Preliminary Observations

Nowadays, these are unfashionable subjects, seldom touched upon in introductory books on Don Quixote. Yet it has not always been so. Eighteenth- century French and English novelists were fascinated by what I call Cervantes's manner: his mock-solemn and casually flippant attitude to his story, which he treats as a burlesque blend of epic and history; it inspires a succession of seminally influential imitations, including two of the century's greatest novels: Fielding's Tom Jones (1749) and Sterne's Tristram Shandy (1759). While modern novelists and critics have continued to be interested in the pseudo-historical and metafictional aspects of this,1 they have been less concerned with others, notably Cervantes's wit and his mock-grave irony. The latter in particular was much admired in the England of Shaftesbury, Addison, Pope, Fielding and Hogarth, and was seen as integral to his method of parody (Paulson, 1998: 40–1), while in Enlightenment Spain, men-ofletters regarded the naturalness, clarity and purity of his language, including its witty levity, as principal reasons for his elevation to classic status.

The eighteenth century was right in considering these aspects of Don Quixote essential. The lack of interest shown by modern critics in how the story is told reflects an underlying indifference to what kind of story it is, by which I mean a disposition to ignore or downplay its predominantly comic aspect in order to elicit the supposed profundities that lie beneath. Cervantes clearly considers it paramount since he highlights it in every one of his general comments on his novel's import and purpose. It fundamentally conditions his style and manner of narration, with logical implications for authorial viewpoint, characterisation and the metafictional nature of Part II. As one might expect, he sheds this manner in contexts of the novel that are intended to be taken seriously, such as the tragic interpolated novela El curioso impertinente (I, 33–35). In Cervantes's works other than Don Quixote, we find the characteristics of the humorous mode only in those which have a predominantly comic purpose: passages of certain novelas such as Rinconete y Cortadillo and La ilustre fregona; the Viaje del Parnaso; the comic theatre, including, in particular, the entremeses. Its merrily effervescent ethos is well expressed by the lackey Ocaña in the comedy La entretenida: Siempre la melancolía