From: Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America
5.1 (1985): 76-79.
Copyright © 1985, The Cervantes Society of America
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This very useful edition should be welcomed
by scholars and the informed and interested reader alike. It offers a reliable
text, a good number of clarifying notes and short introduction to each of
the twelve novels. I say twelve because Prof. Sieber chose to separate El
casamiento engañoso from the Novela y Coloquio que pasó
entre Cipión y Berganza . . . with a title page (II,
297-8). Volume one contains, in addition to the Introduction and the Preliminary
Texts, the first four novels and Volume II the other eight, with the
corresponding Introductory essay.
The Text
Professor Sieber follows faithfully (I, 31) the princeps edition of Madrid 1613 by Juan de la Cuesta. He has incorporated in the text, without
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annotations, all corrections that seemed obvious; he has modernized punctuation
and spelling; in the case of the latter, the modernization does not alter
the modern phonetic substance of the word (I, 32). In many cases letters
were added between brackets when they helped understand the text. No textual
variants corresponding to Madrid 1614 have been incorporated.
The editor took great care in presenting a
clean text, and he is faithful to the criteria as he summarized them at the
end of the Preliminar (I, 31 and 32). In general, these criteria are
similar to those in the best tradition of prestigious and respected editions
of classical Spanish authors. Nevertheless, in some minor cases, certain
changes seem questionable, e.g., s > x (when the phonic
result is the same in both instances) is only a concession to more modern
spelling habits that does not improve our understanding of the text and
disregards phonetic realities of Cervantes' time and ours. Also, in cases
like harpa and harriero, deleting the initial h- does
not seem advantageous since both forms are acceptable today. However, we
can only welcome Professor Sieber's respect for the fluctuating spellings
that reflect the instability of the unstressed interior vowel during the
XVII century, as well as the latinist spelling of consonant groups in cultured
words. And, of course, by keeping quien as a nonvariable word, the
editor not only showed the necessary respect for the text, but also for
etymology: although the analogical plural was in use since the XVI century,
it was still considered inappropriate in Cervantes' times (R. Menéndez
Pidal, Manual de Gramática Histórica Española
§ 101). Cervantes himself used this form only twice in Don
Quijote (DCELC s.v. que). Because of all this care, I found
regrettable that Prof. Sieber preferred to put in footnotes the princeps
version that has been altered in his text when, in my opinion, a more appropriate
way would have been to annotate the proposed variant. In some cases, the
notes simply reflect the criteria stated in pp. 31 and 32 of the first volume
and are unnecessary: I, 252, note 24 or I, 262, note 46, for example, because
these are cases of z instead of c, j for i or
-ss- for -s-.
In other cases, the changes seem (at least
to me) unwarranted; however, with the adopted editing policy, the text remains
changed and not always for the better. In La gitanilla alone, for
example, at least seven corrections of the text are questionable: p. 75,
n. 37 subjunctive “mate” in princeps is better reading than the
indicative printed, since two lines below the verb is also in subjunctive
“parezca”; p. 97, n. 80 princeps “hieran y sobresalten”
is in agreement ad sensum with “vuestros cuidados”: the
printed singular form might be more “correct,” but the syntactic
construction of the princeps in not unusual; p. 103, n. 92 princeps “tus
dineros” is impeccable and I do not see any need for a singular form;
p. 105, n. 94 princeps indicative “anega” certainly disagrees with
the previous subjunctive “corra” but, as the note states clearly,
there were instances of the two moods being interchangeable; p. 109, n. 104
changes princeps “algún” to “alguno” but the original
offers a legitimate reading if bueno is being considered the nucleus
of the construction; p. 132, n. 128 changes to an unnecessary plural the
correct
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princeps “palabra” and, conversely, p. 134, n. 131 should keep
the princeps “habían” since it agrees with
“galeras.”
I am pointing out such minutiae to stress
the importance of being faithful to the first edition in the absence of
manuscripts, and to insist on the need of conservative editing policies even
in editions aimed at a general audience. Competent readers will certainly
reject superfluous modernizations disguised as corrections, as in the case
of “argenas,” changed into modern “árganas” (II,
56, n. 47) when, in fact, the form of the princeps is still used in South
America (see my Arcaísmos léxicos del español de
América, s.v. árganas).
Even words or letters added to the text
“por clarificación o por modernización” should be
used with more restraint. Without being exhaustive, in the same La
gitanilla, I find (por) unnecessary (p. 61, I.9) and (n) to make
“dejase” plural, incorrect (p. 97, I.23): Andrés' father
is referring only to Preciosa. Similar instances are to be found in each
of the novels, and this problem deserves a second, closer look by the editor.
