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Self-Reflective Digression in Cervantes and Lope de Vega

Titre du projet
Self-Reflective Digression in Cervantes and Lope de Vega
Description
This project analyzes self-reflective digressions in Golden Age Spanish literature, and in particular in the narrative work of their two main advocates: Miguel de Cervantes and Lope de Vega. By ‘self-reflective digressions’ we mean ironic digressions, willfully designed to break rhetorical rules, to poke fun at readers, and to make them reflect on what is a story, what is relevance, what is fiction. Cervantes’ and Lope’s self-reflective digressions explore the limits of fiction in a sort of self-sabotage, for fiction is by nature narrative and adding deferral and meanders impairs its course. In order to understand this aesthetic proposal, our project will examine how Early-Modern literary theory understood digressions in general, and why Cervantes and Lope used them to foster their new kind of writing: self-reflective and ironic digressive literature, a style apart from the heavy-handed, moralizing digressive literature in their environment (notably, the Guzmán de Alfarache). We will study how and why Cervantes and Lope looked at each other to construct a style that contemporaries appreciated only partially, but that had enormous influence in subsequent narrative developments and that questioned traditional ideas on narrative and gender. We will examine whether these ideas about female speech influenced the most famous fiction writer of the time (María de Zayas), an author who wrote in the wake of Cervantes and who was close to Lope.
The range of the project demands coordinating different experts. The team will be based in Switzerland (Université de Neuchâtel), but we will have partners in Argentina (Universidad de Buenos Aires) and Spain (Universidad de Extremadura, Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona). The team will approach the texts from three complementary angles: 1) rhetorical history and rhetorical analysis, 2) career studies, and 3) gender studies:
1) The rhetorical approach will define digressions in general and as they were understood at the time, and will contextualize Cervantes’ and Lope’s innovations in the landscape of contemporary literary theory. In addition, the rhetorical approach will classify the digressions in our corpus and explain their evolution.
2) The career criticism approach will study self-reflective digressions as trait of late style, as well as a strategic movement that Cervantes and Lope used to react to professional stimuli.
3) The gender studies approach will examine how Cervantes and Lope related digressive literature to different styles: natural language, courtly conversation, and, in particular, feminine talk, as they conceived it. In addition, we will examine whether contemporary female writers (Zayas) adopted this trait for their female narrators.
The results will show the originality and significance of Cervantes’ and Lope’s digressive style (self-reflective digressions), their points in common, their differences, and the reasons that explain them. In addition, we will examine the subversive potential of digressive style, as it casts doubts on the very nature of narration, on literary and philosophical ideas (about literary genres, relevance, taxonomy), and specifically on gender roles, and on how they influence our ideas about literature. Our project will prove that Cervantes’ and Lope’s digressions were an invitation to reflect on literature that was rarely understood at the time, but which shaped Western ideas about fiction and denounces preconceptions on gender.
The outcomes of this project shall be:
1) a monograph on self-reflective digressions in Golden Age Spain;
2) two doctoral dissertations on a) Early-Modern theory on digressions; b) Digressions in Cervantes’ and Lope’s late narrative works;
3) one international congress dedicated to digressions in Golden Age literature in general and in Cervantes and Lope in particular (Neuchâtel, 2027);
4) four articles in peer-reviewed journals;
5) one monographic issue in a peer-reviewed journal with selected articles from the congress.
Chercheur principal
Date de début
01 Septembre 2024
Date de fin
31 Août 2028
Chercheurs
Linda Campbell Voegtli
Andrea Ladera Molano
Organisations
identifiant
https://libra.unine.ch/handle/123456789/33176
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El arte de cansar: Miguel de Cervantes, Lope de Vega y la poética de la digresión autoconsciente

2024-10-29, Sánchez Jiménez, Antonio

Este trabajo examina la naturaleza de las digresiones de Miguel de Cervantes y Lope de Vega en el contexto de la teoría literaria del momento. Para ello, en la primera parte del artículo estudiaremos qué es una digresión, tanto desde el punto de vista de nuestros contemporáneos como desde la historia de la retórica, lo que nos llevará a reflexionar sobre la naturaleza del fenómeno y sus consecuencias para la escritura, en particular en lo relativo a los ideales de pertinencia y tensión —o táxis—. A continuación, en la segunda parte del trabajo, propondremos un término para señalar las digresiones de Cervantes y Lope que hemos presentado arriba: «digresiones autoconscientes». Estas digresiones son la base una tradición narrativa que parte de Cervantes y que, tras un efímero florecer en los últimos años de Lope de Vega, se desarrolló en la narrativa dieciochesca, decimonónica y actual. Aunque haremos mención de esa tradición, nuestro propósito es más bien examinarla en algunos pasajes del Coloquio de los perros, Marcia Leonarda y La Gatomaquia, que nos servirán para ponerla de relieve y analizar sus características centrales. Por último, en la tercera parte del trabajo propondremos tres maneras de indagar los motivos que pudieron haber fomentado que estos dos ingenios desarrollaran este peculiar estilo. Estos tres ángulos críticos son el análisis retórico, los estudios de recepción y de género, y los estudios de carrera literaria y, más concretamente, los relacionados con el llamado «estilo tardío»

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Restriction temporaire

Lope de Vega y la geografía universal: las Relaciones universales de Botero en dos epilios de La Filomena

2024-12-10, Sánchez Jiménez, Antonio

Este trabajo examina las digresiones geográficas en dos epilios de La Filomena (1621) de Lope de Vega, estudiando topónimos y fuentes, y poniendo de relieve concomitancias de forma y fondo con las Relaciones universales de Giovanni Botero. Asimismo, reflexionamos sobre la función de las digresiones geográficas a nivel diegético y extradiegético, en relación con las ambiciones literarias de Lope en 1621. This paper examines the geographical digressions in two epilia in Lope de Vega’s La Filomena (1621), studying toponyms and sources, and highlighting coincidences of form and substance with Giovanni Botero’s Relazioni universali. We also study the function of geographical digressions both diegetically and, above all, extradiegetically and in relation to Lope’s literary ambitions in 1621.

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