review by patricia kenworty of the books: kathleen mcnerney's tirant lo blanc revisited, and antonio...

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From: Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America 5.1 (1985): 72-76.Copyright © 1985, The Cervantes Society of America

REVIEW

Kathleen McNerney. “Tirant lo Blanc” Revisited. A Critical Study. Detroit: MichiganConsortium for Medieval and Early Modern Studies, 1983. 121 pages.

Antonio Torres-Alcalá. El realismo de “Tirant lo Blanch” y su influencia en el “Quijote”.Barcelona: Puvill, 1979. 172 pages.

These two critical studies plus David Rosenthal's recent English translation of Tirant lo Blanc (NY:

Schocken, 1983) signal the growing interest in Catalan studies in the United States, itself perhaps a

product of

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the current resurgence of Catalan literature and autonomy. While Prof. McNerney's book —the major

study of Tirant in English— provides a sound, insightful introduction to Joanot Martorell/Martí Joan

de Galba's fifteenth-century chivalric novel, Prof. Torres-Alcalá's book proves to be a sad

disappointment. In this good news/bad news review, I shall start with the bad news.

Although Torres-Alcalá claims that prior studies of the realism of Tirant and of its influence on the

Quijote are superficial, his book relies heavily on the work of several critics (especially Martí de

Riquer, William Entwistle, and Constantin Marinescu) while ignoring the studies of others. After

citing selected literary historians and philosophers to show that there is little critical consensus on the

definition of “realism,” Torres-Alcalá settles on the Aristotelian notion of verisimilitude, which, he

believes, “ha representado un papel muy vago y secundario en la crítica moderna” (p. 31). A footnote

much later in the book (p. 148) suggests that he has read E. C. Riley's Cervantes' Theory of the Novel,

but obviously not with much care. In fact, the term verosimilitud is conspicuously absent from his

brief discussion of Don Quijote at the end of Chapter 3. In Chapter 2 —the analysis of realism in

Tirant which comprises one half of the book— literary verisimilitude initially cedes to a discussion of

realism as historical accuracy.

In order to show how Tirant , as opposed to the Spanish romances of chivalry, faithfully reflects

world geography and events, Torres-Alcalá provides long lists of place names and historical

personages woven into the fictional fabric of the novel. This entire section about the novel's historical

background is essentially a synthesis of the research of others. Torres-Alcalá's major addition is toindicate that Martorell changed some English counts into dukes; conversely, Torres-Alcalá

misidentifies the Duchess of Don Quijote II as “Condesa” (p. 137). His categories for discussing

Martorell's techniques for creating the illusion of reality (rational explanation of phenomena,

circumstantial evidence, colloquial dialogue, uninhibited eroticism) were first established, as he

acknowledges, by Dámaso Alonso and Mario Vargas Llosa. Torres-Alcalá's one interesting and

original contribution to this chapter is his definition of humor in Tirant as the product of situations

Review by Patricia Kenworty of the books: Kathleen McNerney... https://www.h-net.org/~cervantes/csa/artics85/kenworth

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which are “imposible pero verosímil.” Parody is not a general informing principle of Tirant as it is in

the Quijote. Parody is employed exclusively to deflate the hierarchical and ceremonious court of

Constantinople by revealing sexual foibles more common to the novella or the bourgeois society of

contemporary Valencia. For example, it is unlikely that the Empress of the exemplary Christian court

of Constantinople would seduce a mere courtier; however, Martorell presents a very convincing —and

funny— portrait of an aging dowager, strapped with an old, impotent husband, lusting after a

handsome, virile, young man. Chapter 3, which considers Martorell's influence on Cervantes, begins with yet another

re-statement of the findings of others —in this case, the various interpretations of “el pasaje más

oscuro del Quijote.” An indication

74 PATRICIA KENWORTHY Cervantes

of the poor organization of this book is that Daniel Eisenberg's article on this passage is not discussed

until fifteen pages later. Torres-Alcalá proposes three hypothetical readings of the passage. In the first

he argues that both Tirant and its author are being praised, the condemnation of Martorell to thegalleys being an indirect ironic attack on the other chivalric romancers. Thus, Cervantes is just joking

when he condemns Martorell precisely for not writing the traditional chivalric “necedades.” Torres-

Alcalá finds no irony in the praise of the novel. In the second reading, the book is praised and the

author condemned for his shameless amorality. In the third and least convincing interpretation,

Cervantes is attacking Martorell for writing “necedades sin industria,” that is, without a clearly stated

purpose or without having to disguise his intention. Torres-Alcalá reads both Tirant and Don Quijote

as social satires written to attack the false pretensions of the nobility: Martorell by means of depicting

amoral nobles and Cervantes by means of creating a mad knight. My principal objection to this study

is that Torres-Alcalá shows no real appreciation of the works as literature. It is no wonder that Torres-

Alcalá finds it difficult to trace direct influences of Tirant on the Quijote since he sees both works as

the product of their social milieu: Cervantes' condition as a “caballero desilusionado” led to a parody

of chivalric ideals and Tirant's realism is simply a reflection of the positivistic, mercantile, Catalan

mentality. Torres-Alcalá's brief list of similarities between the two novels omits the sham of being

translated from another language, the tale-within-a-tale technique, the episodes of the yeguas, and the

allegorical elements in the weddings of the King of England and of Camacho, to name a few. There is

no detailed comparative study of the techniques of humor and, as noted earlier, no appreciation of

Cervantes' techniques for creating verisimilitude. This study, in short, is poorly written, derivative,

and incomplete.

