleres que por detrás os muerdan y murmuren desta verdad, no se os dé dos maravedís; porque ya que os averigüen la mentira, no os han de cortar la mano con que lo escribistes.

[can be removed if you yourself take a little trouble to write them. You can afterwards baptize them and give them any name you like, fathering them of Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond . . . and (if) any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question the fact, don't let it bother you two maravedís' worth, for even if they prove a lie against you, they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with.]

This, of course, is Cervantes's final solution. But the authorship smoke screen he wafts around the sonnets has a very definite purpose. Just as Erasmus's Stultitia provides ironic distance that intervenes between Erasmus and his satire, the "authors" of the sonnets provide Cervantes with the ironic distance he needs from which he can mock and criticize at will. On a simplistic level he can always disclaim responsibility for what is said in them. At the same time he is satirizing the ultimate vanity displayed by Lope and other contemporary poets: self-aggrandizement, the trait embodied by Philautia (Self-Love), one of Stultitia's attendants in Praise of Folly . On a structural and stylistic level, he is also anticipating the ambiguity and the ironic distance to be created within the body of the novel by the authorship confusion between Cide Hamete, the translator, the narrator, and the second author.^[6]

In spite of this obvious ploy, well-respected Hispanists have used Cervantes's words in the prologue to support their arguments in favor of non-Cervantine authorship of some of the Quixote poems. For instance, Marcel Bataillon has affirmed that nothing proves that Urganda's décimas come from Cervantes's pen.^[7] He suggests that Gabriel Lasso de la Vega might be the "donoso poeta entreverado" and author of Urganda's preliminary verses, and that the epitaphs that close the book "sugieren la idea de una mixtificación colectiva procedente de un cenáculo

quijotizante de Valladolid, disfrazado de 'Academia de Argamasilla' [suggest the idea of a collective hoax on the part of a quixotic group from Valladolid, disguised as the 'Academia de la Argamasilla']."^[8]

However, to rob Cervantes of authorship of the preliminary verses and the epitaphs is unnecessary. Following Bataillon's logic, it is equally true to say that nothing disproves that Urganda's (and the poeta entreverado's) verses come from Cervantes's pen. Given the lack of factual evidence, we should rely on the most logical conclusion. Cervantes is burlesquing a custom he abhorred (at least in principle), and one in which his arrogant rival indulged to excess.^[9] Why beg verses from other lesser poets (Lasso's poetry, for example, is quite inferior to that of Cervantes), even in jest, when Cervantes was perfectly capable of writing his own? If he had requested poems from his friends, would they not have written serious encomiums as they did for his earlier Galatea and subsequent Novelas ejemplares ? Surely it is safer to assume that the same "pluma mai cortada" that wrote the sonnet adorning the Viaje del Parnaso was ultimately responsible for the Quixote verses. This is Cervantes at his most typical—spinning an equivocal web around his readers and drawing them into his juego de espejos . Although the joke is supposedly on Lope, is it not also ultimately on the reader (either contemporary or modern-day) as we try to extricate ourselves—using logic—from this labyrinth?

In the Quixote poems Cervantes successfully expands and joins the early burlesque sonnet tradition to the current of humor typified by the literature of buffoonery. Through the burlesque sonnets Cervantes has firmly subsumed and locked the novel into a solid buffoonesque structure. To disregard this connection has serious implications for an understanding of the author's purpose in writing his novel. The question of whether Don Quixote was meant to be primarily a "funny book," and whether it was read as such, has gained attention in post-Romantic Cervantine studies.^[10] Nevertheless, the burlesque framework that is every reader's first and last contact with Part One of the novel has been overlooked in this regard. The oftcited phrases from the prologue:

[T]odo él es una invectiva contra los libros de caballerías . . . vuestra escritura. no mira a más que a deshacer la autoridad y cabida que en el mundo y en el vulgo tienen los libros de caballerías . . . Ilevad la mira puesta a derribar la máquina mal fundada destos caballerescos libros.

[it is, from beginning to end, an attack upon the books of chivalry . . . this piece of yours aims at nothing more than to destroy the authority and influence that books of chivalry have in the world and with the public . . . keep your aim fixed on the destruction of that ill-founded edifice of the books of chivalry.]

are translated into poetry in the burlesque encomiums. Therefore, these poems definitely support the thesis that Don Quixote was primarily a "funny book" (i.e., a parody). This is not to say, however, that it cannot have a serious purpose. The problem is one of degree and of terminology: what does "funny" actually mean? Don Quixote is, above all else, a humorous rather than a funny book. And humor most often implies a serious intent.

Cervantes's humor has been shown to be different from mere comicity. His is an extremely thoughtful (i.e., self-conscious) mode of expression whose ideas are just as complex as those of reflective, "serious" literature. Unfortunately, the lingering inclinations of Romantic criticism (which tended to neglect the comic aspects of the book in favor of a more philosophical-symbolic interpretation), plus the residue of neoclassical canons of literary "good taste" (which frowned upon what they considered to be base laughter), continue to blind us to the merits of the comic. Because of this we still tend to classify humorous literature as secondary. However, true humor is neither frivolous nor shallow.

The hypothesis of humor as fundamentally serious has been well defended by Wenceslao Fernández Flórez, himself an accomplished humorist. His conference pronounced upon entrance into the Real Academia Española is one of the clearest analyses and most eloquent vindications of humor written in Spanish. The novelist starts by astutely pointing out that "el humor no puede ser solemne, pero es serio [humor cannot be solemn, but it is serious]."^[11] He speaks of the importance of

humor as a vehicle for ideas as well as emotions, and of its relative paucity in Spanish literature (which tends to be more fond of satire). With respect to "la subestimación del humor y la idea comúnmente mantenida de que está en los arrabales de la literatura y que suele ser producido por hombres que cifran sus ansias en alegrar, sin otras consecuencias, los ocios de los demás [the undervaluation of humor and the commonly held idea that it is marginal literature written by men whose only concern is to gladden the leisure-time of others]," he maintains that humor "ha logrado triunfos trascendentales sobre las costumbres, sobre las leyes, sobre las instituciones humanas . . . allí donde el ceño adusto nada logra, la sonrisa acierta a abrir un camino [has attained transcendental victories over customs, laws, and institutions . . . where a frown achieves nothing, a smile manages to open a path]."^[12]

Thirty years after Fernández Flórez's words, we still face basically the same prejudice. Hence without actually coming to grips with the general problem of why our twentieth-century aesthetic still tends to undervalue the comic, Anthony Close nevertheless reasons intelligently that "to interpret Don Quijote as a burlesque comedy is not necessarily to hold an impoverished view of it as a work of art, nor to reduce the critical problems that may be raised about it to an elementary level."^[13]

In fact, with his Don Quixote Cervantes elevates the comic tradition to the level of humor as initiated by Erasmus in his Moria .

The sonnets' ultimate significance is as fools' dialogues. If we follow the paradoxical logic proferred by Stultitia, we realize that to praise a fool is to be a fool. Therefore, the praisers of the fool Don Quixote are fools themselves. And these fools are passing judgment on the greatest fool of all, and on his foolish history. Don Quixote's madness—his "humor"—reaches back in time to encompass the heroes and heroines of what is, in the final analysis, a foolish (fantastically crazy) genre. Out of this foolish genre Cervantes creates a new madness—the humor of the modern novel. By making this link with the past (the romances of chivalry) and the present (the contemporary literary scene), the sonnets help guide the way toward the future (the

modern novel). The madness that permeates every level of the novel is a blanket of humor under which everything is tucked. And the edges of this blanket are the burlesque sonnets.

Cervantes, as ultimate author of the sonnets and of Don Quixote, also assumes the role of buffoon—the artificial fool who dons the mask of madman in order to point out society's ills. And if Don Quixote teaches us anything, it is that through madness lies freedom. Just as Alonso Quijano's obsession frees him from the tedium of a meaningless life, so Cervantes's irony, paradox, and humor free him from the constraints of an exhausted generic past.

Carnivalesque Elements

With his seminal study of Rabelais in the light of medieval and Renaissance folk culture, Rabelais and His World, Mikhail Bakhtin opened up a whole new area in literary scholarship: the awareness and study of carnivalesque elements and imagery in Renaissance literature.^[14] Bakhtin shows how Carnival was a time of freedom and laughter whose associated festivities and ritualistic comic spectacles "celebrated temporary liberation from the prevailing truth and from the established order."^[15] It was a time of change and renewal, separate from official time; a period of systematic inversions characterized by "the peculiar logic of the 'inside out' (à l'envers ) . . . of numerous parodies and travesties, humiliations, profanations, comic crownings and uncrownings."^[16] In sum, an explosion of ritual madness designed to preserve human sanity during the remainder of the regimented year.

In Don Quixote this carnivalesque madness joins with the humanistic, Erasmian folly already explored. In his masterpiece of humor Cervantes combines classical irony with the liberating, comic laughter of the popular tradition. Both social and literary currents are represented, perfectly interwoven and reconciled, in the Quixote sonnets. These embrace the novel and place it entirely witin a separate time—one of masquerade and make-believe. The book begins and ends in a carnivalesque atmosphere of laughter and parody—one that will surface repeatedly within the body of the text.

An integral part of the carnivalesque upside-down world is the disguise, the theme of the mask. Bakhtin identifies it as

the most complex theme of folk culture. The mask is connected with the joy of change and reincarnation, with gay relativity and with the merry negation of uniformity and similarity; it rejects conformity to oneself. The mask is related to transition, metamorphoses, the violation of natural boundaries, to mockery and familiar nicknames. It contains the playful element of life; it is based on a peculiar interrelation of reality and image, characteristic of the most ancient rituals and spectacles.^[17]

The ubiquitous presence of the mask and masquerades within the body of Don Quixote is one of its outstanding carnivalesque elements (Micomicona, the Knight of the Mirrors, Countess Trifaldi, Barataria, men dressed as women and vice versa, etc.).^[18] These episodes have been amply and well studied. However, one area that has not been mentioned in this respect is the authorship masquerade. Cide Hamete is a masked Cervantes; so are the authors of the sonnets. In the inverted world of the novel, knights of old are revived and transformed into literati to pass judgment on Don Quixote and his history. At the book's end a coterie of wretched Argamasillian poetasters pose as knowledgeable academicians. And Cervantes masquerades as all of these impersonators in order to parody and mock their counterparts in the humorless officialdom of "real" time.

