burgoyne, la gitanilla, a model of cervantes subversion of romanc

Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos

La gitanilla: A Model of Cervantes's Subversion of RomanceAuthor(s): JONATHAN BURGOYNEReviewed work(s):Source: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos, Vol. 25, No. 3 (Primavera 2001), pp. 373-395Published by: Revista Canadiense de Estudios HispánicosStable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/27763721 .

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JONATHAN BURGOYNE

La gitanilla: A Model of Cervantes's Subversion of Romance

En este art?culo se examinar? la manipulaci?n de los recursos convencionales del

"romance" tanto formales como ideol?gicos, en La gitanilla, con el prop?sito de descubrir la subversi?n sistem?tica de los mismos por Cervantes. Espec?ficamente, demostraremos que los mismos lugares comunes del "romance," muchas veces

citadas para comprobar el convencionalismo art?stico e ideol?gico de las Novelas

ejemplares, una vez examinados con cuidado, se revelan como formas de subversi?n

de las modalidades convencionales del g?nero que s?lo superficialmente representan. Los conceptos de realismo e idealismo, o la hibridaci?n gen?rica que podr?an producir relatos herm?ticos en lo que a su interpretaci?n se refiere, son insuficientes para explicar y comprender el producto subversivo final del autor. Postulamos que Cervantes ense?a a sus lectores la conexi?n ?ntima que hay entre forma literaria e

ideolog?a, y que el "romance," art?stica y moralmente hablando, es un c?digo narrativo exhausto. Esperamos que esta lectura de la manipulaci?n ir?nica de los recursos del "romance" en La gitanilla suscite una reconsideraci?n de las Novelas

ejemplares como obra unitaria. Us?ndola como punto de partida, concluiremos que Cervantes desarrolla en su novela introductoria un modelo de subversi?n sistem?tica

de las convenciones literarias e ideol?gicas de "romance" que se puede emplear como

r?brica para la interpretaci?n de toda la colecci?n.

The topic of Cervantes's manipulation of generic literary styles and forms in the Novelas ejemplares is a seemingly endless source of critical discussion. Scholars

writing about them have pointed to the pastoral, chivalric, Byzantine, picar esque, and the Italian novella as basic structural, thematic, and stylistic patterns

resonating throughout them. Joseph Ricapito has argued in favour of the Italian

model,1 but other authors have reminded us that Cervantes favoured the

Byzantine narrative - a more obvious point, made by citing Cervantes's prologue to the Novelas ejemplares in which he writes that his Persiles will compete with

Heliodorus - while some critics have attempted to categorize Cervantes's novelas in the more generic terms of romance.

revista canadiense de estudios hisp?nicos Vol XXV, 3 Primavera 2001



374

Understood in the light of Northrop Frye's work, the word romance is often used to identify not only structural commonplaces and motifs, but also tone and

ideology. Applying the term to the Novelas ejemplares, Jennifer Lowe wrote in

1971 that "romance is potentially misleading in view of some of its popular modern connotations," but that "as a critical term it adequately defines the essential atmosphere of the chivalresque and pastoral works" (8). Her remark

points to another source of confusion; namely, what type of romance served as a general literary model for Cervantes, or what exactly is the "essential

atmosphere" of romance that authors such as Jennifer Lowe have identified in the tales that appear to be "chivalresque" or "pastoral"?

Daniel Eisenberg suggests in "The Romance as Seen by Cervantes," that Cervantes's notion of romance was more in line with the libro de caballer?a (178), and as this essay will demonstrate further on, Cervantes does indeed invoke, for his own ironic intentions, many characteristics of the romance of chivalry that

Eisenberg outlines in his book Romances of Chivalry in the Spanish Golden Age. The debates surrounding this subject are very well-known among Cervantine

scholars, and they involve the opinions of a long list of respected critics who have

attempted to clarify Cervantes's engagement with his literary environment.2 Another author who has recently written on Cervantes's engagement with the

available literary genres of his time, in particular the picaresque, is Manuel Dur?n. In his essay "Picaresque Elements in Cervantes's Work," Dur?n revisits the subject of Cervantes's combination of idealism and realism, linking it to the

historically parallel developments of Italian Renaissance idealism in the plastic arts (especially painting), and the realism of German and Flemish schools. Dur?n states that "the struggle between Platonic idealization and realistic caricature took place in the mind of Cervantes not once but throughout his career as a

writer" (233). As the comments by Dur?n suggest, the search for literary models at work in Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares often leads to a discussion of the notions of idealism, realism, or combinations of both.

This essay will probe the extent to which Cervantes engages the common

places of romance in La gitanilla, and the idealism associated with its literary tradition, in order to uncover his deliberate subversion of those same conven

tions. More particularly, it will demonstrate that Cervantes's manipulation of the

commonplaces associated with the tradition of romance, both structural and

thematic, so often pointed to as examples of Cervantes's ideological and artistic

conventionalism, are themselves subversions of the very literary conventions

they appear to represent. The conclusions of this study will demonstrate that notions of idealism and realism are only partially satisfactory as heuristic devices when approaching La gitanilla, as well as the Novelas ejemplares as a whole.

Furthermore, a close reading of Cervantes's manipulation of the expectations associated with romance will show that he develops more than a simple series of

experiments with different literary modalities resulting in tales that resist



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interpretation; rather, the author systematically subverts the artistic viability of romance, and its potential to convey moral exemplarity. It is hoped that this

essay will trigger retrospective readings of the Novelas ejemplares, especially of those tales that, on the surface, appear to follow convention, in light of the

bankruptcies of romance that Cervantes exposes in his introductory novela. Alban Forcione wrote in his ground-breaking book, Cervantes and the

Humanist Vision, that each of Cervantes's novelas is, to some degree, defective with regard to the traditional expectations of what a novela was considered to be

by his contemporaries. What is even more provocative about Forcione's study is the suggestion that the author is aware of manipulating those expectations by producing narratives that may seem to follow convention (28). Summarizing the entire collection, Forcione believes that Cervantes's tales, on the structural level, are "elusive," and that beneath the surface they demonstrate a "radical" deviation from what they may first appear to be (28).

