The narrative of El licenciado Vidriera (The Glass Graduate) traces the progress of its titular character from his apprenticeship of study and travel through an episode of madness to his final efforts to establish a court career in Valladolid and a life of military service in Flanders. To record this fictional life Cervantes engages a series of literary genres. The particular affliction that the text describes – the delusion that one's body is made of glass – has explicit associations with the transparency and keenness of satirical discourse, and during his madness the licentiate speaks with the traditional voice of the urban satirist, offering harsh commentary on the weaknesses of the tradesmen and officials who throng the streets around him. A number of other generic patterns inform the narrative frame that encloses the central episode of the madman's railing. The conventions of picaresque fiction shape the initial description of the young Tomás Rodaja; the patterns of Renaissance travel literature and of the rhetorical praise of cities influence the schematic account of his journey through Italy and the Lowlands; the trajectory of romance is present in his rise from modest origins to a valiant death in the army of Flanders. The juxtaposition of different generic models is particularly marked in the text's laconic ending. The licentiate takes leave of the court with a traditional complaint against its inconstancy and sets forth for the wars:

The Renaissance debate over the claims of arms and letters shapes the protagonist’s choice of careers, and this closing statement reaffirms the structuring force of these terms. At the same time, this conventional theme is cast in a commemorative language that recalls the Roman practice of inscribing military curricula on gravestones and a parallel tradition of literary epitaphs recording the virtues and deeds of soldiers.