All the playacting within the novel is a reflection of and is ultimately related to the first and foremost of all the masquerades: the masking of the author himself. Therefore, not only are Cervantes's authorship gambits a means of providing ironic distance, but they also anticipate and reflect a procedure he will adopt to great comic effect within the body of Don Quixote . They also wreath the novel in the liberating laughter that characterizes both the book and the festive atmosphere that reigned at the time of its publication.^[19]

In his authorship masquerade Cervantes does not merely affect an assumed name. Instead he takes on the personality of each of the paladins-cum-poets. A stylistic-linguistic analysis of the sonnets reveals that while they all form a cog in the bur-

lesque wheel, each is also quite unique: their individual style matches their "author." The fact that Cervantes creates the sonnets in character is also the reason why they are so "bad": what type of poetry can be expected from such bards? It is to Cervantes's credit that he has produced such inelegant verses; to think that he did not do so deliberately is to misunderstand their purpose. Madariaga and Clemencín fell into this trap when, of Orlando Furioso's encomium of Don Quixote, the former said: "Todo este soneto es malito y enrevesado [This entire sonnet is bad and does not make sense]" and the latter: "El soneto es ininteligible y malo de veras [The sonnet is unintelligible and truly bad]."^[20] Of course, it is; it was written by a madman.

Orlando's convoluted verses (Appendix 49) make sense only when we realize that he speaks from within his madness. The absurd punning (on par as meaning both Peer of Charlemagne's court and "equal") and the manifest inaccuracies of the first quatrain (calling Don Quixote "invito vencedor, jamás vencido"), together with the obscure allusions to Moors and Scythians in the final tercet, are nothing but the ravings of a selfdeclared lunatic for love. Cervantes was an adept sonneteer when he wanted to be; our analysis of the burlesque sonnets independent of Don Quixote has shown just how good they are. He was also capable of producing truly excellent serious sonnets: "¿Quién dejará del verde prado umbroso?" from La Galatea, "Cuando Preciosa el panderete toca" from La Gitanilla, and "Mar sesgo, viento largo, estrella clara" from the Persiles, to cite only a few. Therefore, our author's skill in the Quixote sonnets lies precisely in assuming so perfectly the identity of these ridiculous versemongers; literary decorum required that he do so.

And Cervantes applies the rules of decorum faultlessly to the sonnet panegyrics. Amadís, caballero enamorado par excellence, writes a somewhat soulful rendition of how Don Quixote imitated him and his penance on the Peña Pobre (Appendix 45). He uses the commonplaces of contemporary lyric poetry (the spurned lover who weeps, crazed and alone, surrounded by inhospitable nature) to refer back to himself rather than praise Don Quixote. The hyperbolic tone and sombre vocatives

("tú") are more self-praise given that Amadís perceives Don Quixote as really only imitating him. The sonnet is a mockery not only of the standard love lyric of the time and its incorporation of trite, euphuistic metaphors ("en tanto, al menos, queen la cuarta esfera / sus caballos aguije el rubio Apolo"), but also of the exaggerated poetic encomiums that so stretched the truth as to totally eclipse any semblance of reality. At the same time the sonnet pokes fun at Amadís's exaggerated sentimentality, which had led Maese Nicolás to dub him the "caballero llorón."

To best appreciate Don Belianís de Grecia's masterwork (Appendix 46), we should guide ourselves by the priest's comments to his story, expressed during the scrutiny of Don Quixote's library: "—Pues ése, replicó el cura—, con la segunda, tercera y cuarta parte, tienen necesidad de un poco de ruibarbo para purgar la demasiada cólera suya ['Well,' said the priest, 'that and the second, third, and fourth parts all stand in need of a little rhubarb to purge their excess bile']" (I: 6).

Unfortunately, Don Belianís is quite inaccessible today, but in his edition of Don Quixote Luis Murillo gives further information about this fierce paladin—the man he calls the belligerent and impetuous protagonist of El Libro Primero del valeroso e inuencible Príncipe don Belianís de Grecia : "Recibió un número extraordinario de heridas graves (Clemencin contó ciento y una en los primeros dos libros) porque no era invulnerable ni tenía armas encantadas [he received an extraordinary number of serious injuries (Clemencín counted 101 in the first two books) because he was neither invulnerable nor had magic weapons]" (pp. 62, 72). Therefore, our idea of this knight is of a quick-tempered, violent, and overbearing combatant. The sonnet conforms totally to this image of its author. The fast, choppy rhythm, produced by a surfeit of active verbs set off by commas ("Rompí, corté, abollé, y dije y hice"), reflects his "excess bile" (in other words, the fury typical of most chivalric heroes).^[21] His particular arrogance is obvious in that Don Belianís boasts only of his own feats until he reaches the final verse. There he is obliged to admit that notwithstanding his own great fortune and fame, he does envy Don Quixote's deeds.

As we know, for Maese Nicolás the Caballero del Febo was

superior to all as knight errant.^[22] The paladin acknowledges this recognition and his own sense of superiority shines through his words. Nevertheless, his encomium shares in the same irony as the others. He sarcastically ennobles Don Quixote by christening the humble hero godo . His irony also embraces Dulcinea, who because of Don Quixote has become famous, honest, and wise.

The systematic inversions and related carnivalesque elements we see with respect to the authorship of the poems also abound within the sonnets themselves. For example, Oriana's sonnet to Dulcinea (Appendix 47) is a tremendously ironic presentation of the "world upside-down" theme.^[23] This concept is intimately linked to Carnival and other festive times of misrule in which established order is reversed. In such ritual spectacles as the feast of fools, feast of the ass, Easter laughter (risus paschalis ), joyous societies, and the French sottie, hierarchical levels are inverted and the world is stood on its head. This inversion was captured symbolically and pictorially in Europe on popular broadsheets that depict such scenes as men walking on their hands, fish flying in the air, animals hunting and even roasting men over a fire, and kings waiting on servants. In Spain these scenes were often shown in aleluyas, the earliest of which date from the nineteenth century.^[24]

Helen Grant has pointed out that the idea of the world upside-down necessarily implies a world right-side-up—a harmonious one created by God according to a divine and rational order. Therefore, in the world upside-down divine order has been upset: "Inherent in the commonplace is the concept of an accepted norm, and it is therefore basically conservative."^[25] This conservative view is certainly the one held by many Spanish Baroque writers. For Quevedo the world upside-down is the world created by corrupt man, whom the great satirist never ceases to scourge. It represents the world of hypocritical appearances designed to cloak reality. Quevedo, of course, uses the topos to denounce human vices in the severest of terms. Perhaps the single most striking symbol he creates to represent the world upside-down is the "buscona piramidal" from La hora de todos y la Fortuna con seso who, at the hour of justice, is upturned to reveal the corruption hidden beneath her skirts.

Grant observes the same perspective in Gracián, whose Criticón also contrasts the world as created by God with the world as man makes it.^[26]

Cervantes, as always, takes a much more ambivalent attitude toward humans and their foibles. In the Quixote sonnets he subsumes the world upside-down topos into the larger buffoonesque structure of the book. In Oriana's poem, rather than making a statement about the morality of the world (either upside-down or right-side-up), he is burlesquing both Don Quixote's inverted world and the right-way-up literary world of the romances of chivalry.

Oriana's sonnet hinges on a series of systematic, burlesque inversions. She longs to trade the sumptuous Miraflores for El Toboso and her gowns for Dulcinea's Manchegan livery. She wishes she had been able to escape Amadís's embraces as chastely as Dulcinea did Don Quixote's, to be envied rather than envy, to be happy not sad, to indulge her pleasures without consequence. All these desires are, of course, totally ridiculous within the context of Dulcinea's world. Dulcinea (that is, Aldonza Lorenzo) neither desired Don Quixote nor was even aware of his amorous intentions. The knight was so exceedingly comedido in sensual terms that the idea of Dulcinea having to escape his affections is absurd.

The comicity of this sonnet lies specifically in its absurdity—the outrageousness of a literary world whose capital is El Toboso and whose queen is Dulcinea. Oriana is deposed and Dulcinea is crowned. What we see is the distorted mirror-image of the romance of chivalry, indeed, a feast of fools designed to ridicule and subvert the chivalric ideal. The sonnet heralds the eruption of disorder, madness, and consequently of robust laughter, into officialdom.

Gandalín's sonnet to Sancho (Appendix 48) is a perfect example of the mocking irony that permeates all the poems. Its comicity lies in the adept manipulation of this irony in order to ridicule Sancho by alluding to the coarse nature that belies his squirely vocation. Rather than a proper squire, Sancho becomes the butt of a Carnival joke.

By addressing him with the ludicrously pompous "salve" (a term of address applicable to gods, kings, or generally superior

beings), Gandalín symbolically crowns Sancho carnivalesque king of fools.^[27] This moment will be paralleled in Part Two of Don Quixote when Sancho is finally taken to his chimerical realm "y luego con algunas ridículas ceremonias le entregaron las llaves del pueblo y le admitieron por perpetuo gobernador de la ínsula Barataria [then with burlesque ceremonies they presented him with the keys of the town and acknowledged him as perpetual governor of the island of Barataria]" (II: 45). Indeed, the sonnet follows the same carnivalesque structure that we find in Sancho's mock reign. First he is "exaltado burlescamente" (comically exalted) and finally, "[t]ras un breve gobierno . . . se halla derrocado burlescamente, según los ritos carnavalescos [after a brief reign . . . he is comically overthrown in accordance with Carnival rites]."^[28] At the end of his Baratarian reign Sancho is immobilized and beaten; at the end of the sonnet he is also offended and struck. In the final tercet, Gandalín insults Sancho by addressing him as "buen hombre." Rodríguez Marín has pointed out that the term is derogatory; this is why Don Quixote becomes so incensed when the officer of the Holy Brotherhood addresses him in this way at the inn (I: 17).^[29] The reference to the buzcorona is a final cruel practical joke and is reminiscent of the blows and burlesque abuse that traditionally accompany the uncrowning of the Carnival king at the end of his reign.^[30]

Sancho's ironic vituperation at the hands of Gandalín in this sonnet (and the mistreatment both he and his master suffer within the text) would have been enjoyed as highly comical by the contemporary reader. Seventeenth-century Spain still indulged in a variety of aggressive acts during Carnival which must be understood within the context of the permissiveness of that festival. Julio Caro Baroja insists that Carnival represented a season of gaiety and "ocasión de tertulias donde se contaban chistes, cuentos, chascarrillos obscenos unas veces, sucios otras [occasion for parties where jokes, stories and dirty, at times obscene, tales were told]." At the same time it permitted great license and violent acts such as to "Proferir injurias a los viandantes. . . . Publicar hechos escandalosos que debían mantenerse en secreto. . . . Hacer sátira pública de as interioridades. . . . Ensañarse con determinadas personas [Hurl insults at

passers by . . . Publish scandalous secrets. . . . Make public jokes of private matters. . . . Act with cruelty toward specific people]."^[31] Therefore, the dismay that we feel when we see Sancho ridiculed or Don Quixote trounced was cause for belly laughs among the reading and listening public of 1605. They would relate such violence to the seasonal festivities that were still a part of their world.

