Cervantes vs Cinthio: a funny triangular game

Abstract

When talking about the role of descriptive parts in fiction in Quijote (II.18), Cervantes no doubt had in mind Giraldi Cinthio and his theoretical statements; the Spanish author was insinuating irony in an apparently serious context. It is also impossible to doubt that, when interpolating in his Persiles (III.6) the first part of the tale of the Polish Ortel Banedre, Cervantes is once more alluding to the humanist, namely to one of his Hecatommithi, which develops parallel narrative sequences (the sixth of the sixth Deca). After examining the triangular game created by 1) main narrator 2) secondary narrator 3) listener of the narration in the two texts, we can discover the deep reasons which generate visible effects on the superficial structure of meta-diegetic tale. Cinthio’s closed triangle which leads the listener towards the main narrator (who, this way, guarantees the reliability of the secondary narrator) determines and certifies the exemplary nature of the tale of frogiveness in the version of the Italian writer. Cervante’s open triangle, on the contrary, which does not put in touch the listener with the main narrator (and, in this way, leaves the responsability of the related facts on the shoulders of the secondary narrator only) gives credit to and generates the deep changes that characterize version of the same tale.