Prof. McNerney's “Tirant lo Blanc” Revisited is a clear and thoughtful guide to the novel. For

those readers who know no Catalan, English translations are provided. McNerney's book is

two-tiered: a cogent, concise summary of the present state of Tirant scholarship (Chapters 1 and 4)and a sensitive, critical analysis of selected, significant topics (Chapters 2, 3, 5). Chapter 1 presents a

comprehensive overview of the externals (editions and translations), internals (a succinct rehearsal of

the long, complicated plot), and antecedents (the historical and literary sources) of the novel without

advancing any new theories about sources or the division of labor between Martorell and Galba.

Chapter 4, “Martorell and the Critics,” follows much the same pattern in its review of the critical

reception of Tirant from the priest's comments in Don Quijote I, 6, to 20th century scholars.


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McNerney outlines the general trends of this scholarship without indulging in long summaries of the

particular arguments of the different critics. For example, the section on “el pasaje más oscuro” is

only a page long and proposes no new interpretations. The third section of the Bibliography (pp.

111-113) lists all the relevant studies. Of special interest to cervantistas is McNerney's

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checklist of similarities between Tirant and Don Quijote (pp. 62-64). Her principal contribution in this

chapter is an enlightening comparison of Vargas Llosa's comments on Tirant and Cien años de

soledad with his own narrative techniques. The “modernity” of Tirant , first signaled by D. Alonso and

Vargas Llosa, is enhanced by this reflective reading.

The remaining chapters in the book constitute an important, new contribution to the study of the

structure and diction of the novel. McNerney's first step in the assessment of Martorell's place in the

evolution of the modern novel is to define Tirant as a closed, fictional biography of an heroic but

human knight-become-captain in opposition to the open-ended, fanciful romances of chivalry.

Cervantes attacked these romances for their reliance on the marvelous and for their lack of organiccohesion. In Chapter 2, “Balance, Opposition and Geometric Patterns,” McNerney shows how

Martorell establishes a sense of unity throughout 487 chapters of adventures that range from England

to Rhodes to Constantinople to North Africa and back to Constantinople. Foreshadowing and

prophecies, parallelism in personalities and events, circularity in time and space, and interlocking sets

of triangular relationships among the principal characters all reinforce the structural unity provided by

the focus on Tirant's evolution from a fearless, somewhat ignorant knight to a shrewd diplomat and

military leader. The basic tension of the novel's structure is the alternation between battlefield and

bedroom campaigns. The central armed opposition is between Christians and Moors; the principal

amorous opposition is between Tirant and Carmesina, the Princess of Constantinople. Their social

inequality is brought into balance by an exchange of letters, gifts, and vows.

Chapter 3, “Fact, Fiction, and Form,” is an appreciation of Tirant as a stylistic bridge between the

chronicles of the Old World (such as Ramón Muntaner's 1328 Crónica of the exploits of Roger de

Flor, a major historical source for Martorell) and the New World chronicles (whose techniques are

shared by Francisco de Moncada's 1623 Expedición de los catalanes y aragoneses contra turcos y

griegos). McNerney shows how both history and fiction employed the same language to establish

narrative authority. The two halves of her discussion of the Muntaner/Moncada chronicles are

curiously separated by another study of life/literature linguistic interplay: Martorell's incorporation of

the formulaic rhetoric of the lletres de batalla and vots as well as his use of proverbs and the religious

imagery of amorous discourse in order to animate and give verisimilitude to the dialogues.

Chapter 5, “Images of Women and the Lyric Element,” continues the analysis of Martorell's

characteristic diction. The first half of the chapter compares the lyrical imagery of the unrequitedlover in the poetry of Ausiás March with that of his brother-in-law's novel. The liveliest, most

sustained and cohesive discussion in the book is that of the images of women in Tirant . Martorell was

not immune to the misogynistic prejudices of his time, but the vivid portraits of the lusty, yet

sympathetic Plaerdemavida and the Empress reveal that he was not bound by these conventions.


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76 PATRICIA KENWORTHY Cervantes

McNerney's study, as she makes clear in the preface, is selective. As a consequence, there is much

more discussion of the erotic elements in Tirant than of its battle scenes and court rituals. I suspect

this reading will reflect the modern readers' preference for amorous intrigue and verisimilarcharacterization over catalogues and costumes. Her study may not be as “balanced” as Martorell's

novel, but it shares the novelist's sense of moderation and humor.

There are some lapses which must be noted. Cide Hamete Benengeli was the chronicler, not the

“translator” of Don Quijote (p. 10). Daniel Eisenberg is erroneously listed in the Bibliography as

“David” (p. 112). Omitting the original publication date of Moncada's chronicle (1623) results in the

contradictory identification of the work as from “the sixteenth century” (p. 20, n. 8) and “the

seventeenth century” (p. 54). The bibliography seems quite complete, with the exception of

McNerney's own “Humor in Tirant lo Blanc,” Fifteenth-Century Studies, 3 (1980), 107-114, which

should be read in conjunction with this book. The final paragraph of Chapter 2 strikes me as a more

appropriate conclusion for the book than for that chapter. In general, McNerney is well served by her

typist (the text is a photocopy of the typescript). Despite the minor problems mentioned above, this study is to be recommended for its admirable

synthesis and critical insights. It is a persuasive argument in support of McNerney's call for new

studies of the literary value of this transitional, rewarding, and, at times, very funny novel.

PATRICIA KENWORTHY

Vassar College

Prepared with the help of Myrna Douglas

Fred Jehle [email protected] Publications of the CSA H – Cervantes

URL: http://www.h-net.org/~cervantes/csa/artics85/kenworth.htm


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