Gandalín goes on to sarcastically state that he envies our squire's jumento . Any member of the equine species is, of course, a loaded topic in burlesque literature. The donkey especially fulfills multiple roles within both the folk and the classical traditions. From the twelfth century on in Italy mock testimonials were written in Latin and the vernacular in which asses bequeathed parts of their body to various groups; nuns would often receive the penis. Another vogue of mock encomiums of the ass swept through sixteenth-century Italy. These were most often a form of moralizing social and political satire in which men were unfavorably compared with the humble, patient, and virtuous donkey.^[32] A more classical, adoxographic tone characterizes an encomium of the ass contained in Pero Mexía's 1547 Diálogos . In it the donkey is praised for its humility and integrity, as well as for its practicality: the she-ass's milk is recommended as both an antidote for poison and a skin cleanser, the animal is a good mount for soldiers, and even its meat is tasty.^[33] The quadruped was also prominent in the fable tradition, symbolizing stupidity and obstinacy.^[34]

From the Middle Ages on, the ass was the traditional mount of the cuckold and of the husband who allowed himself to be beaten by his wife. These unfortunate souls would be forced to ride, facing backward, through the streets of fifteenth- and sixteenth-century French towns, suffering the derision of the crowds. This "chevauchée de l'âne" was gradually incorporated into the Carnival activities ("âneries") of certain towns wherein the "âniseur" would be officially designated from among the citizenry or, at times, replaced by a straw puppet.^[35]

In addition to the roles mentioned above, the ass is also traditionally associated with carnality; during Carnival it often symbolized Priapus.^[36] As does Sancho, the king in various carnivalesque rituals rode a donkey. The animal also figured prom-

inently in the Feast of Fools and the Feast of the Ass. In these festivals a donkey was introduced into the church and "asinine masses" were celebrated in which the priest and congregation would engage in comic braying. Thus the mention of Sancho's Dapple brings a wealth of richly symbolic and largely comical connotations to the poem.

Gandalín's initial sarcasm is the idea that Fortune, the Goddess who typically acted capriciously and blindly when apportioning her favors, proceeded "cuerdamente" (wisely) when initiating the novel squire and allowing him to escape unscathed from his duties ("sin desgracia alguna"). The ironic allusion is, of course, to the countless beatings and ignominious blanketing poor Sancho suffered in Part One.^[37] The terms "varón" and "trato (escuderil)" are highly suggestive in the initial verses. The first is a term charged with significance, generally indicating a virile man of good judgment, noble conscience, and valor. To apply it to Sancho brings immediately to mind his rotund figure and occasionally cowardly nature. "Trato" is also an ambiguous word not free of negative connotations. It can suggest the idea of negotiation or unsavory dealings of many kinds; Gandalín uses it to suggest that Sancho has usurped the profession of squire and to expose his chivalrous pretensions.

Other terms point to Sancho's peasant accoutrements (azada, hoz, alforjas ) to mock his rusticity. Once again, it is the world upside-down theme; these implements are a burlesque inversion of the knightly appurtenances of sword, shield, and finery. The words themselves represent the intromission of a comic and grotesque lexicon into the sublimity of poetry and chivalry. At the same time, and in keeping with Sancho's implicit role of Carnival king, the hoe and sickle can ironically symbolize his "sceptre," that is, his fool's bauble or bladder. Because natural fools were very often of peasant origin, an historical link can be established between the buffoon and the rustic.^[38] Thus these references to Sancho's rusticity provide additional oblique allusions to his carnivalesque nature.

Through his irony and malicious allusions Gandalín effectively lampoons Sancho's doubtful squirehood and reveals his true nature. In fact, he operates in much the same way as the

heartless duke and duchess who fabricate Sancho's government in order to make fun of his rustic characteristics—"tontería, glotonería y cobardía" (foolishness, gluttony, and cowardice).^[39] By doing so he points out our squire's undeniable links to the Carnival tradition.

The most enigmatic of all the encomiastic sonnets is the one written by Solisdán to Don Quixote (Appendix 51). He is the only unknown element among the paladins and the only one to reveal a true understanding of Don Quixote's madness and of his history. Three-and-a-half centuries later, Solisdán's identity still remains a puzzle. Over the years several critics have tried to identify him. Clemencín judged him to be a fictional invention of Cervantes. Shevill declared his name a misprint for Solimán, emperor of Trapisonda (from the Caballero del Febo ). Riquer believed him to be a character in a now-lost romance of chivalry. According to Paul Groussac, Solisdán is an anagram for Lassindo, Bruneo de Bonamar's squire who was knighted the same day as Gandalín from the Amadís cycle.^[40] Justo García Soriano feels that Solisdán is Alonso de Castillo Solórzano, pointing out that if the "i" is removed from his name, what remains is a perfect anagram for "D. Alonso."^[41]

Each of these theories is necessarily problematic. Why should Cervantes invent only one paladin while transposing others from well-known chivalric romances? If the name Solisdán were a misprint, why was it not corrected in subsequent editions? And if he were Solimán, why would an emperor be included among a group of otherwise celebrated heroes? Since all the other paladins are protagonists of best-selling romances of chivalry, it does not seem likely that Solisdán could be from a romance not popular enough to have survived. Surely his name would at least have been mentioned in other works. What is the purpose of using an anagram in only one sonnet? And if adopting a character from the Amadís cycle, why use an archaic style not characteristic of those books? And why not use similar archaizing language in the other sonnets? Why create a name to satirize Castillo and not Lope? And why would Cervantes bother with an anagram when all the sonnets contain allusions to his enemies, anyway?

A logical conclusion is that Solisdán is, in fact, a Cervantine

invention.^[42] In the first place, all the other paladin poets are mentioned or their actions are to some extent paralleled within the text of Don Quixote . Also, because these heroes were well known to the contemporary reader, Cervantes was somewhat constrained stylistically in composing their poems. As we have seen, their poetic style corresponds to a certain degree with their nature. A fictional character gave Cervantes the opportunity to invent a totally independent paladin. For this reason both the style and the content of Solisdán's sonnet differ markedly from that of the other encomiums. The sonnet is a tour de force of burlesque fabla —an imitation of medieval Spanish.^[43] At the same time, its "author" is free to tell it like it is, and in no uncertain terms, regarding Don Quixote and his exploits. In terms of ironic distance, Cervantes is one step further removed from the poem. From this new perspective he is absolutely free to comment as he wishes on the book. A more autonomous "author" also granted Cervantes wider rein in including cutting allusions to Lope.

The use of fabla was a literary convention that came into vogue at the end of the sixteenth century to give a patina of antiquity to historical ballads and plays. Lope used it with some frequency;^[44] the technique was also used, and abused, by Lope's enemy Gabriel Lasso de la Vega in his historical ballads.^[45] Most characteristic of Lasso was the use of the paragogic "e" as well as archaic and often invented words.

Both Lope and Lasso used fabla with serious intent. However, when reading works written in fabla one cannot help but snicker. Their attempts to reconstruct archaic speech, given their total lack of linguistic expertise, often turn out to be unintentionally hilarious. This can be appreciated by a glance at Lope's historical plays already mentioned.

It was left to Cervantes to parody this silly and tiresome custom, hence the expressions maguer (aunque ), vos (os ), cerbelo (juicio ), home (hombre ), fazañas (hazañas ), joeces (jueces ), tuertos desfaciendo (vengando injurias ), follones cautivos y raheces (cobardes viles y despreciables ), desaguisado (denuesto ), cuitas (aflicciones ), talante (semblante ), and conorte (consuelo ). His burlesque is twofold: within the novel he makes fun of the chivalrous romances that often used such archaic language; in the sonnet he ridicules both the

pretense and the linguistic ignorance of his contemporaries who also composed in fabla .

In spite of his absurdly antiquated expressions, Solisdán nevertheless tells the truth about the novel. Don Quixote committed no base acts, while discharging his duties he did, indeed, suffer violence at the hands of "follones cautivos y raheces," and Sancho was not the best of go-betweens. In fact, the final line ("necio él, dura ella, y vos no amante") fits the trio quite accurately. Precisely because he is not an "historical" but a fictional knight, Solisdán is the only paladin to realize and admit openly that Don Quixote is truly crazy, that Sancho is a fool, and that Dulcinea is no fair damsel.

The most ironic "encomium" of the characters in Don Quixote comes from the mouths of horses. The world upside-down theme comes to the fore once again in Babieca and Rocinante's equine dialogue (Appendix 52). Here we have animals not only talking but criticizing their master to boot. Besides being the basis of the fable tradition, animal dialogues, or more specifically horse dialogues, fulfilled a special role in Spanish Golden Age burlesque and satirical poetry. One type of equine dialogue in ballad form was used by both Góngora and Quevedo to criticize contemporary customs and professions. The former's "Murmuraban los rocines" and the latter's "Tres mulas de tres doctores" are the conversations conducted "en bestial idioma" (in a bestial tongue) of groups of underfed hacks who complain about their masters à la Berganza.^[46]

Rocinante and Babieca's dialogue, while clearly a part of this poetic vogue, is much more complex than generic social criticism. First, let us consider the steeds' names. "Rocinante," as Don Quixote tells us when he names his mount, is an indication of the animal's naggish condition before they embark on their adventures. However, the term "rocín" also signifies coarseness, ignorance, and foolishness. As Agustín Redondo points out, "según el testimonio de la pícara Justina, al bobo se le motejaba de rocín [according to the pícara Justina's testimony, the fool was branded as a rocín ]."^[47] Therefore, we already know that one conversant is mad.

