...that's odd. All of a sudden, I have the Wurzels song "Combine Harvester" stuck in my head.
So what were these books of chivalry? Who wrote them, and who were they intended for? How did they get so popular, and why the heck did Cervantes dedicate so much of his time to parodying and criticizing them? Let's take a look and find out.
"I have never yet seen any book of chivalry that puts together a connected plot complete in all its numbers, so that the middle agrees with the beginning, and the end with the beginning and middle; on the contrary, they construct them with such a multitude of members that it seems as though they meant to produce a chimera or monster rather than a well-proportioned figure. And besides all this they are harsh in their style, incredible in their achievements, licentious in their amours, uncouth in their courtly speeches, prolix in their battles, silly in their arguments, absurd in their travels, and, in short, wanting in everything like intelligent art..."
How much of this criticism is fair is obviously subjective, and there's also some debate over how seriously it was meant to be taken. Even the canon says that he finds some enjoyment from these books before remembering they're a "pack of lies" and tosses them aside. For all of Cervantes's distaste of the chivalric romances, he'd clearly read at least a substantial number of them and was able to quote them, or reference particular exploits from them. There isn't much context for these quotes, so he clearly expected his readers to be familiar with them too. Then again, just because he'd read them and could quote them doesn't mean he actually liked them - or at least not all of them. His issues with the chivalric romances stem not from dislike of the genre overall, but what he saw as problems with their quality.
Wait a minute...a fan of a supposedly lowbrow genre who reads them in excess, goes nuts while reading them, imagines himself as a hero, and books of bad quality getting burned...what does that remind me of?
Of course! The Flaming Carrot!
Like I said earlier, a blog about the chivalric romances listed in the library scene has been in the works since I first started this blog eight years ago. One reason it took so long to finally get around to it was how hard it was to find any information on the books and their contents. (In fact, that lack of information is what prompted this very blog.) Only a few have been translated into English, and the ones that have are extremely long - and expensive. They're not sold in bookstores, and I don't even recall seeing them in most libraries I've been to. Fortunately, I have the available academic scholarship on chivalric romances at my disposal, and I've recently come across an annotated edition of Don Quixote that gave me some helpful information. Wikipedia's Spanish language version has more extensive articles on some of these books than its English counterpart, and while my Spanish isn't what I'd like it to be (a rant for another time), in the words of Doctor Strange, "I'm fluent in Google Translate." Even then, pulling all this information together took a long time, so I'm glad to be finally scratching this one off the INCspotlight's bucket list.
So without further ado, let's take a look at the chivalric romances from the library of Don Quixote! Starting with...
Exactly when Amadís de Gaula was first published is somewhat unclear - the oldest surviving copy was published in 1508, and even de Montalvo's authorship of the book is called into question. Regardless, this was the book that codified the formula that other books of chivalry would end up following, and was a smash commercial success. Don Quixote himself says that he looks up to Amadís as his role model, and wants to be just like him. It remained popular for a good long while, even getting a Hebrew translation (which was understandably not well received by the Jewish community after centuries of persecution from Christians, including at the hands of armed knights). At the beginning of Samuel Shellabarger's historical adventure novel The Captain From Castille (1945), young protagonist Pedro de Vargas confesses to, among other things, reading Amadís de Gaula instead of studying the lives of the saints.
This is one of the few on this list that has gotten an English translation, which I'm still making my way through, although I like what I've read so far - just a lot to keep track of, making it hard to pick up where I left off if I need a break.
Aside from a fight with a giant, Lepolemo's adventures were more realistic and less fantastical than those of his contemporaries, and it even got the geography right. So I'm not really sure what Cervantes's beef with it was. He was reportedly fond of the saying "the Devil lurks behind the cross," which Quixana's clergyman friend uses to justify burning a book with an outwardly holy name.
The story concerns our titular protagonist, the illegitimate son of Prince Florendos of Macedonia, being born and abandoned on a mountain covered in olive trees. Young Palmerín is taken in and raised by a beekeeper until he reaches adulthood, when he travels to Macedonia to be knighted by his unwitting father, and has a series of adventures. It also supposedly sold well, despite its mediocre quality. (Maybe that's what pissed off Cervantes so much?)
Tirant lo Blanc's biggest claims to fame are being considered the best of the chivalric romances in Don Quixote, and being written in Catalan, which was repressed for centuries. Tirant is also an early example of alternate history, as the titular protagonist prevents the Ottoman Empire from sacking Constantinople, which occurred in May of 1453 - not all that long before Tirant lo Blanc was published. More grounded than the other books listed here, with no fantastical elements and much more frank sexual content, Tirant himself also differs from his comrades in arms by being more sarcastic and possessing a wily sense of humor, rather than being a flat invincible character. It's interesting to note that Tirant was published before the other books I've mentioned, so it's surprising that more of these traits didn't trickle down to other books of the genre (and that it doesn't get the credit for starting the chivalric romance trend). It even got a film adaptation in 2006, directed by the renowned Vicente Aranda (one of his last movies - he only directed two more before his death), although it was a critical and commercial flop.
Tirant's own conduct can hardly be admired. He kills beaten opponents in tournaments and tricks a lady into thinking his jerkass friend is the kind of well-born gentleman she's always wanted to marry. The absolute worst is, after a lengthy courtship, he rapes his love interest, Princess Carmesina. She's clearly saying no - in fact, the chapter in which it happens is one big monologue of her asking him to stop, and Tirant doesn't. And the only consequences Tirant faces is being told "well, that wasn't very nice!" (Earlier in the book, Carmesina's maids keep trying to get her and Tirant to sleep together, even though Carmenisa doesn't seem ready to.) I may not believe in book burning, but Tirant himself certainly deserves to be thrown into a fire. Maybe it's this realistic depiction of knights, including how they themselves could do deeds as terrible as their enemies, is why Cervantes considered it to be the best of its kind?
Still, warts and all, I don't think any of them deserve to be forgotten, even as cautionary tales. It's why I still persist in writing the INCspotlight, hoping to encourage other people to also discover these long-lost gems. Maybe it's also because I think about whether my own writing will be remembered or forgotten about. It might be a superstition on my part that if I help other people's stuff get remembered, there will be a karmic "pay it forward" effect of some kind, and mine will be too.
Thou art welcome to Don Quixote
Where bad books of chivalry burn
Cervantes shall teach thee all
A lesson thou shalt not learn
Florismarte has few merits
Belianis needs some edits
Anyone who's had a bad book of chivalry published
It could be thy turn
Cervantes
He lost an arm, ouch,
Fighting at Lepanto
Cervantes
Palmerin of Olive
Made him lose his guano
Cervantes
Swords, giants, rings that bring you luck
Cervantes
This book of chivalry doth suck,
Cervantes!