Miracles, Duels, and Cide Hamete's Moorish Dissent (PDF)

I. Cide Hamete and thé Critics (p. 3)

For a long time it could be comfortably assumed that Cide Hamete`s moorishness was linked to thé Hbros de caballerfas, as part of Cervantes` ex- plicit parody of thé genre. However, Daniel Eisenberg bas shown that this is no longer an entirely valid assumption.

For, while most of thèse romances pretended to be foreign translations, most of them where not "originally" Arabie, but more likely to be Greek, i.e. with Christian or Pagan rather than Moslem authors. Where a Moslem does occur, as in thé Lepo/emo`s chronicler Xarton there is no significant narrative function in his moorishness. More functionally suggestive would be Albucâcim Tarif in Miguel de Luna`s pretended Historia verdadera del rey don Rodrigo, except that this work is not directly regarded as a chivalric romance.

And investigations into Cide Hamete`s name, while highly tantalizing, hâve also been inconclusive as to its narrative fonction. Thus thé question of his moorishness promises to linger, particularly since most récent scholarship has by-passed it.

Most récent critics have increasingly concentrated on thé apparent modernity of thé narrator`s complex présence in thé novel, because it chimes in so perfectly with 20th-century sensibility, in vogue at least since James Joyce. "Moorishness" as a concept thus risks becoming a quaint 17th-century équivalent for such more modem terminology as "narrative control," and "reliability."

Add to thèse thé ideas of "multifaceted irony," "authorial voice," "perspectivism," etc., and a sophisticated narratology émerges, debated with such compétitive acumen as an end in itself, and driven to such heights of subtlety, that one vétéran ceruantista sternly warns of "logic chopping," and bluntly reminds us that Gide Hamete is, after ail, meant to be a "joke."

Such an admonition can serve to clear thé critical air. Admittedly much of Cide Hamete`s présence in thé novel has a humorous ingrédient.

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