Acceso usuarios
Julio Rodríguez Luis
As its title indicates, this article deals with two aspects of Cervantes's work. Its ultimate and probably unachieved goal is to link them. The first part focuses on Cervantes's peculiar way of indirectly addressing his reader with comments that underline his personal involvement with the subject of the narrative. This manera de narrar has no equivalent in 15th-, 16th-, or 17th-century Spanish literature, but reminds the critic of Montaigne's autobiographical style. The second part of the article concentrates on the double novella of Casamiento-Coloquio in order to 1) discuss its position within Cervantes's art; 2) explore its autobiographical content; and 3) explain the meaning of the profecía about the dogs' origin. To this author, the oracle, together with the last section of the Coloquio, articulates Cervantes's final and very personal statement about man's fate and the role of storytelling in it. The work of other critics who have written about the same subject is discussed as my own arguments touch upon what they wrote.
