A comedy is, by definition, a work in the genre of drama or literature which consists of jokes, comedy sketches etc. intended to make an audience laugh. It is from the standpoint of this definition, and with particular emphasis on the element of comedy in the light of Don Antonio’s statement, that I will discuss the Cervantes’ Don Quijote in this paper. This can first, and foremost, be seen in the context of literary theory in the comic novel, along with the division of styles, genres, characterisation, propriety and decorum, specifically in the light of Don Quijote as a madman. In the words of Russell, ‘a great deal of it is concerned with describing tricks and hoaxes, with making sport of the protagonist, his squire and many other characters- all this with the object of occasioning that boisterous laughter from the spectators which Cervantes so frequently describes’.
Cervantes’ intention for Don Quijote to be a form of entertainment for the reader can be compared to the priest’s statement in his diagnosis of the effects of a good comedy on its spectators in Part One:
‘Alegre con las burlas, enseñando con las versa, admirado de los sucesos, discrete con las razones, advertido con los embustes […]’ (I, 48)
This literary work was written to have broad popular appeal as a form of entertainment. Both book and its protagonist are intended to be funny, and, as Boyd highlights, there are very few passages in Don Quijote that suggest that Cervantes thought that it might be possible for his readers to see Don Quijote as something other than a merely laughable figure.
Cervantes’ intention for Don Quijote to be a comic novel is immediately evident in the characterization of the protagonists. Cervantes’ characterisation of Don Quijote allows the reader to laugh at a character who represents an exaggerated form of the common form of human folly- the folly of pride and vanity- and therefore someone from whom which the reader cannot fully disassociate themselves, and may even identify themselves with. Don Quijote is such a pathetic character that the humour of this work is tinged with irony. The other characters in the novel who are insensitive to the pathos of human folly are oblivious to the dignity of human nature, a dignity that deserves courtesy and respect, even in a madman.
The comedic nature of Don Quixote, the grotesque humour of Don Quixote’s imitation of fictional chivalry arises out of a common vision of such eccentric conduct as contrasting ‘natural and rational norm’. In the prologue to Don Quijote Part I, having ridiculed the snobbish, pedantic and moralistic pretensions of writers such as Lope de Vega, Cervantes’s counsellor goes on to mention the only considerations which need concern him:
Sólo tiene que aprovecharse de la imitación en lo que fuera escribiendo; que cuanto ella fuere más perfecta, tanto mejor será lo que se escribiere. Y, pues, esta vuestra escritura no mira a más que deshacer la autoridad y cabida que en el mundo y en el vulgo tienen los libros de caballerías, no hay para qué andéis mendigando sentencias de filósofos, consejos de la Divina Escritura, fábulas de poetas, oraciones de retóricos, milagros de santos, sino procurar que a la llana, con palabras significantes, honestas y bien colocadas, salga vuestra oración y período sonoro y festivo, pintando, en todo lo que alcanzáredes y fuere posible, vuestra intención; dando a entender vuestros conceptos sin intricarlos y escurecerlos. Procurad también que, leyendo vuestra historia, el melancólico se mueva a misa, el risueño la acreciente, el simple no se enfade, el discreto se admire de la invención, el grave no la desprecie, ni el prudente deje de alabarla. (I, 57-58)
This is his most important statement on the art of comic fiction.
Cervantes and the contemporaries at the time believed that laughter and the ridiculous were provoked by some form of ugliness, and this is clear in the description of Don Quijote; he is funny not only because he is ugly, but also, and more importantly, because he is mad. The central conceit of the novel, is the false claim to be the true history of a poor country gentleman who goes mad from reading chivalric romances. Throughout the novel, he attempts to re-enact the fictional knight errantry portrayed in his libros de caballerías in the real world in the novel.
When taking the literary theory of the novel into account, the prologue of the novel must be considered, where the pretence of factual historicity that characterises Don Quijote from beginning to end is established. In the prologue, historical veracity is paired with the aim of the novel to parody books of knight errantry, which are themselves illogical as true chronicles. The second part of the novel continues from Part One, as it recycles literary themes and material from the previous part, extending and developing further the premise of historicity by including in its fiction the existence of the real Don Quijote from Part One.