Even though we associate Babieca's name with a fiery animal that salivates heavily (babeador ), the word is also a humoristic

term meaning necio . Chapter 2 of the Crónica particular del Cid relates how young Rodrigo's godfather called him "babieca" because he chose for himself a mangy colt. The child subsequently baptized the colt "Babieca." This is why Rocinante declares himself to be "bisnieto del gran Babieca" (great-grandson of the great Babieca) in the preliminary verses written by the "poeta entreverado." Therefore, we have another fool and another fools' dialogue. However, while Rocinante realizes he is a four-legged necio (hence he calls Don Quixote and Sancho "tan rocines como Rocinante" [as much a rocín as Rocinante]), Babieca does not. How can he when he speaks from within the epic tradition that Cervantes is obliquely mocking?

The sonnet responds to another contemporary poetic vogue, which can be denominated la burla equina . This was linked with contemporary literary academies and flourished as a direct result of Lope's extremely popular 1583 Moorish ballad "Ensíllenme el potro rucio." By 1585, Góngora was so fed up with hearing Lope's poem on everybody's lips that he produced his brilliant parody, "Ensíllenme el asno rucio," thus initiating the two poets' long-standing enmity.^[48] From then on rival poets would frequently insult each other with any number of equine terms: rucio, asno, rocín, frisón, Babieca, Pegaso, and so on. They would do this either openly in the academies, or "anonymously" in their poetry. Therefore, any mention of such quadrupeds was suspect and brought about indignation and immediate retaliation. The rather inflated egos of most Golden Age poets could not permit their being called a fool in so public a manner.

It was mentioned earlier that the idea of talking animals placed this sonnet within the world upside-down context of Carnival. Rocinante himself is also a carnivalesque figure. Redondo describes him as a Lenten symbol—the "macilento rocín" (emaciated nag) that was often used to symbolize Cuaresma and its accompanying hunger.^[49] Indeed, Rocinante complains that he does not eat—that Don Quixote will not permit him even a mouthful of "paja." Rocinante's malicious pun refers to the fact that his master allows him neither hay nor sexual pleasure. He is doubtless remembering the disastrous outcome of the Yangüesan affair (I, 15) when his attempted dalliance with "las señoras facas" (the lady hacks) ended in a beating all around.

Poor Rocinante is not only starving but is also forcibly emasculated. The mount is as chaste as his master, but apparently not out of choice. Thus Rocinante negates the image of the horse as a noble creature and symbol of masculinity. Babieca understands the implications of the joke and denounces Rocinante as "mal criado": both mal alimentado and mal educado .

This particular sonnet is unusual in that it is placed among the encomiums, and yet rather than praise it openly denounces Don Quixote and Sancho as fools. Because of this it is in an axial position between the preliminary encomiums and final verses. It effectively anticipates the subsequent vejámenes of the académicos de la Argamasilla; in this sonnet the "authors" are vejadores rather than praisers. At the same time, and most important, the poem represents the ultimate authorship irony. By putting the sonnet in the mouths of these two particular horses, whom he then reveals to be fools, Cervantes is effectively calling asses all poets who indulge in this absurd encomiastic verse. It is the strongest statement he can make about poets like Lope. And Lope, as we shall see later, was not amused.

The Sonnets and Literary Academies

It was noted earlier that the Quixote epitaphs are not true epitaphs, given their prematurity with respect to the heroes' resuscitation in Part Two. This, of course, is an indication that at the time Cervantes was not totally convinced that there would be a Don Quixote II, in spite of his hints in the final chapter to a third sally. Nevertheless, the epitaphs do provide further opportunity for satire. The ridiculous and brazenly discordant eulogies burlesque the poesía de túmulo, which was as much a plague at the time as the insincere encomiums. In addition, the fact that they issue from a preposterous Academia de la Argamasilla is a comment on another aspect of the contemporary literary scene.

Even before we see the epitaphs, the dubiousness of the parchments containing them is made quite clear by the questionable manner of their discovery. At the end of Part One, the "author" of Don Quixote's history confesses to having found no authentic documents to confirm the knight's third sally. He con-

tinues that nothing would have been learned of the hero's end either, unless:

la buena suerte no le deparara un antiguo médico que tenía en su poder una caja de plomo, que, según él dijo, se había hallado en los cimientos derribados de una antigua ermita que se renovaba; en la cual caja se habían hallado unos pergaminos escritos con letras góticas, pero en versos castellanos, que contenían muchas de sus hazañas y daban noticia de la hermosura de Dulcinea del Toboso, de la figura de Rocinante, de la fidelidad de Sancho Panza y de la sepultura del mesmo don Quijote, con diferentes epitafios y elogios de su vida y costumbres. (I: 52)

[good fortune had not produced an old physician for him who had in his possession a leaden box, which, according to his account, had been discovered among the crumbling foundations of an ancient hermitage that was being rebuilt. In this box were found certain parchment manuscripts in Gothic character, but in Castilian verse, containing many of the knight's achievements and setting forth the beauty of Dulcinea, the form of Rocinante, the fidelity of Sancho Panza, and the burial of Don Quixote himself, together with sundry epitaphs and eulogies on his life and character.]

Américo Castro has revealed the link between Cervantes's highly fictitious story and the Granada falsifications of some fifteen years before.^[50] The leaden box containing the spurious gospels fabricated by Alonso del Castillo and Miguel de Luna and buried in the Torre Turpiana had been causing a great stir since its discovery in 1588. Cervantes was aware of the notorious events and parodies the bizarre episode with his own lead box and parchments. By doing so he provides both an exotic and mysterious ambiance typical of the romance of chivalry and an inevitable air of humorous sham.

Francisco Márquez Villanueva has pointed out the relationship between the Argamasillian academicians, Rabelais's Gargantua (which is also surrounded by enigmatic burlesque poems), and Teófilo Folengo's Macheronee .^[51] The Macheronee are the group of burlesque macaronic works written by Folengo under the pseudonym Merlín Cocaio. It's main piece is the mock epic Baldus and the whole is finished off with epigrammata that include several burlesque poems in which the author

praises and then takes leave of his characters. Márquez points to Folengo's Epigrammata and the Baldus epitaphs as sources for Cervantes's burlesque compositions.

At the time that Cervantes was writing Part One of Don Quixote, the epigram was still in great favor. In Spain it could take sonnet form or be composed in octosyllabic verse: usually a copla castellana, a copla real, or a single redondilla . The epigram also fed another poetic fashion intimately related to the Argamasillian verses: the epitafio jocoso . The early-seventeenth-century anthologies witnessed a vogue of such burlesque epitaphs. For example, Pedro Espinosa's 1605 Flores de poetas ilustres contains four epitafios jocosos by the young Quevedo. Lope also included several in his 1602 Rimas . Both poets use the shorter Castilian verse forms in these compositions. Góngora uses the décima for his 1612 burlesque epitaph "De la muerte de Bonamí, enano flamenco." Lope, in turn, uses the sonnet for the two epitafios jocosos he includes in his 1634 Rimas de Tomé de Burguillos . A more exhaustive investigation of the tradition is necessary to make any definitive statements regarding it. Nevertheless, given the dates of the burlesque epitaphs produced by the three major poets of the period, it is interesting to note that Cervantes seems to be the first to use the sonnet for his epitafios jocosos . While Cachidiablo and Tiquitoc use shorter verse, the remaining academicians use sonnets.^[52]

It has been established so far that Cervantes is making use of events (the Granada falsifications), literature (Folengo's Macheronee ), and literary modes (the burlesque epitaph) known at the time. However, he has another ultimate purpose in creating his epitafios jocosos : to mock the extravagant behavior of contemporary literary academies. Not he, but the Argamasillians, are the "authors" of the sonnets. And these eulogizers are merely a team of grotesque liars (hence the lead-box ruse) banded together to insult Don Quixote and his friends. What they produce are a combination of burlesque epitaph and vejamen —a type of poetry de rigueur as the last piece of business at meetings of Spanish literary academies. The tradition of the vejamen originated in the universities where insulting poems were written to rag new graduates.^[53] From there it passed to literary academies. These could be single sessions to commemo-

rate a specific occasion, literary competitions (academia was often used in the same sense as certamen poético ), or an established organization that met on a regular basis. María Soledad Carrasco Urgoiti has recounted the rigid yet festive protocol followed at these assemblies:

El presidente pronunciaba su oración, casi siempre en verso; el secretario leía sus chistosas cedulillas o alguna composición similar; se recitaban las poesías presentadas—que debían versar casi siempre sobre temas prescritos, sumamente frívolos y manidos—y la academia concluía con el vejamen, pieza satírica en que el ingenio que había sido nombrado fiscal zahería uno a uno a los autores de los poemas que acababan de leerse.^[54]

[The president gave his speech, almost always in verse; the secretary read his humorous proclamations or a similar composition; the poems written for the occasion on set topics—almost always extremely frivolous and trite—were recited; and the academy ended with the vejamen, a satirical piece in which the wit who had been appointed judge would insult, one by one, the authors of the poems that had just been read.]

Not only the participants but also the academy itself was often scorned in this ritual.^[55] The vejamen was always understood to be a specifically burlesque phenomenon—an unmistakable burla . This explains why such great license was taken with the poems. As José Sánchez explains:

Aquí es cuando salen al descubierto los defectos personales de cada académico, maneras de escribir, ignorancia de los socios, defectos físicos, peculiaridades, idiosincracias, etc. Por su carácter festivo y delicado, uno de los mejores poetas se encarga del vejamen.^[56]

[This is when the personal defects of each academician came to light; the writing style, ignorance, physical defects, peculiarities, and idiosyncracies of the members. Because of its festive and delicate nature, one of the best poets would perform the vejamen .]