Cervantes opens his collection of exemplary tales with this trademark play on

appearances and expectations. "Parece que" - Cervantes writes to begin La

gitanilla - "los gitanos y gitanas solamente nacieron en el mundo para ser

ladrones" (1, 61). With these first two words Cervantes makes an important, if not exactly "radical," departure from a ubiquitous structural component of the short prose narrative tradition in Spain and the rest of Europe: the frame story. Rather than attempting to frame his novela within another discourse that could afford an authoritative interpretation and closure to his story, or superscribing a summary of his tale at the beginning that summarizes the d?nouement, as in the case of Juan Timoneda's El patra?uelo, Cervantes chooses to begin his tale on the unstable grounds of appearances, without providing, at least not right away, an

attempt at guiding the reader.3 The structural elements that produce a closed symbolic return to order, or the

authoritative interpretation of an implied moral, in a conventional short story, romance, or novella are often developed from the very beginning of the text. This kind of narrative closure is built on the creation of reader expectation, especially in a collection of short narratives that displays similar, or even identical, structuring agents, as in the case of Juan Manuel's El conde Lucanor. Cervantes's

La gitanilla seems to depart from that tradition by undermining the textual foundations upon which closure is built, but the disorientation caused by this

beginning does not last. Once Preciosa is introduced, the reader who is familiar with tales such as

Patient Griselda, Apollonius of Tyre, or any number of conventional romances with exemplary female characters, is back on steady ground. She is a recognizable player in the world of romance, and Cervantes makes no attempt at disguising the fact that she belongs to a long line of heroes, and heroines, whose true

identity is temporarily unknown. From the first indirect mention of her, Cervantes clarifies that Preciosa is not a true gypsy: "Una, pues, desta naci?n,



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gitana vieja, que pod?a ser jubilada en la ciencia de Caco, cri? una muchacha en

nombre de nieta suya" (i, 61). Her identity at this moment in the text remains a mystery, but it is certain that she is not the old woman's granddaughter. In two

words, "desta naci?n," Cervantes sets up the beginning of a series of contrasts

between Preciosa and her foster family, but she is not simply the opposite of what she may appear to be.

The description of Preciosa that follows is as deceptive as Cervantes's

introductory comments on gypsies. The narrator explains that she was instructed in the ways of the gypsies, and that her nefarious grandmother taught Preciosa

all of her "gitaner?as" and "modos de embelecos, y trazas de hurtar" (1, 61); therefore, Preciosa is a gypsy by trade, but is no ordinary gypsy girl. She stands out among her peers, and even her elders, for her dancing and singing, her

wisdom, and especially her beauty. Building on his readers' expectations and

familiarity with the conventions of romance, Cervantes points to these signs in

order to show that she is not of the same "naci?n" as her step-brothers and

sisters, but of a much more noble heritage: "Y lo que es m?s, que la crianza tosca en que se criaba no descubr?a en ella sino ser nacida de mayores prendas que de

gitana, porque era en extremo cort?s y bien razonada" (1, 62). The contrast made here between the two classes and their manners is

expressed in a particularly formulaic fashion, so much so that it cannot be overlooked as a conscious attempt on the part of the author to inscribe the

trappings of romance into his novela. This way of describing the protagonist conspicuously hints at her hidden identity. As a point of comparison, Juan Timoneda used a similar narrative device in his refashioning of the famous Patient Griselda tale when Griselda is suddenly placed in the halls of the

Marqu?s's palace: "Mostr? en poco tiempo despu?s en la pobre hecha nueva

Marquesa tanta gracia y divinal favor, que no mostraba en alguna cosa ser

nascida ni doctrinada en la aspereza del monte, sino en palacios de grandes se?ores" (54).

The patent contrasts between Preciosas character and her surroundings would be sufficient to begin a typical romance, ending with a recognition scene, and the heroine's return to society, which is indeed what happens in this novela, at least on the surface, but Cervantes does not allow his characters, or his plot, to be reduced to mere convention. Immediately following the description of

Preciosa's virtues, Cervantes introduces an unconventional quality into his would-be exemplary female character. Given all the noble qualities of a

formulaic female character of romance, the author then subtly distorts that

traditional image: "Y, con todo esto, era algo desenvuelta; pero no de modo que descubriese alg?n g?nero de deshonestidad" (1, 62). Once again the image of the

gypsy girl is allusive, resisting conventional categorization. As is often cited, Preciosa is "algo desenvuelta," but not to the extent of being

unchaste. She is clever and modest at the same time, both "aguda" and "honesta"



377

(i, 62), and she is treated with a special courtesy not expected among gypsy thieves: "Que en su presencia no osaba alguna gitana, vieja ni moza, cantar cantares lascivos ni decir palabras no buenas" (1, 62). These allusions to her

modesty and discretion will later be contrasted with her lusty style of singing, dancing, and fortune telling that will highlight the character's more subversive nature.

In these first pages of the novela, Preciosa is very much an enigma. She is more noble than her surroundings; prudent, beautiful, and modest, and yet Cervantes suggests that she has also been successfully trained in the more nefarious arts of the gypsies by her eagle-eyed grandmother: "Y, finalmente, la abuela conoci? el tesoro que en la nieta ten?a, y as? determin? el ?guila vieja sacar a volar su aguilucho y ense?arle a vivir por sus u?as" (1, 62). She will be an

unconventional and complicated figure until the end of the tale when she returns to her predetermined status in structured Spanish society. Cervantes's preco cious female protagonist appears all the more subversive in the world of romance when she is compared to other female characters typical of the genre; in

particular, the humble and innocent victim, La Truhanilla, from Juan Timone da's version of the Apollonius of Tyre tale in El patra?uelo. Like La Truhanilla, Preciosa is famous for her beauty and her voice, with which she earns her keep, but this is where the similarities end.

Keeping in mind the characters and motifs of romance that make up what most critics refer to as the idealistic elements of La gitanilla, the attentive reader discovers that these aspects of romance are simultaneously subverted with irony, eroticism, and glimpses of corrupt Spanish society. One of the most idealistic elements that is often cited is the intercalation of lyric texts, the first two of which deal with exemplary female characters, praised as paragons of motherly virtue: Saint Anne and Margarita de Austria.4 Preciosa begins with a pious ballad

singing the praises of Saint Anne, mother of the Virgin conceived without sin. Once the ballad is cited, there follow comments on how the ballad was

performed, painting a more provocative image of a live street performance that combines the erotic with the sacred:

El cantar de Preciosa fue para admirar a cuantos la escuchaban. Unos dec?an: "?Dios te

bendiga la muchacha!" Otros: "?L?stima es que esta mozuela sea gitana! En verdad, en

verdad que merec?a ser hija de un gran se?or" ... Otro m?s humano, m?s basto y m?s

modorro, vi?ndola andar tan ligera en el baile, le dijo: "?A ello, hija, a ello! ?Andad,

amores, y pisad el polvito at?n menudito!" Y ella respondi?, sin dejar el baile: "Y pis?relo

yo at?n menudo." (1, 65-66)

Again Cervantes conspicuously flags the anticipated commonplaces that surround Preciosa from the beginning. Her beauty and ability are the common

currency of female characters that testify to her noble heritage, but, just as in the



378

beginning of the text where the reader is told that Preciosa is "algo desenvuelta"

(i, 62), Cervantes complicates his character in this scene with a display of her more licentious side.

The double meanings in this passage surrounding the phrase "pisad el

polvito" and the word "polvo" in general have not been lost on many critics.

Among them, one of the most notable is Francisco Marquez Villanueva, who clarifies in his essay "La buenaventura de Preciosa" that this is an allusion to a

popular dance, the baile del polvico. More importantly, he calls attention to the obvious double meaning of "polvo" which is associated with fornication (755). Cervantes will allude to Preciosas provocative and sensual style of dance in later

scenes, but this first performance is particularly interesting because it is a symbol of non-conformity that resonates through to the end of the text.

