La memoria y el Quijote

Abstract

In Don Quixote Cervantes draws upon the classical tradition according to which melancholy, prevalent in old age, had a positive effect upon memory and imagination. Don Quixote's memory of his readings feeds his fantasy, taking precedence over sense perception. His memory, like his imitation of models, is selective; he recalls the aspects of his reading most appropriate to the occasion and attempts to reenact them. Solitude stimulates Don Quixote's memory and imagination. He occasionally makes use of the techniques of artificial memory (composition of place, etc.) which were so popular in the Renaissance, but these also come in for their share of ridicule and are shown to be far less interesting than spontaneous, natural memory, which is constantly suffering the distortions brought about by imagination and experience. Thus Cervantes displaces the novel's focus from the allegorical to the psychological. In the 1615 Second Part Cervantes achieves prodigious effects by bringing into play not only Don Quixote's memory but those of the narrator, the other characters, and the reader. The Second Part also emphasizes the contrast between collective and individual memory, between the imitation of models and the impulse towards originality. Memory without imagination is worthless.