Owing to the inevitable petty jealousies and personality conflicts inherent to these academies, compounded by the often extreme nature of the verse, the "carácter festivo y delicado" of the vejamen frequently degenerated into bitter personal invective and feuds. Because of this the extant regulations of Spanish

literary academies of the time include repeated admonitions to the members to refrain from bajezas and indecencias . For example, the Orden followed in the Conde de Fuensalida's Toledan academy (based, in turn, on that of the Madrid academies) states that it is the duty of the fiscal to censure "fábulas y vocablos de sentidos malsonantes y indecentes" (offensive and indecent tales and words) as well as to pacify eventual uproars resulting from the same.^[57] The Leyes of the 1637 Academia burlesca en Buen Retiro also begin by stating that the burlas must be decentes, and that picardía or baxeça are prohibited. The rule governing the vejamen is as follows: "El bejamen le han de hazer el Fiscal y el Secretario, con dos preçetos que no se dispensara en ninguno: ques la modestia y el decoro: y con ygual moderaçion en lo breue y en lo templado [the vejamen must be performed by the Judge and the Secretary, with two indispensible rules: modesty and decorum, and with equal moderation in brevity and temper]."

As can be appreciated, the vejamen was a very touchy part of the academic ritual, and had an undoubtedly well-deserved bad reputation. The petty grudges and quarrels that so typified the academies lead Cristóbal de Mesa to complain in a letter published in his Rimas that

Si algunos dellos [los Príncipes] hace una Academia
Hay setas, competencia y porfías,
Más que en Inglaterra o en Bohemia,
Algunas hemos visto en nuestros días
Que mandado les han poner silencio,
Como si escuelas fueran de herejías.^[58]

[If any prince starts an Academy,
There are more sects, rivalries, and disputes
Than in England or Bohemia.
Some, in our day,
We have seen silenced,
As if they were schools of heresy.]

Even Lope de Vega, darling of the academies, became disgruntled with the events at the Conde de Saldaña's academy in Madrid. In a letter to the Duke of Sessa he notes that "Las academias están furiosas: en la pasada se tiraron los bonetes dos

licenciados [The academies are furious: during the last one two licentiates threw their caps at each other.]."^[59] This academy was doomed after a tremendous dispute that broke out between Pedro Soto de Rojas and Luis Vélez de Guevara "llegó . . . hasta rodelas y aguardar a la puerta; hubo prinçipes de vna parte y de otra; pero nunca Marte miró tan opuesto a las señoras Mussas [came to blows at the door; there were princes in both bands, but Mars never looked so adversely upon the Muses]."^[60]

Cervantes was a witness to such misbehavior and disapproved of literary academies whose daily fare was the reciting of silly and frivolous verse, petty envy, and gossip mongering.^[61] He also objected to the favoritism rampant in poetic competitions.^[62] This can be seen from Don Quixote's comments to Don Lorenzo, the poet-son of the Caballero del Verde Gabán. The knight tells him how all poets arrogantly believe themselves to be the best in the world, and that the first prize in any competition "se [lo] lleva el favor o la gran calidad de la persona [is determined by favoritism or the author's standing]" (II: 18).^[63]

Cervantes was never an academic luminary; his was not the gregarious type of personality that shone in such situations. A man who by his own admission stuttered probably did not have the self-confidence to speak up and garner attention. Lope, of course, was just the opposite; his self-confidence is legendary. Lope also triumphed in the academic world, participating in several academies (often as president) and numerous justas and certámenes .^[64] Proof of his status was the fact that he was invited to the prestigious academy of Juan de Arguijo when he travelled to Seville; Cervantes was conspicuously a nonmember.^[65]

Cervantes's literary sensibilities must certainly have been in conflict with the type of academy he witnessed in Madrid and Seville. As we already know, Cervantes believed (at least in principle) that poetry should be learned, chaste, free of "torpes sátiras" (crude satires) and "desalmados sonetos" (cruel sonnets), and beyond the reach of "el ignorante vulgo" (ignorant commoners). In La Gitanilla the poet-page Clemente concisely summarizes Cervantes's ideal of true poetry: "La poesía es una bellísima doncella, casta, honesta, discreta, aguda, retirada, y que se contiene en los límites de la discreción más alta [Poetry

is a beautiful maiden, chaste, pure, discrete, clever, modest, and of the greatest discretion]."^[66]

Cervantes held an equally classicizing view of the literary academy, preferring the Italian humanistic model. In the Persiles he praises just such an organization—Siena's Accademia degli Intronati (which he mistakenly locates in Milan). The pilgrims are informed that "lo más que había que ver en aquella ciudad, era la Academia de los Entronados, que estaba adornada de eminentísimos académicos, cuyos sutiles entendimientos daban que hacer a la fama a todas horas y por todas partes del mundo [what one most had to see in that city was the Academia de los Entronados, which was graced with extremely eminent academicians whose subtle minds were famous at all times throughout the world]."^[67] The Intronati were an elite and erudite organization similar to the more famous Accademia della Crusca. Both were founded during the heart of the Italian Renaissance and dedicated wholly to humanistic pursuits. The Intronati especially favored the cultivation of Greek, Latin, and Tuscan poetry. Such classical academies became the focal point of literary creation in sixteenth-century Italy. Formed under the guidance of a noble patron, academic life was characterized by a dignified attention to the advancement of literary ideals and the publication of good books.

In all probability this is the type of academy that Cervantes wanted for Spain—one based on the search for knowledge and the perfection of the poetic art. He longed for an institution in which poetry could become la cumbre de los saberes . Its members would be cultivated intellectuals capable of stemming the vulgarization of poetry represented by the phenomenon of the comedia . Instead, he saw infantile, frivolous tertulias dedicated to pure, antiacademic entertainment. Lacking the noble patronage and ideals of the Italian humanistic models, these anti-intellectual gatherings rejected classicism to exalt the shallow, vacuous poetry that triumphed among the masses. And Lope, who was in the best position to provide literary leadership and direction, chose instead the path of anticlassicism and commercialization that led directly to the corrales .^[68]

Cervantes's poetic ideals, his disenchantment with the

Spanish academies, and his probable resentment for being excluded from the more aristocratic among these, fired his determination to make fun of the academic establishment. Consequently he conceived the magnificently absurd Academia de la Argamasilla, whose members are no more than buffoons. At the same time Cervantes created an academy that would at least discuss his work rather than treating it with the indifference characteristically afforded his writings. The academy is pure burla from which nobody, not even Cervantes himself, escapes.

The first joke is on the place. There are two, equally wretched, Argamasillas in the heart of La Mancha: Argamasilla de Alba and Argamasilla de Calatrava.^[69] The North American equivalent of these one-horse towns, in the words of our beloved and greatly missed friend Steve Gilman, would be "Mudville." Argamasilla, from the word argamasa (mortar), brings with it a wealth of connotations evolving from its basic quality of hardness: inflexibility, hard-headedness, coldness, immobility. These qualities are transferred to the académicos, producing ignorant, doltish, and rigid minds. The academician's ridiculous names are an indication of the type of institution to which they belong. Monicongo, Paniaguado, Caprichoso, Burlador, Cachidiablo, and Tiquitoc sound suspiciously like underworld nicknames. In fact, they could easily be included along with el Renegado, la Ganancia, Ganchuelo, and la Cariharta among Monipodio's motley crew. These academics definitely belong to Argamasilla's hampa .

The poetry they produce is what we would expect from such low types. Their ignorance is immediately apparent in their pretentious display of a few miserable scraps of rachitic Latin ("hoc scripserunt," "in laudem Dulcineae del Toboso"). Their style and language are definitively base and occasionally border on thieves' slang. While the encomiums depend more often on irony to give backhanded compliments to Don Quixote and his companions, the epitaphs are directly insulting. This, of course, is appropriate for the vejamen .^[70] The intromission of vulgar language is greater and the burla more severe than in the preliminary verses.

Paniaguado's sonnet to Dulcinea (Appendix 54) and Bur-

lador's to Sancho (Appendix 56) are especially denigrating. In the first, Dulcinea's portrait—"rostro amondongado . . . alta de pechos . . . reina del Toboso"—is extremely crude. In fact, the first word of the poem sets the tone for the entire composition. It would be difficult to find a more disrespectful term than "Esta." Calling her "manchega dama" is a wound made with a double-edged sword. "Dama" can always be interpreted to mean exactly the opposite of "lady," and when combined with its adjective provides another burla manchega . La Mancha, after all, is hardly a chivalric milieu.

In just the first quatrain of his epitaph, Sancho is already called a short, cowardly fool. The vulgar oath "os juro y certifico," combined with the generally aggressive tone of the sonnet, divulges Burlador's true identity: he is just another valentón like his brother in the sonnet to Philip II's tomb. In spite of his ruffianlike nature, he ends his sonnet with a pompous allusion to the Baroque commonplace of the fugacity of life. The seemingly poetic "al fin paráis en sombra, en humo, en sueño" has already been totally undermined by the mention of and burlesque apology for the borrico that is Sancho.

The remaining epitaphs, Monicongo's sonnet to Don Quixote (Appendix 53) and Caprichoso's in praise of Rocinante (Appendix 55), are equally loud and vulgar compositions. The first author starts by calling our hero calvatrueno, a "vocablo grosero y aldeano" (rude and rustic word) according to Covarrubias. The tone of this entire poem is insulting and characterized by grotesque exaggeration. The final verse, "yace debajo desta losa fría," is formulaic for the epitafio jocoso . This poem is clearly within that tradition.

Caprichoso's sonnet is just as exaggerated, but also quite problematic. In the first place the author does not even mention Rocinante until the estrambote . Therefore, the epigraph "Del Caprichoso, discretísimo académico de la Argamasilla, en loor de Rocinante" is an error. This most discreet and circumspect of academicians does not even know whom he is eulogizing. The remaining verses are a series of ludicrous and obscure references to the memory and deeds of Don Quixote. Ultimately the sonnet is a perfect example of a truly bad poem and of what is to be expected from Argamasillian poets.

In sum, the académicos de la Argamasilla are a pack of sterile wits (as dense and dry as argamasa ) steeped in ignorance. Just as their names have no real meaning, their academy has no purpose other than to produce thoroughly worthless "poetry." Through them Cervantes is severely judging the type of academy he knew and despised. The Argamasillian academicians are consummate poetasters, filling their "academy" (the pages of Don Quixote ) with the only verse they are capable of producing: vulgar, superficial slander.