Cervantes provides enough evidence for the imaginative reader to picture the entire performance of this ballad, rather than simply focusing on the text of the

poem itself. What this spectacle amounts to is an erotic dance performed to a

song about the Immaculate Conception. It is a performance that embodies two

competing discourses: one profane, the another orthodox. While the text of the ballad tells of the miracle of the Virgin s birth, born free from original sin, Preciosa tantalizes her audience, especially the male members who cheer her on. Unlike Timoneda s Truhanilla character who is passive and subservient to her

pimp, rarely speaking at all to her audiences, Preciosa is patently flirtatious,

drawing in her patrons with suggestive dance and coquettish repartee, employing her sexuality to gain profit while manipulating the discourse of Catholic

orthodoxy in order to entertain. She is mistress of her own body, and

empowered with the ability to appropriate dominant ideologies into her

performance. Not only does Preciosa captivate the audience with her beauty, a predictable

characteristic of any heroine of romance, she also displays a superior intellect that astonishes all those who come into contact with her. Furthermore, Cervantes has created a character who is fully aware of her superiority, and on several occasions states in no uncertain terms her unwillingness to enter into a

society governed by established norms, although she has no fear of entering it for her own personal gain.

One of the first encounters in which Preciosa demonstrates control over her environment occurs after the performance of the allegorical ballad dedicated to the royal family, when she and her entourage pass a gaming house in which a number of gentlemen are wagering. The space is clearly masculine and, when the

gypsy girls are invited to enter, they are noticeably concerned about the

gentlemen's intentions: "Entren, entren las gitanillas, que aqui les daremos barato" - the gentlemen exclaim as the girls pass by the window grating (1, 72). Preciosa informs the men that they will not tolerate any uninvited advances, and

they are assured by one who bears the insignia of the order of Calatrava that



379

none of them will be touched. Even with these assurances, Preciosa s compan ions are afraid to enter where women are usually prohibited: "Si t? quieres entrar, Preciosa? dijo una de las tres gitanillas que iba con ella ?entra enhora

buena, que yo no pienso entrar adonde hay tantos hombres" (i, 73). Within the precincts of structured society, the space of the gaming house is

clearly off limits to women, among so many other public spheres, and this

particular gaming house seems to belong to a higher class of men, but Preciosa is by no means intimidated. She assures her companion that there is no danger in entering, since it is a public space, and that more harm can be done to a

woman's reputation in private situations: an apparent reversal of commonly accepted practice for young Spanish ladies who wish to protect their good reputations. But Preciosa is not, at this time, a typical Spanish lady.

Like many of Cervantes's liminal characters in the Novelas ejemplares who find themselves on the fringes of society due to their madness, jealousy, criminal

life-style, or animal family (as in the case of two talking dogs), Preciosa-the

gypsy is also a marginal character who can be made to unmask the hypocrisies and double standards of society without fear of censorship, precisely because she

speaks from the margins of society as a member of an outcast group, much like the slave in the Emperor's New Clothes. On the other hand, Cervantes has

already hinted to his readers who are accustomed to romance that she is not a

gypsy girl, but probably a person of noble heritage, and therefore her comments and criticisms become more threatening in the mind of the reader as she moves closer to mainstream society. Preciosas code of behaviour for young ladies is, in this case, the opposite of proper behaviour in Spanish society, as the explanation given to her companion demonstrates: "La mujer que se determina a ser

honrada, entre un ej?rcito de soldados lo puede ser. Verdad es que es bueno huir de las ocasiones; pero han de ser de las secretas, y no de las p?blicas" (1, 73).

Preciosas notion of feminine virtue, and how to preserve it, flies in the face of the common practice of cloistering and silencing the female subject in order to protect her honour from malicious gossip

- a practice outlined by Juan Luis Vives in La formaci?n de la mujer cristiana, in which the author advises young ladies to rarely, if ever, leave the safety of their home: "Rara ha de ser la salida de la doncella" - Vives instructs - "puesto que poco es lo que tiene que hacer fuera de casa y corre peligro su honestidad, riqueza de muy subido precio" (1026). As Alison Weber points out, Preciosas conspicuousness in public spaces is linked to her liberated sexuality, since visibility bears "the symbolic imprint of sexual

availability" (63). Rather than a model of feminine virtue, Preciosa becomes, as Weber argues, a

" contra-exemple? (63).

Once inside this masculine space, Preciosa astonishes all with her intellectual

prowess, even more than with her beauty. After reading the ballad given to her

by the anonymous poet who will return to the story as Clemente, the gentlemen are impressed by her precociousness and maturity regarding the courtly subjects



380

of love and poetry when she finds fault in the conclusion of Clemente's ballad: "?En pobre acaba el ?ltimo verso? dijo a esta saz?n Preciosa?: ?mala se?al! Nunca los enamorados han de decir que son pobres, porque a los principios, a mi parecer, la pobreza es muy enemiga del amor" (i, 76). When asked how she knows all this, Preciosa explains that gypsy girls are, by necessity, wise beyond their years.

What appeared to be a typical female character like so many who inhabit the world of romance at the beginning of the tale has turned out to be much more subversive. What makes this character all the more surprising, especially as a female character, is her ability to successfully manoeuvre within a variety of social spaces: the marginal gypsy world, the open urban setting in the streets of

Madrid, and even the most male-dominated environments. In episodes such as this one, and in others to come before the end of the tale, Preciosa is not just a

marginal character, nor can such an enigmatic figure be reduced to a mere

symbolic representation of an historically marginalized ethnic group. The encounter with the gamblers is a prelude to another, much more

symbolically dense episode in which Preciosa again demonstrates the ability to control her environment, as well as express her contempt for ordered society and its hierarchies. This is the "Buenaventura" scene, in which Preciosa and her

companions are invited to a courtier's home to perform and tell fortunes, but the

family is unable to pay for the services. From the moment the gypsies realize that

they are wasting their time, the scene becomes charged with tension and double entendre.

In his provocative reading of this scene, M?rquez Villanueva convincingly interprets the subversive discourse thinly disguised in a series of double

meanings and erotic allusions from the image of the thimble, through the entire

poetic text of Preciosa's palm reading that begins with "Hermosita, hermosita"

(1,79). M?rquez Villanueva concludes that the entire reading amounts to a pulla, or slanderous joke played on the unsuspecting family, alluding to the nobleman's

impotence, the lady Clara's infidelities, and the family's tainted bloodline, among other lampoons (747). M?rquez Villanueva also concludes that this satire is indicative of Preciosa's general attitude toward the whole culture represented by the family, where nothing is what it appears to be, and corruption and

hypocrisy rule the day (756). To conclude this scene, Cervantes places in the mouth of Preciosa the

contemptuous and sarcastic words and undertones that M?rquez Villanueva uncovers in her palm reading, leaving no doubt or double meanings to coat her

animosity toward the Lieutenant Governor and his aristocratic world. When the lord of the house returns, and Preciosa discovers that she will not be paid, she takes it upon herself to advise the Lieutenant Governor on how to best perform his office: "Coheche vuesa merced, se?or tiniente; coheche, y tendr? dineros ...

que de los oficios se ha de sacar dineros para pagar las condenaciones de las



381

residencias y para pretender otros cargos" (i, 81). Here Cervantes brings to the

surface of the text the hypocrisies and corruption of the hierarchical courtly and bureaucratic society in which the Lieutenant Governor lives, and when he

suggests that there are honest judges among the corrupt, Preciosa sarcastically tells him that he is na?ve: "Habla vuesa merced muy a lo santo, se?or teniente

respondi? Preciosa?; ?ndese a eso y cortar?mosle de los harapos para reliquias" (1, 82).

