Exemplary novels

Cover of the Prince of the Number of copiesprinted by Juan de la Cuesta

The Exemplary Novels of Honest Entertainment, known simply as Exemplary Novels, are a series of short novels that Miguel de Cervantes wrote between 1590 and 1612, and that he would publish in 1613 in a collection printed in Madrid by Juan de la Cuesta, given the great reception he received with the first part of Don Quixote.

These are twelve short novels that follow the model established in Italy. Its denomination of "exemplary" It obeys the didactic and moral character that the stories include to some extent. Cervantes boasted in the prologue of having been the first to write this type of Italian-style novel in Spanish:

To this my ingenuity was applied, here my inclination takes me, and more that I understand, and that is, that I am the first one that I have noveled in the Castilian language, that the many novels that in it are printed, are all translated from foreign languages, and these are my own, not imitated or stolen; my ingenuity begave them, and bare them my pen, and they grow in the arms.

They are usually grouped into two series: those of an idealistic nature and those of a realistic nature. Those of an idealistic nature, which are the closest to Italian influence, are characterized by dealing with plots of love entanglements with a great abundance of events, by the presence of idealized characters without psychological evolution and by the scant reflection of reality. They are grouped here: The Liberal Lover, The Two Maidens, The English Spaniard, La Señora Cornelia and The force of blood. Those of a realistic nature tend more to the description of realistic environments and characters, often with critical intent. The best-known stories are: Rinconete y Cortadillo, El licenciado Vidriera, La gitanilla, El colloquio de los perros or The illustrious mop. However, the separation between the two groups is not sharp and, for example, in the most realistic novels one can also find idealizing elements.

Since there are two versions of Rinconete y Cortadillo and El celoso extremeño, it is thought that Cervantes introduced some variations in these novels for moral, social and aesthetic purposes (hence the name "exemplary novels"). The most primitive version is found in the so-called Porras de la Cámara manuscript, a miscellaneous collection of various literary works, among which is a novel usually also attributed to Cervantes, The fake aunt. On the other hand, some short novels are also included in Don Quixote, such as El curio impertinente or Historia del cautivo, which has autobiographical elements.. In addition, reference is made to another already composed novel, Rinconete y Cortadillo.

In 2013, on the occasion of the IV centenary of the publication of the Exemplary Novels of Miguel de Cervantes, the Cultural Center of Spain in Buenos Aires made an adaptation to the comic strip in collaboration with the publishing group Mojito from Uruguay.

Novels contained in the work

Recording of the edition of the Number of copies by Antonio de Sancha of 1783, which illustrates "The colloquium of dogs".

La gitanilla is the longest of the exemplary novels, and may have autobiographical elements in a love story that a distant relative of Cervantes had. Like many other of these plots, it focuses on the artifice of a person's awareness or recognition at the end of the play. It is about a girl of noble origin kidnapped by some gypsies and educated by them, and a nobleman who falls in love decides to lead a gypsy life after her, until finally everything is discovered and the story ends happily, making the couple's marriage possible..

El amante liberal is a Moorish novel where the theme of kidnapping also appears, with the story of a young Sicilian named Ricardo who is kidnapped along with the beautiful Leonisa who is sold to two Moors by a Jew to give her to the great Turk, intertwined with love affairs and adventures.

In Rinconete and Cortadillo two boys run away from the family home and start a life with the help of cards and theft, until they end up in Seville, where while they work as porters they are captured by a mafia association of criminals, a kind of Sevillian crime syndicate governed as a brotherhood by the older brother, Monipodio. Various genre scenes typical of an hors d'oeuvre or a jácara follow one another where corrupt bailiffs, thieves, thugs, pimps and prostitutes appear; Finished this parade of guys, the rascal boys decide to regenerate.

In English Spanish the kidnapping reappears in the person of a girl kidnapped in the English invasion of Cádiz and who is educated in London as a lady-in-waiting for Queen Elizabeth I of England, who is described without ill will. She loses her hair from a drink but everything works out in the end.

In El licenciado Vidriera the poor student Tomás Rodaja goes to Salamanca to study accompanied by a nobleman and there he graduates with honors; He travels to various cities in Italy, but loses his mind because of a love filter that has been secretly supplied to him and he believes that his body is made of glass and that he is extremely fragile. However, his sharpness is surprising and everyone consults him. The novel is actually a collection of the protagonist's witticisms in prose, in the style of one of the miscellanies so frequent in the Golden Age. He finally comes to his senses, but no one hires him or goes to see him anymore.

In La fuerza de la sangre an almost detective story is built, in which a raped maiden with her eyes covered manages to intellectually reconstruct the crime until she finds the culprit, whose mother seeks means to marry the two young people to safeguard the honor of both families.

The Jealous Extremaduran narrates the pathological jealousy of an old Indian who returns to Spain rich and locks his very young wife in a house, not allowing her to go out or anything masculine pass the door, in which he has installed a black slave as watchman with orders not to let anyone pass. The rogue Loaysa does manage to get through the door by cajoling the black man, who loves music, with a vihuela. However, without being able to seduce her, Loaysa falls asleep in the arms of the girl. In contrast, in the Porras de la Cámara manuscript, the two young men do have sexual relations. The old man, humiliated, dies of grief.

In La illustrious mop two young men from a good family, Carriazo and Avendaño, decide to embark on a picaresque life. In an inn in Toledo Avendaño falls in love with Constanza, a maid or maid, which will make the two young people decide to stop their trip there. Finally it will be discovered that Constanza is of noble birth, the natural daughter of Carriazo's father, so nothing will prevent her from marrying Avendaño.

In The Two Maidens, Teodosia confesses to a stranger, who turns out to be her brother, her relations and promise of marriage with Marco Antonio. In search of her husband, they find Leocadia, to whom she also gave her word, without taking her honor. Marco Antonio agrees to be Teodosia's husband, and his brother, Rafael, Leocadia's. The happy ending avoids a duel.

Lady Cornelia brings together the elements of a Byzantine novel. Here, Juan and Antonio choose to leave their studies, but decide to continue their studies in the city of Bologna, where everyone considers them good looking. They hear a lot about a damsel named Cornelia Bentibolli, who lives in confinement at the will of her brother.

The deceitful marriage narrates the scam that an apparently honest young lady plays a military man by marrying him; He is unaware that she has been a prostitute and she abandons him, leaving him with a venereal disease that she must purge with sweat in the Atocha hospital, where the next novel takes place.

In The colloquium of the dogs the soldier, who is purging his illness in the midst of high fevers, attends at night the conversation between two dogs, Cipion and Berganza; one tells the other the life story of him and his many (and very scoundrels) masters and leaves the other's relationship for the next day. It is a fantasy in the style of Luciano de Samosata and the parade of characters, among them some shepherds and a witch, is reminiscent of a picaresque novel or an hors d'oeuvre.

Cervantes has also been attributed the authorship of a story with a style and characteristics similar to those of the Exemplary Novels, called La tía figida.

By this, he meant that his stories showed the dangers of immoral behavior such as the fact that he was proposing a fictional formula that served the ideal of “teaching while delighting”.