Notes
The text has been abundantly annotated. Over
a thousand notes (1074 to be precise), including the numerous ones dealing
with textual changes, clarify the Novelas from historical, lexical
and grammatical points of view. By far the best are the historical ones.
Professor Sieber has to be commended for the many works of history he cited
to explain difficult meanings. Many of these notes will serve as an excellent
guide to the readers interested in the social background and the factual
references of the text. It is a real pity that so many useful studies and
books mentioned in the notes have not been included in the bibliography.
In many instances, the interested reader will have to find the first entry
to get the complete citation, an often difficult and exasperating search.
In the Introduction, Professor Sieber pays special tribute to his most famous
predecessors: Alonso Cortés for El licenciado Vidriera,
González de Amezúa for El coloquio and Rodríguez
Marín for Rinconete. He quotes them judiciously and in many
instances, he brings new data and references. The lexical notes have mainly
two basic sources: Covarrubias and Autoridades, even when their
definitions are not exactly apt for the text (cf. I, 51, n. 11) or are obscure
for our contemporary readers (I, 194, n. 21 in which Cervantes' text clarifies
the meaning of avampiés with the more common word
polainas, whereas Covarrubias' own definition of polainas demands
in itself a note).
There are abundant examples of other contemporary
texts; not all readers will agree with many definitions, but even the
controversial or wrong ones have the not insignificant virtue of calling
to the attention of the reader a special element in the Cervantine vocabulary.
For the germanía words, it would have been quite useful to
check the studies of J. L. Alonso Hernández, especially his
Léxico del marginalismo del siglo de oro (1976) and El lenguaje
de los delincuentes españoles de los siglos XVI y XVII: La germanía
(1979), although perhaps this last one was not available for the
edition.
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Of course, textual notes (as textual selection or an anthology), generally reflect the interests of the reader as much as the difficulties of the text, if such things can be separated in the reader's reception. What is difficult or obscure or merits a detailed historical analysis will vary from reader to reader and, therefore, from editor to editor. In this particularly difficult text, Professor Sieber reveals himself to be a careful and sensitive reader.
Introduction
The two volumes are introduced by prefatory
remarks (“Observaciones”, p. 17), distinguished by their brevity
and critical restraint. They seem to be directed to the general reader more
than to the cervantine scholar. Within their limited scope they are helpful
and deal mostly with the development of the stories in each novel.
They are not devoid of controversial statements:
a) Cervantes called his Novelas “Ejemplares” because they
deserve to be imitated by other writers (I, 14); b) La gitanilla's
structure follows a pattern of “intercambio” in an anthropological
sense (I, 19); c) Loaysa has a “phallic” way of dressing up (II,
19); d) La señora Cornelia should be considered “No
. . . una comedia sino una obra cómica”; e) the adventures
of a dog are “en realidad una experiencia de intertextualidad.”
Finally, a well deserved second edition of
this book has to take care of the many misprints that show, on the part of
the publisher, little effort in proofreading. In a preliminary reading, I
noticed the following misprints in Volume I: p. 13, l.15-16 should read:
No hay para qué decir; p. 23, l.13 cuales
vivía, p. 26, l.26 redundant pueden; p. 32, l.1 x >
j; p. 32, last line: referencias que las que pongo; p.
42 should bring some information on the “portrait” reproduced there,
in the light of note 9, p. 50; p. 53, l.3 the second comma has to go after
brevedad, not after dilatadas; p. 67, l.6 capitán
de since the note refers to the change made in the princeps; p. 71, n.
26 abundante; p. 99, n. 86 tremendo; p. 100, n. 87 La novela
picaresca española, as in II, p. 43; p. 124, l.11 quien no
os; p. 128, l.6 derecho se trababan; p. 171, n. 67, l.2:
matalotaje; p. 178, n. 78 should be placed after en in the text,
and in the note, the word para has to be added; p. 191, n. 2, l.2:
citarse; p. 192, n. 14, l.1 “valones”; p. 195, n. 22, last
line Mercadal; n. 23, first line el amo; p. 215, n. 115, l.4 por
todos; p. 221, n. 144, l.2 (Cov.); p. 226, n. 160, l.1 las
pajas; p. 238, n. 204 la acostumbrada; p. 238, n. 207
oposición; p. 259, n. 42 esguízara. Volume II
was proofread more carefully. I found only three misprints in the notes:
p. 63, n. 66, l.3 asentaderas; p. 66, n. 75, l.3: perderlo;
p. 67, n. 79, l.2: sino el Padre.
| ISAÍAS LERNER |
Lehman College |
| City University of New York |
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Prepared with the help of Myrna Douglas |
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| Fred Jehle jehle@ipfw.edu | Publications of the CSA | H–Cervantes |
| URL: http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/cervante/csa/artics85/lerner.htm | ||