The scene becomes increasingly complex as it turns into a battle of wits: a

battle Preciosa wins hands down. The Lieutenant Governor is silenced by her comments on the judiciary system, and can only suggest that with such wit and

knowledge she should go to court. Preciosa makes it clear that she will have

nothing to do with his corrupt world where fools have more authority than the

wise: "Querr?nme para truhana ... y no lo sabr? ser, y todo ir? perdido. Si me

quisiesen para discreta, a?n llevarme h?an; pero en algunos palacios m?s median los truhanes que los discretos. Yo me hallo bien con ser gitana y pobre" (1, 82). Preciosa emerges from this scene as not just a subversively sexual female subject, but also as "a forceful verbal presence" (Weber 64), challenging the ideals of feminine virtue by being publicly visible, precocious, and outspoken. Not only is she a paradoxical character who challenges humanist notions of feminine

virtue, but she also undermines the reader's expectations of romance, and its

conventionally idealistic world view. The image of the typical aristocratic Spanish family presented to the reader

in the Lieutenant Governor's home, along with its urban setting, does not appear to be a "site of order and reason" (Sears 41), nor can this family be interpreted as a model of the ideal home to which Cervantes's protagonists must ultimately return in order to "create social order at its most fundamental level" (Sears 42). On the contrary, this family, and the world it inhabits, is a sign of the injustice,

corruption, bankruptcy and impotence of the society that fashioned it. The author patently satirizes the values of the Lieutenant Governor's class, and will continue to do so to the end of the novela.

This episode is particularly important to any reading of La gitanilla, since it

is one of the first glimpses, among many others, of structured Spanish society

depicted as thieving, cheating, and corrupt; an ironic allusion back to the

introductory comments made with regard to gypsies. It is also of great interest, since it is an example of the conspicuous language of money in this novela. Preciosa is often compared with precious gems, gold and silver, and money is also wrapped up (literally and figuratively) with the language of love in the

poems she receives from the anonymous page. William Clamurro has recently written in Beneath the Fiction: The Contrary Worlds of Cervantes, that money

operates in this tale as a "plot device," and must be read as a "carefully allusive

language" (16). Yet other critics have attempted to dismiss the subversive

element of this "allusive language." Thomas Hart does not see that the image of



382

money arises very often in the text and, when it does, he writes that it "almost

always appears in an unfavourable light" (23). Hart will then argue that the absence of money in the Lieutenant's home is an idealistic element that Cervantes's aristocratic readers would have appreciated, since it is in keeping with the petty nobility's self image of existing in a world free of currency (23). Hart does not acknowledge the pervasive presence of the language of money in La gitanilla, stating that "one of the few glimpses of it ... comes near the

beginning, when a group of gypsies is invited into a nobleman's house" (23). This

episode is by no means the only one in which the subject of money appears in the text, but Hart's reading is of interest here, since it follows a tradition of

viewing La gitanilla in terms of idealism and romance.

Daniel Eisenberg points out in Romances of Chivalry in the Spanish Golden Age that money is conspicuously absent from romances of chivalry, and that Cervantes was well aware of this unique characteristic: "The knight never seeks

money; indeed, money is so seldom mentioned, as Don Quijote correctly points out to Sancho, that it seems that the protagonists of the romances live in a

primitive era, outside the money economy altogether" (63). The "money economy," contrary to Hart's reading, is omnipresent in La gitanilla; it opens and closes the text, and is one of the elements most subversive to romance inscribed in the tale. This plot device appears no more clearly in the novela than

when don Juan de C?rcamo, soon to be Andr?s Caballero, approaches the gypsy band to court Preciosa.

One of the ways Cervantes speaks this "allusive language" of money to his

readers, is by encoding it into the discourse of romance and, in particular, chivalric romance. When Juan leaves his home to join the gypsies, he is

completely aware of his identity and noble heritage, unlike many typical knights of romance whose true identities are unknown when they first venture out of their courts. Going against Preciosas advice, he claims to be willing to abandon his life of privilege in order to comply with Preciosa's demands, and as a final

proof of his sincerity, he offers her his money: "Cien escudos traigo aqu? en oro

para daros en arra y se?al de lo que pienso daros; porque no ha de negar la hacienda el que da el alma" (1, 84). Love, identity, and money, according to this

nobleman, are intimately linked with each other, and it is the function of money in this tale to keep Juan connected to his aristocratic world. This is not, as is often claimed, an idealistic element of the novela. Rather than a symbol of his noble character, Juan's use of money is a sign of his coercive powers, cultivated in a world of privilege.

Preciosa, on the other hand, is a free individual as long as she lives with the

gypsies, set apart, or above, the social structure that programmes Juan's

behaviour and social mores. Her often cited reply makes her superiority plain: "Yo, se?or caballero, aunque soy gitana pobre y humildemente nacida, tengo un cierto espiritillo fant?stico ac? dentro, que a grandes cosas me lleva. A m? ni me



383

mueven promesas, ni me desmoronan d?divas, ni me inclinan sumisiones, ni me

espantan finezas enamoradas" (i, 85). While the gypsy girl is incorruptible, abiding by her own noble code of behaviour, the gentleman must return to the vernacular code of money to define his identity and desires.

Juan is willing to lie and steal from his family in order to join the gypsy band and live according to their laws, and again, as a final gesture of his authentic affection and unimpeachable intentions, he offers the gypsies his hundred gold escudos. Here it is Preciosa who, going against her usual economic sagacity, displays more chivalric manners by refusing his money. It is then up to a real

gypsy to remind her of the importance of cash for the gypsy band, particularly when they come into contact with the ministers, scribes and judges of Spanish society. What makes the old grandmother's rebuke all the more amusingly satirical, is Cervantes's inscription of the imagery of chivalric romance into her

argument.

