Of Poets and Barbarians: Challenging Linguistic Hierarchies in Cervantes’s Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda
Is style an ornamental feature of writing separate from the content or can it be a vehicle of political and ethical expression? This essay takes as point of departure the incipit of Miguel de Cervantes’s posthumously published epic novel, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (1617) to argue for a richer understanding of style. More specifically, it shows how through the use of a high epic style in the Persiles Cervantes questions central humanist tenets and assumptions about the relation of language to humanity, of individual speakers and linguistic communities, as well as the expectations of a linguistic chain of being that would unflinchingly equate clarity of speech with civilization. By focusing on the representation of barbarian speech, this essay examines the ways in which Cervantes’s work offers a more ethical alternative to classical and Renaissance epic models that would either deny speech to barbarians or limit barbarian speech to the enabling curse that will get the heroic adventures going. By making the barbarian’s words intelligible through translation and more daringly, by making that very act of translation effect a change in the very texture of the receiving language itself, barbarolalia in Persiles emerges as poetry’s twin.
Cervantes' Epic Novel: Empire, Religion, and the Dream Life of Heroes in Persiles
Michael Armstrong-Roche quite correctly points out that most critics view The Labors of Persiles and Sigismunda as a “turning away from modernity” (3), an example of Cervantes’ late-life embrace of the Counter-Reformation. Some even consider the byzantine novel a misstep by the author of Don Quixote while, ironically, Cervantes himself saw his last book as his crowning achievement. In this percep¬tive monograph, Armstrong-Roche makes the case that Persiles can best be appreciated if, instead of looking forward toward the novel, we look back to the epic.
The Italian Renaissance: Culture and Society in Italy
In this newly revised edition of his widely acclaimed work, Peter Burke presents a social and cultural history of the Italian Renaissance. He discusses the social and political institutions that existed in Italy during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, and he analyzes the ways of thinking and seeing that characterized this period of extraordinary artistic creativity. Developing a distinctive approach, the author is concerned not only with the finished works of Michelangelo, Raphael, Leonardo da Vinci, and others, but also with the social background, patterns of recruitment, and means of subsistence of this "cultural elite." He thus makes a major contribution both to our understanding of the Italian Renaissance and to our comprehension of the complex relations between culture and society. An excellent social history of the lives and culture of the artists and artisans which made it possible for the arts to flourish.