I am now on page 772 of Don Quixote. Don Quixote and the house maid (or maiden), Senora Dona Rodriguez were just flogged in the middle of the night in the dark by unknown assailants. Sancho has been sent to govern his insula by order of the tricksers, the Duke and Duchess. Just after he arrives Sancho is confronted with several tests, or more accurately jokes. The Duke sent peasants to mock and try and confuse our poor Sancho, but Sancho surprises us all by showing us his hidden wisdoms of the hundreds of proverbs he has stuffed into his meaty brain. He uses his madness and simplemindedness to excel at ingenious unveiling of frauds.
When Sancho discovers the truth behind the mystery of the money lending between the two friends the secret of the older man's cane I was reminded of the myth of the two women both claiming to be the mother of the same child. The king solves the argument by saying that they should just cut the child in half so they both could have a part. One woman agreed and the other refused and said the other woman could have it. Thus the king knew that the woman who refused was the true mother because no mother would allow her child to get cut in half...one hopes.
To go off on a small tangent, in the third paragraph on page 738 and interesting line said by none other than Cervantes started my mind wheels a-turning.
"...for there can be no humor where there is no intelligence..."
This is but one of Cervantes little interjections that makes this book not only a Metafiction but oh so delightful to read. Sometimes these little inserts are clever, ironic, or just add to the story. This one provoked me to think about true humor opposed to comedy. Something can be comical, like a Stooge getting slapped with a carp, but not humorous. Humor requires insight and knowledge because humor often involves irony or the mockery of something higher
than ones self. If someone doesn't have the intelligence, the worldly knowledge that revolves around irony they won't get the humor and can't produce it.
The Greeks, crazy philosophers that they are, believed that "humor" was a sort of "human sap" that controlled human health and emotions which derived from the theory of Humorism. It's really quite interesting so here's a Wiki link.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humorism
The other day when Sexson brought up Metafiction in class I was very excited because the interjections of Cervantes had been fascinating me ever since I begun reading the novel. The books is riddled with metafictional delights and tidbits but the most recent one I ran across was on page 738 at the beginning of Chapter XLIV. Cervantes is yet again commenting on the previous versions of Don Quixote and the debates over the possible discrepancies. Don Quixote is such an old story it is alterations along the way because it essentially started as a orally produced and passed on story.
And finally at the end of the adventure of the Wooden Horse in which Sancho shows his desire to be just as mad as Don Quixote and succeeds at being his own enchanter. There's a line uttered by Don Quixote that I've wrestling with for a few days. It brings into question Don Quixote's madness and if he truly is as mad as he leads us to believe.
"Sancho, just as you want people to believe what you have seen in the sky, I want you to believe what I saw in the Cave of Montesinos. And that is all I have to say." - Don Quixote
-pg. 727
It seems to me that Don Quixote either believes Sancho and sympathizes with him and his experience with people doubting him and what he says, or Don Quixote is hinting and both Sancho's and his own madness and fabrication of wonders for the sake of knightly adventures. It seems like Don Quixote is trying to persuade Sancho to believe him, but at the same time I sense an underlining irony of truth vs desired or poetic truth. The poetic truth is that Sancho really saw what he saw in the sky and Don Quixote really did experience his three day adventure of enchanters and enchantment down in the cave and the irony is that we know Don Quixote is mad but I feel more compelled to believe Don Quixote's madness over Sancho's.
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