Cervantes begins the discourse with a direct association between arms and

money: "Calla, ni?a; que la mejor se?al que este se?or ha dado de estar rendido es haber entregado las armas en se?al de rendimiento" (1, 88). Just as a knight might hand over his sword to his new lord as a symbol of loyal service, the arms that once stood for the honour and identity of a knight are here ironically substituted for gold, but symbolically fulfil the same function. The wise

grandmother concludes her argument with another allusion to the idyllic chivalric world in which money ideally has no place: "Mira ni?a, que andamos en oficio muy peligroso y lleno de tropiezos y ocasiones forzosas, y no hay defensas que m?s presto nos amparen y socorran como las armas invencibles del

gran Filipo: no hay pasar adelante de su plus ultra" (1, 89). The ironic treatment of the language of chivalry here is a patent attempt at

subverting the idealistic world view recreated in romance. Cervantes seems to be

elaborating on the old jaded Spanish saying, "poderoso caballero es don Dinero." In this case, the magicians, monsters, and giants that must be vanquished are scribes and judges, and with a concluding ironic allusion to the ever-present paso

motif of so many romances of chivalry, Cervantes tells his readers that the

currency of the day can defend the gypsies' nefarious byways better than any Sir Lancelot.5

The conclusion that the reader must draw from scenes such as this one, and the "Buenaventura" episode, is that Juan and his whole social class, as it was

expressed in the world of romance, is marked only by the ephemeral appearances of order, justice, honour and nobility. This is accomplished by calling to mind the whole literary tradition of romance, including its ideology, through Cervantes's ironic duplication of those same literary conventions. These

appearances are then checked by less idealistic elements - female sexual

aggressiveness and precocity, the market economy, aristocratic moral laziness,

and political corruption - that are foreign to the idealism of romance, and the



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affected aristocratic world presented within it. The combination of what

traditionally has be called idealism and realism is more than an experiment with narrative modalities, and what the reader uncovers by paying close attention to

Cervantes's manipulation of generic discourses is a systematic subversion of the

form and ideology of romance, since it is clear that Cervantes deliberately inscribes elements that promise to be conventional, but turn out to be subverted

with irony from the very beginning. This reversal of expectations will continue to the troubled happy ending of the tale, but before moving on to the closing scenes, the encounter between Juan and the old gypsy leader deserves a close re

examination here in order to further demonstrate the point made above.

The world of the gypsies, as described by the gypsy chieftain, is a space set

apart, and in opposition to, mainstream Spanish society. Cervantes shapes this

marginal space in his short story with an acute awareness of its potential to

illuminate social values, as well as tensions arising out of a conflict between a

society's world view, its view of how their culture actually works as a system, and its ethos. In this phase of the tale, Juan must abandon his identity, and, like

many neophyte heroes, the high must be made low in order to be tested and

enlightened. Don Juan de C?rcamo, the high-born noble knight, becomes

Andr?s Caballero the gypsy, but Cervantes will not allow this neophyte to

complete his right of passage honestly. Andr?s is never entirely disconnected from his true identity. The symbolic umbilical cord that links him to his society, and his privileged place within it, is money.

Andr?s does use his money to avoid the stealing involved in his new gypsy life - an aspect of the narrative many critics have focused on in order to emphasize Andr?s's distance from the morality of the gypsy band.6 Here again, the role of

money highlights the link between currency and class identity in the text, and

just as in the "Buenaventura" episode, there is ample evidence to suspect an

ironic treatment of this relationship. As part of his private agreement with Preciosa to win her hand, Juan agrees to live by the laws and customs of the

gypsies explained to him by the elder of the group. This includes participating in their notorious thievery, but Juan plots to undermine those laws through the use of his financial advantages: "De todo lo que hab?a visto y o?do, y de los

ingenios de los gitanos, qued? admirado Andr?s y con prop?sito de seguir y

conseguir su empresa sin entremeterse nada en sus costumbres ... pensando

exentarse de la jurisdiction de obedecellos en las cosas injustas que le

mandasen, a costa de su dinero" (i, 106).

Cervantes saturates the encounter between Juan and the gypsies with the

language of law. The old gypsy leader refers to the "ley de amistad" (1,101) that

they all abide by, and he explains that they are all the judges of their own affairs,

abiding by their own statutes willingly: "Con estas y con otras leyes y estatutos nos conservamos y vivimos alegres" (1,101). Juan is made aware of the jurisdic tion he is entering into, and in an ironic twist, money exerts the same power of



385

corruption in this new world as it does in structured society alluded to in the "Buenaventura" episode.

In Juan's natural environment, money can persuade a judge and spare a thief from punishment. In this strange gypsy world, stealing is the law; it is what all

gypsies must do and, just as in the world Juan comes from, economic privilege can shield him from the law of the gypsies. This is an entertaining parody, but the insight into law-governed Spanish society remains clear: money buys off the law and breaks jurisdictions. More than a simple inversion of Spanish society, the author creates a complex manifestation of social anti-structure in the gypsy camp that is not a reversal of order, but a comic distortion of existing social

practices.7 Once placed in this new world, Andr?s's surname, Caballero, acquires a distinctly ironic valance, and cannot be interpreted as a badge of chivalric

idealism; on the contrary, it must be see as another source of subversion in the text.

In light of this re-reading of Andr?s and the gypsy band, the gypsy world

depicted by the old leader warrants further examination, since it is the first

manifestation, of many more to come in the Novelas ejemplares, of what has been referred to above as anti-structure. As many critics have acknowledged,

Cervantes's writings reveal a fascination with worlds set apart from ordered

society. Whether it is called freedom, lawlessness, alterity, or marginality, Cervantes seems constantly preoccupied with the narrative possibilities and

insights that can arise from these fictional manifestations of anti-structure.8 The community of gypsies, although it is certainly an expression of anti

structure, is by no means a Utopian space, especially if the reader considers the cruel and dehumanizing treatment that gypsy women receive. The gypsies do

live, however, in a commune where all possessions are shared (except for

women), and there is no hierarchy based on class distinctions. They are not

plagued by the notion of honour, nor do they suffer from jealousy and envy, and all their disputes are settled according to mutually-accepted laws. As such, they live completely separated from ordered Spanish society and its draconian codes of acceptable social practices: "En conclusi?n" - the gypsy chief explains

-

"somos gente que vivimos por nuestra industria y pico, y sin entremeternos en

el antiguo refr?n: 'Iglesia, o mar, o casa real,' tenemos lo que queremos, pues nos

contentamos con lo que tenemos" (i, 102).

The world described above stands in opposition to ordered society, and Cervantes draws on the contrasts between the two worlds in order to map out their boundaries. In these examples the gypsy world is indeed the opposite of

mainstream society, and the old gypsy's description of his culture in contrast to its opposite provides a fictional grid with which the imperfections of the world from which Juan comes can be marked. On the other hand, with regard to the treatment of women, the gypsy world can be read again as an exaggeration of actual Spanish society in which women are very much oppressed by a patriarchal



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society, not always free to choose their husbands, and are exchanged much like material commodities in the market place of matrimony.

What is important about all the manifestations of anti-structure in the Novelas ejemplares, from the gypsies' camp, to the picaresque worlds in Rinconete

y Cortadillo and La ilustre fregona, or the Turkish setting in El amante liberal, or even the microcosm inhabited by one mad licentiate who sees through the

hypocrisies of his surroundings in El Licenciado Vidriera, is that they are

fictionalized liminal spaces that afford insights into a culture's ethos. Since they are spaces that allow for an examination of a culture's most basic values, they create the potential to legitimate those values, or to serve as a template upon which a new, re-adjusted world view might be conformed.

