Don Quixote is a polyphonic work that incorporates multiple voices. Reading it, each reader plays a role similar to that of the conductor of an orchestra bringing to life the score when interpreting the music.
Before writing his symphonic novel, Cervantes was a voracious, assiduous and critical reader of almost all previous literature. His works abound in evidence of his passion for reading. He incorporates to his works, sometimes as parody, almost all literary genres popular in his time. Don Quixote, a prodigious synthesis of these genres, assimilates and transcends them with mastery and originality.
Besides incorporating literary readings, Cervantes assimilates an exceptionally rich religious culture. This is not the result of special theological studies but of what he learned in his youth, what he heard from ecclesiastical preachers, and his extensive spiritual reading. [1]
In Don Quixote, Cervantes mentions a series of religious authors whom he probably read: the Augustinian Cristóbal de Fonseca (Treaty of the Love of God, Salamanca 1592), the Dominican Felipe de Meneses ( Light of the Soul, Valladolid 1554), Francisco de Osuna and St. Teresa of Avila, whose works were published in 1588, sponsored by Fray Luis de León. [2]
In addition, in his works, Cervantes shows abundant knowledge of the Bible. For Salvador Muñoz Iglesias: “Biblical references in Don Quixote [3] are more than 80.” [4] For professor Ruth Fine, the number in even greater; she has been able to corroborate that just the references to the Old Testament exceed 300. [5]
There are, at least, four types of biblical references in Don Quixote. The first one, exact quotations in Spanish, although five times in Latin, from the Vulgate. For example, when Don Quixote pronounces an exhortation in favor of peace to the townspeople of the braying village who are getting ready to fight: “ Jesus Christ, God and true man, who never lied, nor could He lie, nor can He, being our lawgiver, said that His yoke was gentle and His burden light; and so, He would not command something that was impossible to obey.”(II, 27; 641) The quotation in Italics comes from Mt 11: 30. The Second type, allusions, are demonstrated during the first sally, the narrator writes: “he [Don Quixote] saw an inn… and it was as if he had seen a star guiding him not to the portals, but to the inner towers of his salvation.” (I, 2; 26) He is alluding to the star of the magi. (Mt 2: 1-12) The third type is paraphrases. Don Quixote paraphrases the content of Mt 7: 3 : “ I know that the path of virtue is very narrow, and the road of wickedness is broad and spacious; I know that their endings and conclusions are different, because the expansive, spacious road of wickedness ends in death, and the road of virtue, so narrow and difficult, ends in life, not the life that ends, but life everlasting.” (II, 6; 495) The fourth type, the simple mention of biblical characters such as Goliath, Samson, Judas, Barabbas, the Virgen Mary, Jesus, St. Paul, etc. which are found throughout the novel.
In addition to the number of biblical references in Don Quixote, the variety of their origin is impressive. More than half are from the Old Testament and the rest from the New. The references from the Old Testament are from the historical, sapiential and prophetic books. Among the ones from the New Testament, most come from the Gospels, but also from Acts and the Letters. It is important to point out that there are references from the deuterocanonical books that were not accepted by Protestants. [6] On one occasion, when Don Quixote defends books of chivalry to a canon, he argues: “gratitude that consist of nothing more than desire is a dead thing, as faith without works is dead.”(I, 50; 430) The text in Italics is a clear reference to the Letter of James 2: 17: “ So faith by itself, if it has no works, is dead.”
Everything that has been written above attests to the wisdom of Ruth Fine’s comment: “ Even if we admit the possibility that Cervantes would have known and used several versions of the Bible in Spanish, in his biblical references there is no evidence of marked variations from the Catholic canon.” Then, she adds: “ I will offer… specific examples…that would corroborate Cervantes’ use of the Tridentine Vulgate or another version close to it.” (p.39) In other words, for this scholar it cannot be denied that the writer had direct access to a version of the Vulgate in Latin. Moreover, while it is true that Cervantes doesn’t quote the Bible with the precision of an exegete and that he probably would not have written with a copy of the Vulgate by his side; he, nevertheless , adapts the biblical references to the plot and the characters of the novel in a creative way fitting them like a glove to the hand. Nevertheless, there is a moment, when he includes the novel of The Man Who Was Recklessly Curious in the first part of Don Quixote, that represents, according to Ruth Fine: “ An exceptional period of immersion and interest of the author for the Scriptures; the present chapters, make evident, in my opinion, a direct contact with the biblical text. Finally, this interpolated novel corroborates the amalgam of both testaments.” (p. 222)
In conclusion, the amplitude of the biblical knowledge of a secular writer such as Cervantes is impressive and made evident by the abundance of references to the Bible as well as by the variety of origins within the biblical canon in Don Quixote. His biblical knowledge is the result of his spiritual readings as well as a direct reading of the Bible. Finally, once again, Cervantes proves to be a layman with a solid religious formation, coherent with his own religious life. His faith animates his work from within to produce, with ease, and not like something superimposed, a true overflow of his interior life.
Egberto Bermúdez
[1] Salvador Muñoz Iglesias, Lo Religioso en ‘El Quijote’. Toledo: Estudio Teológico de San Ildefonso, 1989, p. 23.
[2] Muñoz Iglesias, p.23 y p. 327; Ruth Fine, Reescrituras bíblicas cervantinas. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2014, p.35.
[3] All quotations are from Don Quixote. Trans. Edith Grossman. Los Angeles: Harper Collins, 2003.
[4] Muñoz Iglesias, p. 45.
[6] Muñoz Iglesias, p.67.
