THE ENCHANTED DULCINEA, Erich Auerbach
Erich Auerbach, born in 1892 in Germany, was a literary critic and philologist whose culminating work Mimesis: The representation of reality in western literature explores ‘to what degree and in what manner realistic subjects were treated seriously, problematically, or tragically’, by minutely analysing celebrated western texts from throughout the centuries, a chapter dedicated to each, ranging from Homer’s Odyssey to Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse. Although it was only after he participated in the first world war that he gave himself fully to literature, Auerbach’s thorough humanist grounding from a young age in classical texts, his PhD in Law (1921) and his work as a librarian in the Prussian State Library until 1936 when he was exiled to Turkey because of antisemitic nazi laws, clearly influenced his style, giving it an encyclopaedic yet precise and comprehensive nature. Auerbach’s first published work was his translation of the Italian enlightenment philosopher Vico’s Scienza Nuova (1725) into German, from whom he adopted the belief that the “entire development of human history, as made by men, is potentially contained in the human mind, and may therefore, by a process of research and re-evocation, be understood by men”. Auerbach also published the study Dante: Poet of the Secular World (1929), in which he wrote “Dante discovered the European representation of man. […] After Dante […] writers have striven for truth to life, for historical concreteness […]”. His studies of these two great masters where the precursors of his magnum opus, Mimesis.
The layout of each chapter of Mimesis is much the same: the fragment that Auerbach bases his analysis on (first in the original version and then translated), followed by a short plot summary and brief contextualisation within the work; he goes on to justify his choice of the passage for his approach to realism by linking it to the concept of mimesis; he then formulates the decisive question whose answer will determine whether it is a satisfying example of realism; finally, having analysed and contrasted both sides of the argument, he states his conclusion.
The chapter in question, The enchanted Dulcinea, considers Cervantes’s Don Quijote de la Mancha. Introduced by the fragment that will be analysed, from chapter 10 of part 2, first in the original Spanish version and then translated, Auerbach provides a brief plot summary and contextualises the fragment within the novel. Sancho Panza insists to Don Quijote that the three peasant women riding on donkeys are Dulcinea del Toboso and her two ladies, draped in rich robes and jewels. Don Quijote, believing what Sancho tells him, convinces himself that a malevolent enchanter has blinded him so that, instead of his beloved lady, he sees a peasant woman, complete with bad language and halitosis.
Auerbach’s double rationale follows. This passage is particularly significant in his dissection for two reasons: firstly, because it involves Dulcinea herself as ‘the climax of his illusion and disillusionment’ – in his madness, the knight errant finds a way to justify reality, instead of transforming it, according to his idée fixe -. The second reason is Don Quijote’s and Sancho Panza’s role exchange as, this time, it is Sancho who comes up with an impromptu transformation of reality, in this case to save his skin, and Don Quijote who finds a justification for it within his ideé fixe. Here Auerbach formulates the question that will be crucial, in his view, to determine the realistic value of the work: is Don Quijote comic or tragic?
At first glance, the text is purely comic – three peasant women being venerated by two inordinately antithetical characters can only add up to a farce. At Don Quijote’s willingness to accept Sancho’s explanation by coming up with an enchanter, Auerbach conjures up alternative and tragic outcomes for this scene, in which Don Quijote could be jolted back into sanity or plunged into despair. The contrast between these tragic alternatives and what Cervantes created is what makes it comic.
Yet, in the middle of this ridiculous encounter, Don Quijote comes out with ‘one of the most beautiful prose passages which the late form of courtly love produced’. Here Auerbach goes on to scrutinise in great detail and at length the sentence addressed to Dulcinea in adoration, from the structure, to the language, to the mounting rhythm of the words. It is beyond the scope of this review to analyse this any further, but it suffices to say that Auerbach considers it the apex of perfection in its field. Here, however, this tragic passage serves merely as a contrast to Dulcinea’s response, and therefore to add to the comic value. The ‘extreme anticlimax’ comes, however, when Dulcinea falls off her donkey, jumps back on again and rides off.
It is clear that the characters themselves are representative of Spanish life and therefore realistic, but, Auerbach asks yet again, comic or tragic? Don Quijote is, albeit a grotesque version of, a caballero andante, an ideal and tragic character – proved by his bravura, nobility, and undying love and unconditional adoration for Dulcinea – plunged into a comic situation. This seems to be one of the sine qua non conditions for realism in the modern novel. As for his relationship with the other characters, the most well-rounded and realistic is, unsurprisingly, with Sancho Panza. Throughout the novel their relationship evolves, showing both characters’ faults and virtues. But, at its finest, this loving friendship between the two antithetical characters brings out Sancho’s best. A good example of this is a passage from the second part when they talk about social stratification.
Auerbach goes on to note that the madness that Don Quijote suffers from transports him to a world of his own, which reality has little if not nothing to do with. The encounter between Don Quijote and Dulcinea is not the best example of the former’s relationship with reality, considering that here he adapts his ideé fixe to reality instead of vice versa, as he usually does. Any conflict that arises from Don Quijote’s madness serves, never to criticise Spanish society, but simply to highlight right versus wrong, madness versus sanity, Don Quijote versus the world. Auerbach admits this can be questioned on one occasion: the freeing of the galley slaves. But even here, where Don Quijote seems to be acting on higher morality, it is only in his madness and wish to be a knight errant, an Amadis de Gaule, that he acts under the motif “help the distressed”. Although we are sure of his goodwill, wisdom and kindness, it is not because of these that he acts as he does in this episode. His madness also saves Don Quijote from any feelings of guilt and allows conflicts to arise without any serious, tragic or problematic consequences.
But, after much talk of madness, (because it is, after all, the point de fugue of the whole novel) what has caused it? Could our noble knight have been driven to insanity by the incongruity of his social and economic statuses, and therefore his madness triggered by a tragic conflict? Auerbach thinks not. He argues that looking for an ultimate cause of his madness is unnecessary and fruitless: we must simply accept that ‘Don Quijote read to many romances of chivalry and they deranged his mind’, to comic effect.
What harmonises this rich and complex work is what Auerbach calls the ‘particularly Cervantean’ capacity to vividly imagine and describe humans – be it their relationships, feelings, thoughts or words -, the multiperspectiveness, the balanced melange of fantasy and reality which means, not to moralise but to offer the reader ‘honesto entretenimiento’, without judging nor praising any aspect of Spanish life, because “allá se lo haya cada uno con su pecado, Dios hay en el cielo que no se descuida de castigar al malo, ni de premiar al bueno”
So, in conclusion, Auerbach considers Don Quijote to be a pleasant, playful and therefore comic novel with realistic characters but lacking in problematic situations and the tragic intention which would place it under the category “realistic”.
Throughout the essay, Auerbach’s grounding in Romance literature allows him to draw upon his knowledge of Ariosto and Boiardo, while he also admires William James Entwistle’s work on Cervantes and mentions La Celestina as an example for the stereotype of Everyman, the morality play.
Although Auerbach’s approach to realism is strictly an evaluating one – for him realism is the bar against which the value of a work is measured – and his analysis is fragment-based, his interpretation of Don Quijote seems to me to be a satisfying and coherent one, each passage contextualised and analysed scrupulously, including examples from the primary text and cross-referencing other author’s works.