The old gypsy's speech stands at the centre of an opposition of discourses that has been followed from Preciosas first encounters with ordered Spanish society. One discourse recreates a symbol of order and traditional cultural authority fashioned in the familiar commonplaces of romance, and the other is an

expression of anti-structure, inherently subversive to traditional order. Carroll Johnson offers a similar reading of Cervantes's exploitation of this

structural aspect of the short prose narrative in Monipodio's picaresque world from Rinconete y Cortadillo. Just as the gypsies' world is not a complete inversion of symbolic order, as discussed above, Johnson writes in "The Old Order

Passeth, or Does It?" that Monipodio's patio is another parody of order that

provides the same kind of insights into Spanish society: "It [Monipodio's patio] presents not a grotesque deformation, which would valorize the official institutions positively by contrast, but a caricaturesque exaggeration that throws the salient features of those institutions into prominence and invites our critical

meditation on them" (94). Cervantes creates a similar "caricaturesque exagger

ation" of Spanish society in the gypsies' world, and more specifically, he satirizes the idea of a chivalric world that Juan and his class traditionally represent in romance by subverting the very literary conventions associated with the genre.

In another parody of the ideals of chivalry and the codes of class distinction based on blood lines, Cervantes humorously exposes the absurdity of the gypsy's law-governed society by inscribing the language of chivalry into Andr?s's reply to the gypsy leader, while at the same time the author highlights the

impetuousness of Juan's decision to become a common citizen in that society:

El novicio dijo que se holgaba mucho de haber sabido tan loables estatutos, y que ?l

pensaba hacer profesi?n en aquella orden tan puesta en raz?n y en pol?ticos fundamentos,

y que s?lo le pesaba no haber venido m?s presto en conocimiento de tan alegre vida, y

que desde aquel punto renunciaba la profesi?n de caballero y la vanagloria de su ilustre

linage, y lo pon?a todo debajo del yugo, o, por mejor decir, debajo de las leyes con que

ellos viv?an. (1,103)



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The tone here is patently ironic, but Cervantes does not leave the burden of

interpreting the absurdity of Juan's decision up to the reader. Once the initiation is complete, the narrator interjects an apostrophe beginning with "?Oh poderosa fuerza deste que llaman dulce dios de la amargura" (i, 106), that is directed at

Juan's foolishness, subtly insinuating that it stems from the moral laziness of his class and its idealistic notions of courtly love:

Caballero es Andr?s, y mozo de muy buen entendimiento, criado casi toda su vida en la

corte y con el regalo de sus ricos padres, y desde ayer ac? ha hecho tal mudanza, que

enga?? a sus criados y a sus amigos, defraud? las esperanzas que sus padres en ?l ten?an,

dej? el camino de Flandes, donde hab?a de ejercitar el valor de su persona y acrecentar la

honra de su linaje, y se vino a postrarse a los pies de una muchacha y a ser su lacayo, que,

puesto que hermos?sima, en fin, era gitana. (1,106)

Juan the knight has become Andr?s the "gallardo escudero" (1,106), all to the

great pleasure of Preciosa, who is now the mentor of this nobleman, in spite of the fact that she is still just a simple gypsy girl. It is Andr?s who is the novice

here, and at every encounter with Preciosa before entering her world, his character is less than heroic. It is at best puny and na?ve, if not self-indulgent and

reckless, and it is not possible to divorce his imperfect character from the class and social structure in which it was fashioned.

The moral and spiritual transformation of Andr?s has been the focus of much critical attention given to La gitanilla, so much so that Alban Forcione considers it to be the central humanist argument of the text. By becoming the gypsy

Andr?s Caballero, Juan the foolish gentleman with his gossamer sentimentality rises above the corruption of both his world and that of the gypsies to sit at Preciosas side. A close reading of what happens to these free spirits by the end of the tale, however, shifts the interpretation of the novela away from the idealism of romance, and orients it again towards a critical examination of the

shortcomings of mainstream society. On the surface, the ending of La gitanilla displays all the traditional

commonplaces of the anticipated happy ending typical of romance, concluding with the discovery of Preciosa's true identity, Andr?s's return to his proper social

status, and, of course, the inevitable nuptials. This is completed with secret letters regarding Constanza de Azevedo y de Meneses's disappearance and the final examination of Preciosa's hidden birthmark that signal the character's re

entry into society. But the events surrounding this ending complicate the

potential closure that such a formulaic ending could provide, leading the reader to suspect disingenuousness on the part of the author regarding his opinion of the artistic and ethical viability of romance.

The beginning of the d?nouement is marked by events that echo the beginning of the text, dealing with the themes of theft, corruption, and class identity. In yet



388

another reversal of expectations, it turns out that the members of honour-bound

Spanish society are once again the corrupted ones, while the gypsies are

manipulated and victimized. The tensions between the two world views rise

again in the episode where the young, unrequited Carducha frames Andres as a

thief while the gypsy band is staying at her mother's boarding house. Andr?s's innocence will not be revealed until after his true identity is discovered and he is automatically pardoned, a point that re-introduces the ironic treatment of

appearances, class identity, and the commonplaces of romance.

While he is imprisoned, and Preciosa is brought before the Corregidor and his

wife, the distinctions between social classes are invoked on several occasions in defense of Andr?s's behaviour. Twice the subservient Constanza argues with her

parents that Andr?s is not a gypsy, and therefore he cannot be a murderer. On these grounds Constanza states that Andr?s is innocent, not because he didn't kill a man, but because he is not a gypsy: "Se?ores m?os" - Constanza pleads

-

"que ni es gitano ni ladr?n, puesto que es matador. Pues fuelo del que le quit? la honra, y no pudo hacer menos de mostrar qui?n era y matarle" (i, 129).

The double standard implied here cannot be overlooked, since the author

continually draws attention to these reversals, and indeed he has primed an

ironic interpretation of the text from the first words of the story. Here a gypsy who kills a man is a murderer, since he has no honour to defend, and he must be sentenced to death, but a nobleman who kills is the embodiment of the

highest chivalric ideals of honour. Nevertheless, a dramatic shift in social

standing by itself will not be enough to completely close off the tensions caused

by this murder. The Corregidor and his wife must take advantage of their financial advantages in order to release Andr?s and complete his return to Juan the "caballero." The topic of the coercive nature of cash that was introduced earlier by Preciosas gypsy grandmother, arises again to end the narrative.

Once Preciosa is brought before the judge, but before her true identity is

established, she offers to buy Andr?s's freedom in a statement that points the reader back to her grandmother's explanation of the powers of money when faced with the judicial system: "Si dineros fueren menester para alcanzar perd?n de la parte, todo nuestro aduar se vender? en p?blica almoneda, y se dar? a?n m?s de lo que pidieren" (1,126). In fact, the same use of money that Preciosa's

grandmother outlined earlier in the tale is exercised here at the end of the novela in order to secure Andr?s's acquittal: "Recibi? el t?o del muerto la promesa de dos mil ducados, que le hicieron por que bajase de la querella y perdonase a don

Juan" (1,133). Once again, Spanish society is not a symbol of ideal order, nor is it a wholesome and "right" society in which a reconstructed Spanish family can

be resurrected, and where "things are not stolen; they are bought and paid for"

(Sears 46). A more accurate description of the image of Spanish society in La

gitanilla might be that it is a place where things, and people, are bought off and

paid for.