It remains to be established what the Argamasillian epitaphs contribute structurally to the novel. In fact, the structure of Part One of Don Quixote corresponds perfectly to that of literary academies. These meetings consisted of three stages: first came an encomium of the president and other officials, then the reading of poetry, and finally the vejamen . Clemencín says in his edition of the novel that Don Quixote is the president of the Academia de la Argamasilla. This is true since all the paladins praise him and his fellow "officers" (Dulcinea and Sancho) at the beginning. Therefore, the sonnet encomiums represent the first stage of the meeting; the epitaphs, the third. Francisco Máquez Villanueva, noting this structure, has ingeniously observed that what remains in the middle is, in fact, the reading of Don Quixote and the most fabulous academic session ever held.^[71] This would mean that not only the vejadores but also the paladins (and even Cervantes) are, in fact, members of this Manchegan academy. And what are these poets but buffoons mocking and parodying the world that surrounds them? Not only do they unite Don Quixote into a coherent and meaningful whole, but they also link it to the madness of the world outside the book.

Los Sinónimos Voluntarios and the Sonetada

It will be clear by now that the Quixote sonnets form part of a literary mundillo . In Seville, Valladolid, and Madrid, literary and personal relations were interwoven to such a degree as to render the two inseparable. Literature, and especially poetry, was the medium through which friendships were nourished, rival

factions were strengthened, and wars were waged. Poetry was often the weapon; the literary academies, the battleground. As often as they praised their mutual friends, poets would insult and revile their enemies. This could be done through subtle allusions or the most bitter personal invective. Cervantes was involved in both, and one of his favorite targets was Lope de Vega.

Cervantes had praised Lope in both the Galatea and the encomiastic sonnet discussed earlier "En honor de Lope de Vega" (Appendix 33). As mentioned, the poem was included among the preliminaries to the second edition (1602) of Lope's epic poem La Dragontea . However, by the time Cervantes was creating the Quixote preliminary and closing verses—probably the last part of the book to be written—their relationship was such that he filled them with sharply ironic allusions to his rival. Of course, Cervantes was not the only person to do so. As a result of his immense popularity among the masses and the concomitant envy of less successful poets, Lope found himself the constant butt of jokes and satirical pieces. As he himself complained in an epistle to Gaspar de Barrionuevo:

No se tiene por hombre el que primero
no escribe contra Lope sonetadas
como quien tira al blanco de terrero.

Luego se canoniza de poeta . . .
cualquiera que ha enseñado a su vecino
el sonetazo escrito contra Lope.^[72]

[He who has not written sonetadas  against Lope,
like a person taking aim at a target,
cannot call himself a man.

Then whoever has shown his neighbor
a sonetazo  written against Lope
canonizes himself as a poet.]

The sonetada, a sonnet steeped in bitter personal invective and burla, flourished at the turn of the century.^[73] It was intimately linked to literary academies and fed by the bitter rivalries rampant at the time. One Sevillian "academy" especially excelled at the sonetada . Baptized the Academia de Ochoa by

Francisco Rodríguez Marín, it was a rather motley association of younger poets: Juan de Ochoa, Mateo Alemán, Alonso Alvarez de Soria, Luis Vélez de Guevara, and Miguel de Cervantes.^[74] In opposition to the members of Juan de Arguijo's aristocratic, humanistic, and above all prestigious Sevillian academy, the Ochoans' forte was extemporaneous, highly satirical verse.^[75]

Therefore, when an unsuspecting Lope traveled to Seville in 1602 to visit his Camila Lucinda (Micaela de Luján) and Arguijo's academy, the Ochoans celebrated his arrival with several outrageous sonetadas (Appendix 57–60). These poems were designed to insult Lope and subvert his princely standing in the official literary community from which these lesser figures were excluded. Although each inflammatory sonnet was probably a group effort, all the verses have distinctly Cervantine ingredients. First, the dialogic structure is favored by Cervantes in several of his burlesque sonnets. In addition, the ruffianesque language in sonnet 57 is very reminiscent of the sonnet "Al túmulo de Felipe II en Sevilla" (Appendix 37), and even more so of "De otro valentón, sobre el túmulo de Felipe II" (Appendix 38). Expressions such as "Vive Dios," "Por Jesucristo," "Por el Hijo de Dios," and "Voto a Cristo" suggest that the narrators of "Lope dicen que vino" are two more Cervantine valentones . Sonnet 58 makes the same criticisms that Cervantes would make in his later Viaje del Parnaso : true poets starve while Parnassus has been usurped by greedy poetasters and mozos de golpe . This last expression indicates both popular poets who made their living by improvising vulgar poetry on demand,^[76] as well as the young boys charged with answering the door of brothels.^[77] This cruel inculpation combines the two constant criticisms Cervantes will make of Lope: his vulgarization of poetry and his sexual improprieties.

Even if we, at such great distance, cannot say for sure who wrote these poems, it would seem that Lope was able to identify Cervantes as at least co-author: their poor relations date from this period. And they would deteriorate even more after the publication of Part One of Cervantes's great novel. This is because the Quixote poems also function as underground sonetadas, albeit in a more subtle way. Personal satire in published books

had to depend more on irony and sarcasm than the outright vulgar invective that circulated anonymously. Beginning with Urganda's preliminary verses, the poems contain a plethora of thinly veiled and highly ironic allusions to Lope's works and private life. There are doubtless jabs at other contemporary figures, but what at that time were patent innuendos and "in jokes" are mostly undecipherable today. Nevertheless, given our knowledge of the Fénix's life and works, much of the criticism of Lope can be decoded. It certainly caused great consternation at the time and a flurry of reprisals in Lope's camp.

The major retaliation on Lope's part was, of course, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda's apocryphal Quixote . Through his as yet unidentified minion, Lope tries to get his own back by insulting the true Quixote . In the prologue to his novel Avellaneda reveals how stung Lope was by Cervantes's pointed allusions when he says that even though he could, he will not "hacer ostentación de sinónimos voluntarios" (show off with voluntary synonyms) as his rival had.^[78] These "sinónimos voluntarios" are nothing other than the mischievous and at times ruthless allusions to Lope scattered throughout Don Quixote I . Nevertheless, several authors have argued over the correct interpretation of the expression. Rodríguez Marín feels they are what we today call "apodos, alias, motes" (nicknames or aliases).^[79] Angel Rosenblat sustains that the expression refers to plain synonyms: "términos de significación parecida o afín."^[80] However, both authors seem to miss the point, which is, why voluntarios ? Is there such a thing as involuntary synonyms? Avellaneda is using a metalanguage full of second intentions. He is speaking directly to Cervantes, advising him that he has understood his purposeful and meaningful synonyms—allusions—but chooses not to do the same (which, of course, he does). Justo García Soriano has best understood and deciphered the sinónimos voluntarios, saying of them:

En ellos está la malicia y la clave de las ofensas. Es indudable que Avellaneda se refiere aquí a las indirectas, apodos, alusiones mortificantes, ironías burlescas y frases de doble sentido, contenidas en el prólogo, versos preliminares y elogios de los Académicos de la Argamasilla, de la primera parte del Don Quijote cervantino.^[81]

[In them lies the malice and the key to the offenses. Avellaneda doubtless refers to the hints, nicknames, mortifying allusions, burlesque irony, and double entendres contained in the prologue, preliminary verses, and encomiums of the Académicos de la Argamasilla in Part One of Cervantes's Don Quixote .]

The latent references to Lope require careful analysis. Urganda's preliminary verses are an indication of what is to come. The lines "No indiscretos hieroglí-[ficos] / Estampes en el escu[do] [Put no vain emblems on thy shield / Or pompous coats-of-arms display]" are a repudiation of the spurious Carpio family shield with its nineteen towers and pompous motto "De Bernardo es el blasón, las desdichas mías son [the coat of arms is Bernardo's, the misfortunes mine]." Lope displayed these on several of his works, starting with the 1598 Arcadia .^[82] The same towers led Góngora to produce his famous sonetada "Por tu vida, Lopillo, que me borres."^[83]

Among other allusions to Lope are "Hablar latines rehu-[sa] [No Latin let thy pages show]" and "que el que imprime neceda-[des] / dalas a censo perpe-[tuo] [For fooleries preserved in print / Are perpetuity of shame]." The former refers to both Lope's penchant for Latin quotations and his rather tenuous grasp of that language. It also makes fun of the emblem and accompanying inscriptions that adorn his 1604 Peregrino en su patria . The frontispiece of the book shows Pegasus taking wing and the inscription "Seianus michi Pegasus," a pictograph of envy with the motto "Velis, nolis, Invidia," and, finally, a pilgrim with the caption "Aut unicus aut peregrinus." Urganda's latter verses reflect Cervantes's opinion of Lope's works: they are nothing but necedades .

García Soriano has neatly and schematically pointed out the bases for the attacks by other writers upon Lope. First were his amorous excesses, especially the long-standing and adulterous affair with Micaela de Luján that was still going strong at the time. Lope's extreme romantic sentimentality, expressed shamelessly in his biographical poetry, accompanied these public displays. Next were his known arrogance and ostentatious self-display: his genealogical pretensions (given the fact that he was the son of a humble embroiderer), the phoenix emblem and

mottos "único y solo" and "aut unicus aut peregrinus," and his association with the mythical steed Pegasus. Lope's innate presumption also led him to believe, not without reason, that everyone envied him—hence the "Velis, nolis, Invidia" inscription. His pedantry made him include pseudoerudite cites and Latinisms in his works, yet at the same time he turned his back on Aristotelian precepts and churned out entertainment for the masses. All these elements form the background of the Quixote poems.

Because of Lope's highly public sentimental life, all allusions to love or sensuality are suspect in Cervantes's sonnets. Amadís's mention of his "llorosa vida" and Don Quixote's copious tears (Appendix 45) immediately bring to mind Lope's famous "Serrana hermosa" epistle.^[84] Written to Lucinda in absentia, it is a lengthy exhibition of weepy sentimentality. The poem had already prompted Góngora to assign Lope the nickname of "yegüero llorón" (crybaby mare-keeper).