As per the works of Brewer, Cervantes’ approach to the metaphysical theme consists of the consistent application of the conceit of historical accuracy imported from Part One, along with the characteristic disregard for the attendant absurdities. People react to Don Quijote Part Two with a mix of curiosity and wonder. They have read part one, the fact of part one as a pretend historical document, people know what to expect and are eager to participate in Cervantes’ fantasy. In Don Antonio’s statement, we can see this blurring between fiction and reality in the characterisation of Don Quijote as a madman;
‘Dios os perdone el agravio que habéis hecho a todo el mundo en querer volver cuerdo al más gracioso loco que hay en él’. (I, 65)
In order to consider the novel as a funny book, Don Quijote’s madness must be discussed. Fun was inseparable from madness, the boundary between sanity and insanity had been blurred and any notion of responsibility has been lost. The line between reality and fiction is blurred as the protagonists are aware of their status of characters within a work of fiction. Don Quijote is clearly a madman, and by returning to sanity he would no longer be the same character. He has become so obsessed with the libros de caballerías that he no longer can differentiate between the literary world and reality.
‘Felicísimos y venturosos fueron los tiempos donde se echó al menos el audacísimo caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, pues por haber tenido tan honrosa determinación como fue el querer resucitar y volver al mundo la ya perdida y casi muerta orden de la andante caballería, gozamos ahora, en esta nuestra edad, necesitada de alegres entretenimientos. […] de la dulzura de su verdadera historia’ (I; 28, 347)
This madness remains central to the plot in Part Two, as it is carried on from Part One. This is most evident in Don Quijote and Sancho’s encounter with the Duke and Duchess. What distinguished the characters of the Duke and Duchess from previous characters in the novel is that they have read Part One. They are enthusiastic participants in Don Quijote’s world and, in a way, are writers of the story in Part Two, as they become involved in this world and take advance of Don Quijote’s madness for the benefit of their own enjoyment. They pull pranks on Don Quite and Sancho, and mock their inferiority.
Don Quijote and Sancho Panza are not self-aware as literary characters. They are not at a diegetic level literary characters, they have become real characters who are the subjects of an historical chronicle. In Part Two, multiple encounters are staged between Don Quijote and his squire and characters who have read the ‘true history’ of Part One. These characters react to the pair with happy recognition, which gives the novel its celebratory atmosphere and drives much of its comic incident.
Cervantes makes clear that the madman’s action function in substitution for literary pursuits. Don Quixote takes the liberty of composing the opening lines of the ‘verdadera historia’ that some wise scribe is sure to write about his deeds of valour:
‘Apenas había el rubicundo Apolo tendido por la faz de la ancha y espaciosa tierra las doradas hebras de sus hermosos cabellos, y apenas los pequeños y pintados pajarillos con sus harpada lenguas habían saludado con dulce y meliflua armonía la venida de la rosada aurora, que, dejando la blanda cama del celoso marido, por las puertas y balcones del manchego horizonte a los mortales se mostraba, cuando el famoso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha, dejando las ociosas plumas, subió sobre su famoso caballo Rocinante y comenzó a caminar por el antiguo y conocido campo de Montiel’ (I, 2, 50)
Don Quijote’s madness is what defines his character. Cervantes made use of the belief that madness could produce a display of intellectual brilliance in a person who had previously shown no signs of it. Cervantes made use of the belief that when Don Quixote’s sanity is restored. In the few pages when we see him restored to sanity, Don Quixote has become, in terms of his new, sane, identity, an uninteresting and conventional figure. It is because Don Antonio Moreno knew that this would happen that he complains about Sansón Carrasco’s determination to make the knight recover his sense;
‘¡Dios os perdone el agravio que había hecho a todo el mundo en querer volver cuerdo al más gracioso loco que hay en él! ¿No veis, señor, que no podrá llegar el provecho que cause la cordura de don Quijote a lo llega el gusto que da con sus desvaríos?’
Cervantes displayed enthusiasm for the pastoral genre, ironically, despite his mockery of the literary implausibility in Don Quijote. He is drawn to pastoral as a poetically heightened medium of mockery for the expression of sentiments of love and the discussion of its psychology, ethics and metaphysics. In contrast, his suspicions about literary in-verisimilitude, precious excess, and disregard for functional relevance cause him to mock the genre in Don Quijote, precisely because these works are mainly concerned to censure such failings.
Looking at the novel taking decorum into consideration, we must note how the dawning of European romanticism introduced a drastic reassessment of the traditional view that Don Quixote was a funny book. Romantic criticism had arrived to proclaim the perhaps more dubious proposition, that it was improper to laugh at the knight. It is widely accepted that it is no longer proper to laugh at Don Quixote today, which is why we look at the pre-romantic view of the book’s meaning to see whether it really was quite so off-target as we have come to think. If one wants to consider Don Quixote as a funny book, one must also discuss Don Quixote’s madness, for, as far as the knight is concerned, the fun- as Cervantes saw it- was inseparable from the madness. The madness of Don Quixote, despite Cervantes’ continuous insistence on it, is something that Don Quixote critics do not seem to be much concerned with. The knight’s fantasies, locura, are regressive in character and regression is a main characteristic of psychosis.