389

The reader is at once struck by the abruptness of Andr?s's return to his

privileged position, and the matter-of-fact manner in which all charges are

dropped. Andr?s literally moves in the text from the darkest of dungeons to the

light of his publicly celebrated marriage with Constanza. The exposure of what must be read as expressions of the abuse of power associated with ordered

society that have already been exposed in the text continue to subvert both the

form and the ideology associated with romance. Although the two do return to

society, and the wedding does take place, these tensions, once exposed, are not

satisfactorily closed off; they lie just beneath the surface of the commonplaces of

romance, eliminating any possibility of validating existing social structure by breaking through the surface in the last lines of the novela.

Cervantes chooses to end the tale not with a wedding ceremony, but with an

aside to the reader, added after the official ending of a second poetic narrative created by the Licentiate Pozo, in whose verse, we are told, the fame of Preciosa lives on forever. Even the poetic ending alluded to is incomplete, since it is not even present, but our author suggests that the implied reader should accept it, and indeed it would be a fitting ending for any traditional romance, but Cervantes includes an addendum to this ending in order to tie up one last detail that has no place in the idyllic world of romance: "Olvid?baseme de decir c?mo la enamorada mesonera descubri? a la justicia no ser verdad lo del hurto de

Andr?s el gitano" (i, 134). As if to make the insignificance of the matter in relation to the official

representation of order that has sealed the ending of the narrative more

apparent, Cervantes reminds the reader one last time that these endings are too

formulaic to resolve all the tensions created in the text, thus exposing the artificial and even oppressive qualities of romance. This is achieved by re

introducing at the very last moment the subversive discourses developed from the beginning of the tale that are, in the end, associated with Juan s reckless adventure with Preciosa and the gypsies. The fact that Juan the gentleman and his entire class are above the law is here ironically added as if the reader might have overlooked a point that the author will not let slip by unnoticed.

What may appear on the surface to be an idyllic happy ending to a typical romance that ratifies symbolic order, has been successfully undermined by what

William Clamurro calls "ironies, inequalities, and inconsistencies of the same

order that the author affirms" (6). But to what extent this problematic ending corroborates Clamurro's argument that Cervantes's "view of society and

morality ... is conservative and orderly" (5), is very much open to debate. Michael Gerli writes in "Romance and Novel: Idealism and Irony in La

gitanilla" that Cervantes leaves "any judgment of values up to the reader"

through "the juxtaposition of the ideal and the real" in the structuring of La

gitanilla (30). Following the ironies that subvert the idealism of romance, Gerli concludes that the central theme of La gitanilla is "neither love, marriage nor



390

constancy" (31). Gerli argues convincingly that the tale exposes and subverts

"society's acceptance of a nobility based solely on birth and ratification in romance" (35), and that it pushes "ceremony into ostentatious absurdity," thus

allowing the reader to "perceive ironically the moral emptiness of the trappings of authority" (36). Preciosa stands in opposition to this moral emptiness, symbolizing a notion of honour that is "the result of the interaction of

conscience, will, and a natural disposition toward good which all men must discover within themselves" (Gerli 34-35).

Although Preciosa does indeed represent these humanist ideals while she is a gypsy, what happens to her "espiritillo fant?stico" and free will once she returns to ordered society provides another glimpse of the "moral emptiness" of that world. Rather than the empowered and autonomous subject that transcends both the laws of the gypsy band, and the corrupt codes of structured society, her will is completely subservient and ultimately silenced by the oppressiveness of her rediscovered identity. When asked by her mother if she loves Andr?s, the obedient Constanza replies humbly, "con verg?enza y con los ojos en el suelo"

(1,131), that she did entertain the advantages of marrying such a well-mannered

noblemen, but that she no longer has any freedom of her own to choose: "Le hab?a mirado con ojos aficionados; pero que, en resoluci?n, ya hab?a dicho que no ten?a otra voluntad que aquella que ellos quisiesen" (1,131).

The silencing of Preciosa exemplifies Cervantes's "interplay of idealism and

irony," that has been studied here beginning with the first lines of the novela and Preciosas first public performance, but it is also clear that this "interplay" goes

beyond experimentation. There is a discernable method and consistency to the subversion of form and ideology throughout the tale, and therefore the

"judgment of values" that Gerli speaks of is not entirely subjective. Cervantes does guide his readers to a conclusion that goes beyond the plot of his tale. In La

gitanilla, the author demonstrates that there is an ideological world view associated with literary form, and that in the case of romance, both its form and

ideology are bankrupt. Cervantes provides a tale that invites his readers to

contemplate the oppressiveness and artificial nature of conventional modes of

expression and behaviour, including the idealized, aristocratic, and absolutist

ideologies of his time. Cervantes provides the clues necessary for a careful reading that penetrates

the surface of appearances in the first lines of the novela, as well as in the

prologue, where he writes, "ser? forzoso valerme por mi pico, que aunque tartamudo, no lo ser? para decir verdades, que, dichas por se?as, suelen ser

entendidas" (1, 51). Nevertheless, critics continue to insist that Cervantes does indeed believe in the symbolic order associated with these formulaic endings, and that he attempts to harmonize the realistic elements that subvert the world view of romance, with its traditional idealistic ideology.



391

"For some" - Gerli writes - "La gitanilla remains an inspirational tale full of moral idealism" (38), and to some extent, William Clamurro's reading of the Novelas ejemplares, expresses the common belief that Cervantes's novelas display a faith in "the ultimate Tightness of the given social order and the orthodox Christian beliefs and values of his epoch" (Clamurro 10). By no means does Clamurro suggest that Cervantes's novelas are uncomplicated, and he does not

deny that there is an irony in them that subverts "many of the romance genre's expectations" (16). Clamurro's book is, in fact, based on a study of these

inconsistencies, stating that Cervantes's tales "reveal the complex, slightly grim, and perhaps melancholy structures of social prejudices of a most repressed and

repressive culture" (8), and Theresa Ann Sears also acknowledges that many of the tensions uncovered in Cervantes's tales are reintroduced in their endings (54-55). Although these studies do pay close critical attention to the unresolved contradictions between various artistic discourses in the Novelas ejemplares, moving away from the use of simplistic dichotomies as heuristic devices for

interpreting Cervantes's narratives, in the final analysis, these critics seem to favour a conservative reading of La gitanilla despite the overwhelming "doubleness and irony" they successfully uncover (Clamurro 2).

