The Secret of Narrative: A Structural Analysis of Cervantes’s Novelas Ejemplares
Document Type
Article
Department or Administrative Unit
World Languages
Publication Date
7-2005
Abstract
This article, which offers analyses of five Novelas ejemplares, sheds new light on a key structural feature of Cervantes’s short stories. Long before Henry James began to compose fictions defined by what Tzvetan Todorov would call an “essential secret,” Cervantes was already experimenting with fictional texts that disorient the reader by problematizing or by failing to reveal the plot’s “secret” or central truth. Thus, this study undertakes a close reading of Cervantes’s stories in order to reveal how gaps and contradictions in signification make for “secretive” texts whose conclusions unfold in a contradictory “double movement,” given that doubt, questions, and general uncertainty arise precisely when the texts pretend to be finally offering the reader a sense of closure.
Recommended Citation
Mayer, Eric D. "The Secret of Narrative: A Structural Analysis of Cervantes’s Novelas Ejemplares." Neophilologus, vol. 89, 2005, pp. 371-382.
Journal
Neophilologus
Rights
© Springer 2005
Comments
This article was originally published in Neophilologus. The full-text article from the publisher can be found here.
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