The principle of decorum in the novel directs Cervantes’ theory and practice of comic fiction. Decorum is, as Close states, a complex notion of fittingness, which originated in Aristotle’s classification of the character traits that were normally shown by people of a given age or social class. Don Quijote and Sancho are looked down on by society in the novel, particularly evident in their encounter with the Duke and Duchess. Sancho has told the Duke and Duchess about how he enchanted Dulcinea and they now have undocumented information to use in the new staged part that is Part Two.
As per Russell, it is clear that comedy in Don Quixote is an instrument of, and is subordinate to, its moral purpose. The book’s comedy can be thought to have a moral purpose in that the comic grotesqueness has a moral significance. Cervantes habitually uses comedy-situational ironies and exaggerated traits- as a way of conveying a moral view of the conduct thus represented. Don Quixote is a comic figure, and a morally significant one, because he offends the decorum implicit in what he terms ‘the natural and rational norm’.
The way that Cervantes treats his characters makes this moral quandary in the novel arise. How the Duke and Duchess come across as characters, compared to in real life is evidence of the moral legitimacy in Don Quijote. They are not necessarily morally correct, in that they use Don Quijote and Sancho purely as a form of entertainment and the two have become buffoons, despite being loved and appreciated by the Duke and Duchess.
‘De que Sancho el bueno sea gracioso lo estimo en mucho, porque es señal que es discreto; que las gracias y los donaires, señor don Quijote… no asientan sobre ingenios torpes’ (II, 3)
The reader gets a perspective of the Duke and Duchess so that we understand what is going on. We know everything that the Duke and Duchess know, and Don Quijote and Sancho know nothing. This constant interplay between true history and fiction allowed Cervantes to ‘satirize human credulity in a dangerous way; by encouraging, by seeing by some extent to cultivate, in his reader the very defect he was ridiculing’.
Russell points out the fact that it is widely accepted that it is no longer politically nor socially correct to laugh at Don Quixote today. Instead, we must look at the pre-romantic view of the book’s meaning to see whether it really was quite so off-target as we have come to think. If one wants to consider Don Quixote as a funny book, Don Quijote’s madness must also be discussed. As far as the knight is concerned, the fun- as Cervantes saw it- was inseparable from the madness. Don Quijote’s madness, despite Cervantes’ continuous insistence on it, is something that Don Quijote critics do not seem to be much concerned with. The knight’s fantasies, locura, are regressive in character and regression is a main characteristic of psychosis.
Close highlights that we must note Cervantes’ mock-eulogistic tone with respect to his hero (‘el más valiente’); she shows herself appreciative of the very aesthetic values which he esteems: with, propriety, taste, originality, and imaginative power.
‘¡Ay, amiga de mi alma […] y qué ventura tan grande nos ha sucedido! ¿Ves este señor que tenemos delante? Pues hágote saber que es el más valiente, y el más enamorado, y el más comedido que tiene el mundo, si no es que nos miente, y nos engaña una historia que de sus hazañas anda impresa, y que yo he leído. Yo apostaré que este buen hombre que viene consigo es un tal Sancho Panza, su escudero, a cuyas gracias no hay ningunas que se le igualen’ (II, 58).
Like other writers of Spanish Golden Age literature, Cervantes was drawn to comic ‘ugliness’ of an extravagant, even fantastic, kind with consequences which are in many ways positively anti-realistic. His characterisation of Quixote and Sancho is driven by a zest for superlative extremes, which is continually refined, but never controlled, by the psychological finesse of the delineation. This extreme depiction of Don Quijote and Sancho as buffoons, as images of human-folly, clearly depict Cervantes’ whole aesthetics of comic fiction, in which presence supports inventiveness, wit, taste, exemplariness, decorum, refinement and risibility
It is evident from Don Antonio’s statement that Cervantes’ Don Quijote as a comedy remains central to the idea of the protagonist as a mad man. In terms of characterisation, propriety and decorum, the depiction of Don Quijote and Sancho as buffoons, as well as the literary theory and moral validity of the novel as a whole, signals an entirely different type of humour that is typically considered acceptable in today’s literature.