Unity-in-Variety, admiratio, and Verisimilitude in the Interpolated Stories of Don Quijote, Part One

Abstract

The interpolated stories included in Don Quijote, Part one have frequently been studied as oppositional to the main plot in function of thematic binaries such as literature-life, illusion-reality, truth-fiction, idealism-realism and romance-novel. An analysis of the embedded tales’ shared motifs, commonplace characterizations and structural relationship with the central narration, however, demonstrates Cervantes’s attempt to incorporate and harmonize disparate literary elements into a single narrative according to the theoretical precepts of his age, especially unity-in-variety, admiratio and verisimilitude. The interpolated stories are constructed as symmetrical patterns of recurrent tropes and themes with varying degrees of coordination with each other, as well as with the main plot. This intricate structure demonstrates the incremental nature of Cervantes’s innovation. Rather than constituting a decisive rupture with contemporary theoretical postulates, as the critical consensus holds, his approach to narrative and character develops in consonance with them.