In a similar manner, Oriana's sonnet (Appendix 47) can be interpreted on one level as a crushing criticism of Camila Lucinda. The idea that Dulcinea (Lucinda) made Don Quixote (Lope) "venturoso" is charged with sexual significance, as is Oriana's desire to "goz[ar] los gustos sin escote." The statement that Dulcinea escaped chastely from her courteous knight can also be interpreted as a supremely ironic statement about Lope's sentimental misadventures with Luján. Oriana's wish to exchange London for Dulcinea's hamlet recalls Micaela de Luján's plebeian origins. The serrana hermosa was, in fact, born in a small and insignificant Manchegan town.

Lope had also reincarnated Lucinda as Angélica and himself as Orlando in La hermosura de Angélica (1602). Cervantes has fun with Lope's attempt to emulate Ariosto in Orlando Furioso's sonnet to Don Quixote (Appendix 49). He slyly makes evident that the poem refers to Lope in the first quatrain: "Si no eres par, tampoco le has tenido; / que par pudieras ser entre mil pares, / ni puede haberle donde tú te hallares, / invito vencedor, jamás vencido." The "peerless" knight is, of course, the same one who is "aut unicus aut peregrinus." In the tercets Cervantes maliciously mocks the repeated comparisons Lope made of his affair with Lucinda and the story of Orlando and Angélica.^[85]

Lope established a correlation between the legendary couple and the great love that also drove him to madness, despair, and misfortune. Especially pointed are the mentions of "decoro," "proezas," and "fama." Lope's amorous exploits were, indeed, famous, as was his considerable lack of decorum in matters of the heart.

In this same vein, Don Belianís's claim that "fui diestro, fui valiente, fui arrogante; / mil agravios vengué, cien mil deshice. . . . Hazañas di a la fama que eternice; / fui comedido y regalado amante;" (Appendix 46) are appropriate for a man of Lope's vanity. The Fénix eternalized his own amorous hazañas ; the proof that he was a comedido y regalado amante can be read in his poetry. In fact, this entire sonnet can easily be conceived as having been written by and about Lope. This is especially true given the final verse where, ironically enough, he must admit to envying Don Quixote's (Cervantes's) superior deeds (literature).

In the final words of his encomium (Appendix 50), the Caballero del Febo says Don Quixote has made Dulcinea "famosa, honesta y sabia" in the eyes of the world. The line recreates verse 1,418 of Garcilaso's Second Eclogue: "dulce, pura, hermosa, sabia, honesta" (sweet, pure, beautiful, wise, honest). But in addition there is terrible sarcasm contained in Cervantes's adaptation of the verse: the word "honesta" when Lope and Luján were public adulterers, and "sabia" when Lucinda was a known illiterate.^[86] In this poem Lope's motto surfaces once again when the knight says he loved Claridiana "por milagro único y raro." In a like manner, Amadís prophesies that the author of Don Quixote's exploits will be "al mundo, único y solo" (Appendix 45). The connection between these expressions and Lope would have been painfully obvious at the time.

Soriano believes that the Quixote poems also mock Alonso de Castillo Solórzano. Besides being Lope's friend, this poet often served as his secretary at academies presided over by the more famous bard. This bears upon the identity of the académicos de la Argamasilla. On this covert level, Cervantes is ridiculing both Lope and his assistant as officers of an absurdly pretentious academy. Castillo was also tremendously bald, thus the mention of the "calvatrueno" in Monicongo's sonnet (Appendix 53) was an additional torment.

Because of the close personal relationship that existed between Lope and Castillo, Soriano feels that Sancho (who is called escudero, alcagüete, and mayordomo in the poems) is a mask for the latter. In addition, any mention of amo and escudero can be interpreted as allusive to the two friends. Because of this, Burlador's sonnet (Appendix 56) is filled with malicious intent. The escudero Sancho is constantly insulted as being foolish. His dueño is no better off; by association he is as manso as his mount Rocinante. Both master and squire are ultimately denounced as asses. Another insinuation is contained in Solisdán's sonnet to Don Quixote (Appendix 51). Here the mention of a possible desaguisado committed by Dulcinea could easily refer to a rupture in one of Lope's love affairs caused in some way by Castillo, the mal alcagüete .

It is in the dialogue between Babieca and Rocinante (Appendix 52), however, where the allusions to Lope and Castillo Solórzano are most complex. This sonnet has already been discussed as part of the burla equina tradition. On its personal, underground level, the poem is a satire of Lope and his escudero-mayordomo Castillo. The latter is the target hidden behind the mask of Babieca, and the former is represented by Rocinante. On this personal level the malicious mention of paja is highly suggestive.

We know by his many poems to and about Lucinda that Lope's long affair with Micaela de Luján had its ups and downs. He often complains of her disdain and of his jealousy, and hints to a possible betrayal on the part of Lucinda in La hermosura de Angélica . In Canto V he speaks of Lucinda's many suitors, adding "pero ignoro / quién fuera de tus méritos Medoro [but I know not / what Medoro enjoyed your merits]." Soriano feels Góngora was using this material to ridicule Lope in his ballad "Desde Sansueña a París."^[87] In this erotic satirical poem a certain Berenguela "da a un paje / lo que a tantos amos niega [grants to a page / what she denies to so many masters]" while Dudón (a famous thirteenth-century French doctor) comments "Basta, señores, que andamos / tras la paja muchas bestias [Enough, gentlemen / for we are many beasts in pursuit of fodder]." Thus Góngora wickedly links paja (meaning both "straw" and "sexual relations") and paje in a poem whose underground

topic can be traced to Orlando's (Lope's) difficulties with Angélica (Camila Lucinda) as a result of the intromission of Medoro (the unidentified paje ).

In chapter 1 of Part Two of the novel, Don Quixote also asserts that Angélica was "una doncella destraída, andariega y algo antojadiza" who "despreció mil señores, mil valientes y mil discretos, y contentóse con un pajecillo barbilucio [a giddy damsel, flighty and somewhat wanton. . . . She treated with scorn a thousand gentlemen, men of valor and wisdom, and took up with a smooth-faced sprig of a page]." The knight goes on to say how "un famoso poeta andaluz lloró y cantó sus lágrimas [a famous Andalusian poet has lamented and sung her tears]" (Luis Barahona de Soto's Las lágrimas de Angélica ), and "otro famoso y único poeta castellano cantó su hermosura [another famous and rare poet, a Castilian, has sung her beauty]" (Lope's La hermosura de Angélica ). In this way Cervantes neatly joins the story of Angélica's dalliance with the pagecillo barbilucio to the "famoso y único castellano" (aut unicus aut peregrinus ) who sung her beauty.

Given this background, the equine dialogue takes on another meaning through the wordplay on the terms paja and paje . In addition, we should remember that the Donoso Entreverado's verses also contain another veiled allusion to this same situation. Rocinante tells how Lazarillo (another paje ) stole the blind man's (Lope's) wine (the source of his pleasure) with a paja . And finally, the second tercet of the sonnet is the ultimate blow, where the amo and escudero are declared "tan rocines como Rocinante."

Cervantes's burlas, if somewhat obscure today, were certainly not so at the time. Both Lope and Castillo were perfectly conscious of the snide insinuations. As a result, Lope wrote his sonetada "Pues nunca de la Biblia digo lé—," (Appendix 61) and Castillo Solórzano his sonnet epitaph "Al caballo Babieca, aludiendo a un necio" (Appendix 62).^[88] Lope's sonnet also responds to the sonnet "Hermano Lope, bórrame el soné[to]" (Appendix 63). Although this last poem has been attributed to both Góngora (by Foulché-Delbosc and Orozco Díaz) and Cervantes (Pellicer and Entrambasaguas), it seems most likely to be a product of Cervantes or at least of the Academia de Ochoa. The sonnet is tailed, a type of composition Góngora used only

very rarely.^[89] It would also be Góngora's sole extant cabo roto sonnet. Biruté Ciplijauskaité, the editor of Góngora's complete sonnets, also doubts Góngora's authorship. Cervantes, in contrast, did write both versos de cabo roto and tailed sonnets.^[90] But the inventor of cabo roto verse was probably Alonso Alvarez de Soria, an enemy of Lope and card-carrying member of the Academia de Ochoa.^[91] Thus, although no attribution can be definitively proved, the sonnet seems closer to Cervantes than to Góngora. Be that as it may, Lope obviously thought that Cervantes was its author. Line one of his sonetada ("Pues nunca de la Biblia digo lé—") is a reaction and response to Cervantes's line 4 ("pues nunca de la Biblia dices le—").

The sonetada attributed to Lope includes the standard elements of this type of invective. He starts by calling Cervantes "co-" and "cu-": coco (bogyman) and the indispensible cuco (cuerno or cornudo ). The term frisón comes from the burla equina tradition. Frisians were very large, corpulent, and heavy-footed beasts generally used for pulling carriages. The insult probably does have some basis in fact, since in his prologue to the Novelas ejemplares Cervantes describes himself as "algo cargado de espaldas, y no muy ligero de pies [somewhat stooped in the shoulders and not very light-footed]." The same can be said of verse 7 when Lope says "Hablaste, buey; pero dijiste mú ." He is probably alluding to Cervantes's stutter. The second and third stanzas malign the old soldier's crippled hand and participation at Lepanto, as well as his age—a potrilla being an old man who considers himself young. Avellaneda will use these same insults in his apocryphal Quixote, causing Cervantes to complain in the prologue to Part Two of his novel:

Lo que no he podido dejar de sentir es que me note de viejo y de manco, como si hubiera sido en mi mano haber detenido el tiempo, que no pasase por mí, o si mi manquedad hubiera nacido en alguna taberna, sino en la más alta ocasión que vieron los siglos pasados, los presentes, ni esperan ver los venideros.

[What I cannot help resenting is that he charges me with being old and one-handed, as if it had been in my power to hinder time's passage, or as if the loss of my hand had occurred in some tavern and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen or the future can hope to see.]

Because the last two stanzas are a total defamation of Don Quixote, this poem could very well be the "soneto malo, desmayado, sin garbo ni agudeza alguna, diciendo mal de Don Quijote [the bad, insipid sonnet, totally lacking in charm and wit, criticizing Don Quixote ]" that Cervantes received in a letter con porte while in Valladolid. He recounts the anecdote in the Adjunta del Parnaso .

