Parnassus journey

Cover of the Parnaso travel (1614)

Voyage to Parnassus is a narrative work in verse by Miguel de Cervantes published in 1614 written in triplets that tells of the journey to Mount Parnassus by Cervantes and the best poets Spaniards to wage an allegorical battle against the bad poets.

A literary journey

The work closely follows the model of the Viaggio di Parnaso (1582), by the Italian poet Cesare Caporali of Perugia, whom Cervantes quotes in the first stanza of the work:

A Chedam Caporal, italian,
to what I understand,
of Greek ingenuity and of Roman value.

Parnaso travel, vv. 1-3

The poem, dedicated to the young courtier Don Rodrigo de Tapia y Alarcón, tells of a literary journey, through real and mythical geographies, in which Miguel de Cervantes, mounted on a mule, undertakes the mission of recruiting the best Spanish poets to wage a battle against mediocre poets. For this, he will travel from Madrid to Valencia, where with the help of Mercury, he gathers a contingent of good poets and they go to sea in an allegorical ship, made of verses, bound for Parnassus, where they will fight a battle against the poetasters who intend to take it.. On the sea voyage, starting from Cartagena, they sight Genoa, Rome and Naples and manage to pass the dangerous Strait of Messina, between Scylla and Charybdis, deities whom they have to appease by offering them the sacrifice of Antonio de Lofraso, one of the poets on board. Finally, the frightened Sardinian poet is not thrown and, after encountering a ship of bad poets, whom Apollo punishes using the force of Neptune, which makes them shipwreck (although their fury is later appeased by the amatory arts of Venus), the army arrives at the foot of Mount Parnassus, they drink the waters of the Castalia spring and are received by Apollo himself, god of poetry.

After a well-deserved rest, in which they dream of the double face of poetry (the elegant and the vulgar), they engage in combat with the army of poetasters using both sides ammunition consisting of books and poems. Good poetry wins and they wake up from the allegorical journey.

The work contains numerous autobiographical references to the life of Cervantes, from his participation in the battle of Lepanto to the complaint about his literary misfortune and his self-vindication as a poet. The first verses in which he supposedly expresses his limitations are famous:

I always work and unveil it.
It seems I have a poet
the grace that did not want to give me heaven [... ]

op. cit, vv. 25-27

However, recent literary criticism has highlighted the parodic context of these verses, and the contradiction with other fragments of the work itself:

O Adam of the poets, O Cervantes [...]

op. cit, v. 202

Between 2005 and 2007, the National Classical Theater Company of Spain (CNTC) staged a theatrical adaptation of Viaje del Parnaso directed by Eduardo Vasco that integrates live Renaissance and Baroque music, puppets and a staging that alludes to the set design of the Golden Age theater. It was premiered at the Almagro Festival.