La "derrota compuesta" del cautivo. (Quijote, I, XLI)

Abstract

This paper focuses on the journey of Ruy Pérez de Viedma, his fiancee Zoraida and several of his former captive fellows, from Algiers to Spain, as told by Captive Captain himself in Quixote, I, XLI. The study try to show the high accuracy of his account both in geographical and nautical aspects. That allows to correct several notes of Quixote editions but above all to pose the question of verisimilitude as the core of Cervantes' poetics, and also its relationship to admiration and exemplariness. The conclusion is that Captive's Tale is not merely a digression out of the main line of the novel, but a deliberate reversal of chivalric romances, in moral as in literary terms. Thus, the Captive Captain proves to be a true counterpoint to Don Quixote.