Castillo's sonnet (Appendix 62) is an epitafio jocoso that contains another burla equina : he also calls Cervantes a caballo frisón . At the same time Cervantes is a ciclán in terms of talent. This word is used for animals having only one testicle. Once again, the link to the false Quixote is patent in that Castillo accuses Cervantes of being known and despised as a fool. Avellaneda similarly says in his prologue that Cervantes is so lacking in friends that he had to invent his own laudatory sonnets to Don Quixote . Finally, Babieca (Castillo) is revindicated as an honorable steed while Cervantes is reviled as a nag.

It has been seen that the Quixote poems function and can be interpreted on the level of sonetadas . They attest to and illustrate the problematic literary relations and rivalries that blossomed at the end of the sixteenth to the beginning of the seventeenth century. What separates the Quixote sonnets from the other poems discussed in this chapter is their subtlety, artfulness, and innate guile. Rather than blatant ad hominem satire, they depend on ambiguous innuendo and double meanings to make their mark. However, we must also admit that Cervantes was capable—as were Lope, Góngora, and Quevedo—of the kind of rude poetry rarely published or analyzed. Indeed, this would probably be the last thing the poets themselves would want for such verse. Nevertheless, by studying it we learn more of the authors' character and attitude toward literature. Such poetry ultimately helps illuminate the darker corners of a world gone by.

Comicity of the Quixote Sonnets

The Quixote poems represent a further development of the linguistic, stylistic, and comedic characteristics present in Cervantes's independent burlesque sonnets. They are, in fact, simi-

lar to the earlier verse in many ways; in others, for example, in context, they are substantially different. The independent sonnets were probably written to be recited before a public. This public could be anonymous, as the group who heard Cervantes declaim his sonnet on Philip II's tomb in the Seville cathedral. But it is quite likely that the majority of the independent sonnets were composed to be recited at an academic session or other such literary tertulia .

The Quixote sonnets, on the contrary, were destined from the start for publication, as were the Entretenida poems. The Quixote verses operate within a given novelistic framework, and are shaped to a large extent by the book's parodic function. Because of this they are true burlesque works; they ultimately mock the literary tradition of serious verse. The independent sonnets are much closer to satire; their main targets are political and social rather than literary. As a result of their imposed context, the Quixote sonnets are much more "literary." They are perhaps less superficially accessible while just as profound in significance. Their concerns are those of the literary world: criticism, parody, poetics. At the same time they are extremely personal in their invective.

The Quixote sonnets' comicity is based on the skillful integration of three comic currents. First, the humanistic, classical vein of humor conveyed by Erasmus, classical satire, and the literature of madness. This is reflected in Cervantes's parody of the romance of chivalry, his presentation of folly through the use of irony and paradox, and satire of literary and social customs such as encomiastic verse and the institution of literary academies. Second is the broadly comic strain of liberating laughter whose immediate source is the popular tradition. This is reflected in buffoonish and carnivalesque elements such as the burlesque ridicule and abuse to which Don Quixote, Sancho, and Dulcinea are subjected; the burla equina and the burla manchega ; masquerade and playacting; absurd burlesque inversions; and linguistic nonsense such as fabla . The final current is that of personal invective within the framework of the sonetada : sarcasm, "in jokes," insults, vulgarity, and obscene innuendo.

Each type of comicity is present in the individual sonnets.

And they, in turn, represent a compact corpus of the Cervantine humor to be developed within the body of Don Quixote . The types of comicity parallel to an extent the poems' various levels of meaning discussed here (as a reflection of current literary practices, as a microcosm of the novel, and as a vehicle for personal invective). Just as the different levels of meaning are perfectly interwoven and overlap in all the sonnets, the various types of comicity also overlap. The sonnets can be read and interpreted on many levels and "laughed at" in as many ways. This very complexity, this intellectualization and expansion of the comic, is what distinguishes the Cervantine poetic comicity embodied by these works.

The models for Cervantes's parody have already been discussed: encomiastic verse, love poetry, the burlesque epitaph, the academic vejamen, the comedia nueva . I have also analyzed the individual stylistic imprints the various "authors" of the Quixote sonnets leave on the verse. However, despite this variety in narrative style, the poems are all unmistakably Cervantine. The elements that distinguish our author's style are characteristic of all his humorous work, prose or verse: irony; ambiguity; polysemy; multiple linguistic levels; and a unique combination of the classical and popular comic traditions and madness.

In terms of comic style, tone, and language, the general characteristic of all the Quixote sonnets, especially the encomiums, is their high burlesque flavor. All of the laudatory poems share a highly rhetorical, pedantic air that is a ludicrous mismatch with their comical subject. For example, Caprichoso's sonnet is farcically pompous with its Latinisms "soberbio" and "tremola," its absurd classical allusions, and its ridiculous comparison of "la alta Mancha" with Greece and Gaul. Generally mock-heroic in tone, lofty and exquisitely dramatic at the beginning, each sonnet is immediately deflated by the introduction of highly ironic elements: Don Belianís's resounding salute "¡Oh, gran Quijote!"; Gandalín's flamboyant address to Sancho, "Salve, varón famoso"; Babieca's wry comment to Rocinante, "Metafísico estáis"; and his companion's priceless bit of equine antiphilosophy, "Es que no como."

These ambiguous innuendos contained within the expressions of praise make for a double burlesque. Both the situations

and heroes of the romances of chivalry as well as those of Don Quixote are ridiculed. In this way the burlesque reflects within to the novel and without upon the "writers" of the sonnets. This can be seen, for example, when Oriana exclaims to Dulcinea: "¡Oh, quién tan castamente se escapara / del señor Amadís, como tú hiciste / del comedido hidalgo don Quijote!" Her words mock the chasteness of the knight who, whether by necessity or by nature, was excessively "comedido" in sexual terms, and in addition comment ironically on Oriana's own sensuality.

The tone of the epitaphs, however, is both insolent and scathing. This is appropriate for the tradition of the academic vejamen to which these poems belong. It is also typical of the sonetada . The comicity of these epitaphs lies in the absurd presumption and the vulgarity of the eulogizers. This, in turn, is a reflection upon their counterparts in the world outside the novel.

The language used in the sonnets ranges from the elevated, to the ridiculous, to the base. The sublime yet bombastic metaphorical language borrowed from the classical-philosophical tradition ("en sombra, en humo, en sueño," "el rubio Apolo") sits alongside the absurd ("la musa más horrenda y más discreta, / que grabó versos en broncínea plancha," "follones cautivos y raheces"), the insulting ("buen hombre," "calvatrueno," "Esta que veis de rostro amondongado"), and the downright vulgar ("os juro y certifico," "paja"). Indeed, Cervantes draws abundantly from the lower linguistic registers: from the rustic "azada," "hoz," and "alforjas" to the unmentionable "asno" and "jumento," the erotic "paja," and the insulting "calvatrueno," "Esta," and "buen hombre." The use of such varied yet related lexicon (related in its base "unpoeticality") is the natural touchstone of burlesque poetry.

More noteworthy is Cervantes's use of ambiguous terms that can be intepreted on several linguistic levels and in as many ways; an outstanding example of this is the word "cofradías." The Quixote sonnets contain many more such ambiguous terms: "trato," "decoro," "fama," "varón," "alcagüete," "comedido hidalgo." This ambiguity that characterizes all Cervantine literature operates not only on the supertextual hermeneutic level, but also on the infratextual, morphological level of language.

For example, the resonances of the expression "godo Quijote" are multiple and equivocal. To call Don Quixote a Visigoth is patently absurd. The idea that the Goths constituted the essence of Spanish nobility was but a myth. Nevertheless, the myth was powerful enough to lead many Spaniards to attempt to trace their lineage back to those early Christians and to pre-Islamic Spain. Godo connoted nobility, purity of blood, a Germanic, warlike, and therefore valiant nature.

All these qualities are subsequently undermined by the name "Quixote." As we know, the knight invents his own name, based on the root of his "real" surname plus the suffix -ote . This suffix is, of course, derogatory and ridiculous (monigote, marquesote, grandote ). And the entire mystique surrounding the idea of name, of spotless lineage, is undermined by the fact that we are not exactly sure what Alonso Quijano's surname was: Quijano, Quijana, Quejana, Quesada? Finally, by juxtaposing "godo" and "Quixote," Cervantes is not only poking fun at the impoverished hidalgo classes with their absurd pretensions to nobility, but he is also ridiculing the Goticist myth and all its presuppositions of a legendary Spain untainted by Semitic blood and values.

Although the anonymous sonetadas cannot be linked in all certainty to Cervantes, at least as sole author, any discussion of his comedic style must include them. Precisely because they hide behind the shield of anonymity, they are the most crude and insulting personal invective. Blasphemy, obscenity, and scatology are the hallmarks of this verse. Rather than use ironic double entendres, this type of poetry prefers the outright affront. It systematically employs the lowest possible register and the vilest language. All linguistic subtlety is sacrificed for the gross insult and in the end not much can be said about such verse as "Cágome en vos, en él y en sus poesías."

The comedic style and language Cervantes uses in his burlesque sonnets are determined by the context of the poetry. The independent sonnets deal with political and social realities; hence the abundance of expressions from germanesca and other specialized lexicon. Each poem presents, to a degree, a microcosm of the age and its circumstance. The Quixote sonnets are, instead, a microcosm of the literary world both inside and out-

side the novel. Yet all the sonnets are ironic, ambiguous, and multilayered. The words hide a deeper reality, a more profound meaning than is evident on the surface.

In this vein it has been said that "la función de la literatura no es la de explicar y aclarar sino la de disimular y ocultar [the function of literature is not to explain and clarify but to feign and conceal]."^[92] This process of occultation entails two linguistic-semantic levels: one is the deep significance of the words on the page; the other is the surface representation of this deep meaning that is altered and manipulated. In this regard the words and expressions Cervantes uses are the building blocks of a system of symbolization that, through manipulation of the surface structure (language), often disguises the deep structure (meaning) of his poetry. Only by exploring this symbolic level of language, by discovering all the collateral and connotative meanings of the lexicon, can we hope to recover the profound significance of Cervantes's verse.