Acceso usuarios
City of Providence, Estados Unidos
This article argues that Cervantes’s novella “Rinconete y Cortadillo” can be read as a fictional laboratory that reflects upon the relationship between accounting, writing, and statecraft in the wake of global capitalism. The novella is reinserted into the context of the commercial revolution of the second half of the sixteenth century, produced by the inflow of precious metals from America, to show how Cervantes problematizes the separation between fictional and commercial literacies. Focusing on Monipodio’s librillo de memoria, the article claims that the allusions to Catholic confession connects the character’s bookkeeping practices with broader questions of government. The conjuncture of commercial practices, bookkeeping, and a new art of government produced a space of intelligibility that allowed for the deployment of new techniques for conducting economic life. Through the figure of mock ruler, Cervantes thus invites readers to examine the connections between writing, power, and moral in early modern Spain.