Clamurro argues that Cervantes's conservatism is "openly affirmed in those novelas that seem to end happily" (11), but at the same time the author recognizes that the ending of La gitanilla is "darkly ironic" (39). Rather than following the

consistency of this irony as a consciously inscribed subversive element that denies ordered society's claim to moral exemplarity, Clamurro concludes that Preciosa and the "seeming celebration of freedom" she represents is but a "con

game" (39), and that the character "masks a deeper reaffirmation of rigid values and of class-conscious 'identity as conformity'" (40). It is Constanza who stands for conformity, and her disturbing silence serves to highlight, by contrast, Preciosa's nonconformity as a female character of romance. The question is, why should Constanza (instead of "la gitanilla"), and this unsettling ending be given

more weight as an expression of Cervantes's conservatism, and faith in "the ultimate Tightness of the given social order," when there is ample evidence that the entire novela is designed to subvert that conservatism through the ironic

manipulation of one of its most recognizable literary vehicles? Nowhere in the novela are the reader's expectations met, although it is clear

that Cervantes inscribes many of the commonplaces of romance into his tale to structure it, and to move from one phase of the narrative to the next. To begin

with, Preciosa appears to be a typical female character of romance, but she turns out to be an extraordinarily subversive figure. She is intelligent, outspoken, and confrontational. She is also a lowly gypsy girl who turns out to be the spiritual mentor of a nobleman, but not according to an idealized notion of courtly love where the feminine figure is passive, and the gentleman's spirit is ennobled



392

through his actions, and his sufferings. Preciosa assumes complete control over

Juan's tutelage, and she determines all the conditions of their agreement. Juan is not a conventional character either, although Cervantes evokes images

of chivalric romance in many of the passages where Juan must interact with

Preciosa, the gypsies, and the officer who arrests him. He is at all times aware of his true identity, and he fails to complete his rite of passage honestly. Further more, Cervantes makes every effort to satirize the aristocratic ideology associated with Juan and his class, through the language of money interwoven with the

language of chivalric romance.

Finally, the so-called happy ending does not complete its function, since it cannot successfully resolve all the tensions created in the novela, and Cervantes draws attention to this failure in the last lines of his tale. It should be clear that this textual evidence suggests a systematic process of subversion that far

outweighs any suspicion of conservatism, and that the true con game is Constanzas conformity, and the entire aristocratic ideology she conforms to as

expressed in romance.

These different types of endings in the Novelas ejemplares -

especially those that "seem to end happily," and those that appear to be more "open"

- are another aspect of the collection that critics point to when reading Cervantes's novelas in terms of idealism and realism, and Cervantes does include "open" novelas in his collection that are far from conventional in terms of romance

(Rinconete y Cortadillo, El coloquio de los perros). It is worth reconsidering, however, to what extent the novelas that seem to end happily are more

problematic than one would expect. Using La gitanilla as a model, one might look for the subversion of romance in the superficially happy ending of La ilustre

fregona where a young girl is returned to the nobleman who raped her mother, or the exclamation in the last line of that novela, "?Asturiano, daca la cola!" that reintroduces a picaresque theme at the very last moment (n, 198). To what extent is the ending of La fuerza de la sangre a satisfactorily happy one? Or that of El amante liberal? What kind of ordered society or symbolic family do these

endings evoke, in which the characters themselves are less than ideal, or even unredeemable. Each of these tales, as Alban Forcione has suggested, does not meet entirely with our expectations of romance, and it is hoped that this essay will trigger careful re-readings of those that appear to follow the commonplaces of romance in order to arrive at a more complete understanding of Cervantes's

deliberately subversive engagement with its ideological and formal conventions.

Pennsylvania State University



NOTES

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1 Ricapito writes that the Italian model was "the only truly worthy vessel into

which Cervantes poured his creatio" since "Boccaccio and the Italianate

tradition were at the literary forefront and created an ideal of literature with

which Cervantes obviously wished to be identified" (2). 2 The search for Cervantes's literary models can be seen in most all of the criti

cism written on his works, and La gitanilla is no exception. Writing specifically on La gitanilla, Thomas Hart notices an influence of the romances of chivalry

(25), while Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce points out a connection with the picar

esque novel (11). Still others, such as Frank Pierce, identify elements of the

pastoral, as does Stanislav Zimic (Zimic 46). Pierce also favours a more generic

concept of romance that focuses on notions of verisimilitude and the triumph of love (283), thus associating La gitanilla with Joaqu?n Casalduero's category of

a novela "de amor" (11), and with Ruth El Saffar's reading of the text as "transi

tional," moving from notions of realism associated with the modern novel,

toward the idealism of romance (El Saffar 87). With regard to the idealism

associated with romance often discussed in La gitanilla, Michael Gerli views the

novela as only superficially idealistic (30), and representative of E.C. Riley's

argument that Cervantes worked with both realism and idealism at the same

time (6). 3 The mention of Juan Timoneda's El patra?uelo brings up the important point

that La gitanilla is very possibly inspired in Timoneda's version of the Libro de

Apolonio and his Truhanilla character, as Alban Forcione reminds us (Cervantes

and the Humanist^). Preciosa will be contrasted with this character, and La

gitanilla will be compared with the patra?a she appears in (the eleventh in

Timoneda's collection), since it is a good example, among others, of a conven

tional romance that could have served as a model for Cervantes.

4 Alban Forcione persuasively argues in Cervantes and the Humanist Vision that

the content of the poems in La gitanilla promote "the vision of perfection toward which Preciosa would aspire in her marriage ideal" (137). Uncovering

what he believes to be an Erasmian concept of the ideal Christian marriage, Forcione proposes that these songs help forge the "imaginative unity" of the

entire novela (137), which he views as essentially an idealistic "tale of courtship and rational wedded love," as well as a portrait of an ideal family (95).

5 Daniel Eisenberg's study of the Spanish romances of chivalry corroborates this

statement: "That this type of adventure antedated the Spanish romances, and is

found in the fifteenth-century Passo honroso - itself a reflection of literature - is

so well known as almost to make it unnecessary to mention here" (69). 6 Thomas Hart, for example, points to Andr?s's trickery as one example of role

playing in La gitanilla (25), and the author's comments chime with many others

who read his experience with the gypsies in a very idealistic light. Many readers

have insisted that Juan's new symbolic surname, Caballero, is a sincere attempt on the part of the author to highlight the character's true nobility and honest

nature.



394

7 The term anti-structure is borrowed from Victor Turner's The Ritual Process:

Structure and Anti-Structure, in which he explains that anti-structure, like the

author's notion of communitas, is a utopian-like state, in which all traditional

social class distinctions are obliterated, and private possessions are given up, much as in a monastic order or modern commune. It is also a social conscious

ness that is antithetical to mainstream social structure. According to the author,

it is in such expressions of anti-structure that a society often discovers and

confirms its most basic values. For preliterate societies, Turner specifies this

type of anti-structure as "normative communitas' (134), among other

modalities. When communitas is expressed in more complex and literate

societies, it becomes "a positive torrent of explicitly formulated views on how

men may best live together in comradely harmony" (134). Turner refers to this

expression of anti-structure as "ideological communitas' (134), and it is a

helpful concept to work with when attempting to interpret Cervantes's

mysterious worlds set apart from society in the Novelas ejemplares. 8 Among the many critics who have addressed this narrative technique in

Cervantes's Novelas ejemplares, Carroll Johnson, Steven Hutchinson, and Alban

Forcione, among others, come to mind here. Hutchinson believes that

Cervantes was, more than any other author of his time, fascinated with "la

alteridad colectiva" (134), and Forcione has suggested that "there is an encoun

ter with lawlessness in nearly every novella" (Cervantes and the Mystery 61).

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burgoyne, la gitanilla, a model of cervantes subversion of romanc

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