Page references to «El licenciado Vidriera» within parentheses are to the edition of Harry Sieber, volume 2. (N. from the A.)

«Nuestro afán de explicar parece insaciable en este caso» (Russell 241). For Ruth El Saffar the protagonist is «consumed» by ambition (51) and «obsessed by unexpressed impulses» (52); his «principal characteristic» is «fear of the other» (56, 51). «His is an unrelieved story of estrangement»; he is «shown only in roles of conflict with his environment» (60). Alban Forcione's protagonist is obsessive, antisocial, egocentric and hubristic, a fanatical student (236, 242, 273, 313) with an insatiable curiosity that he misdirects in pursuit of false knowledge (237, 273), the knowledge of evil (289), and consequently his learning perverts the aim of the university (275 n. 97). «His characteristic act is withdrawal» (273), he lives a solitary life in self-imposed isolation (243, 256 n. 66, 272), demonized by a «hysterical fear of death» ( 271, 274). Redondo's Tomás is alienated, insecure, a restless loner, melancholic and therefore predisposed to madness (3435). Building recently on many of these claims, William Clamurro imputes to Tomás «sexual indifference», a «neurotic tendency towards avoidance», and «male frigidity», and judges that he is no less a «camp follower» than the prostitute who screwed him for frustrating her desire (126, 135, 139; «camp follower» is echoed by Aylward 194). While many find it distressing to criticize the author, El Saffar proposes that, aged and insecure, Cervantes lost control of aesthetic distance and, despairing, identified himself with his mad protagonist (5052, 56, 61). Armand Singer viewed the tale as «slipshod» in planning («Form and Substance» 14) and Friedrich Bouterwek thought it was executed in an «almost planless, extremely simple prose style» (Nerlich 19). Luis Rosales (along with all of the foregoing and others) confuses Cervantes' craft with his narrator's clumsiness and in consequence blunts incisive observations concerning this narrative and its narration (19193); for Rosales the protagonist is unconnected, ungrateful, resentful, fearful of others, and suffers from an inferiority complex (20607). I find insufficient textual evidence to sustain any of the above judgments. (N. from the A.)

I believe with Forcione that «the fundamental problem raised by the tale [is] to what extent is the protagonist identifiable with his author?» (276 n. 100). I mean by a moral moment that juncture where individuals, real or imagined, must choose, among two or more principled options, the right one, «the one we want to stand as principle» ( Harpham 397). Tomás's several recorded choices are consistently and correctly principled, as we shall see. (N. from the A.)

The MLA International Bibliography gives useful if incomplete information concerning the relative frequency of publication on each of the Novelas ejemplares. «El licenciado Vidriera» has been studied at least 54 times since 1963 (46 times since Riley's comment and 20 times during the 1990s). The most studied tale is «El coloquio de los perros» (63), third is «La gitanilla» (42) and fourth «El celoso extremeño» (41). Trailing are «Rinconete y Cortadillo» (33), «La fuerza de la sangre» (23), «El casamiento engañoso» and «El amante liberal» (21 each), «La ilustre fregona» (19), «La española inglesa» (17), «Las dos doncellas» (6), and «La señora Cornelia» (5). «Casamiento» and «Coloquio» have been studied together 6 times. (N. from the A.)

Most recent work, including the present essay, depends upon and engages in dialogue with the studies of Agustín G. de Amezúa y Mayo, Joaquín Casalduero, El Saffar, and Forcione. Often «Vidriera» is described as a frame story into which the author inscribes his own thinking (the sophisticated instance is Forcione 264). Marcel Bataillon terms the story a «sabroso anecdotario, suprema flor de la literatura de apotegmas puesta de moda por el erasmismo» (779), but Casalduero claims that only one of Vidriera's dichos is elaborated into an anecdote and that in the whole corpus «no dice nada original» (140). It is a rare and bold reader who points out that the emperor wears no clothes; one such is Julio Rodríguez-Luis, who comments: «El peso del material aforístico, que no es a la postre tan original ni tan agudo como cabría esperar, desequilibra definitivamente la narración» (208) and «la acumulación de tanto ingenio llega a sonar cansada» (202; and see Singer, «Form and Substance» 23). (N. from the A.)

The deviation from a conventional proportionality between the brief duration of the protagonist's madness and its exaggerated prominence in the narrative has distorted the perception of normally discerning readers; Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce characterizes this hiatus in Tomás's life as «este largo período de su vida» (Novelas, ed. Avalle-Arce 17) (N. from the A.)

That other likable Tomás surnamed Avendaño, the restless scion of a noble and rich (and thereby honorable) family, also studied at Salamanca, entering at the age of 13 years and dropping out at 16; then he robbed his family servant and lied to his supportive parents in order to enjoy the company of another such, don Diego de Carriazo, and the «freedom» of the «academy of tuna fishing» (141). Tomás de Avendaño's lie is telling: he deceives by claiming that with «hidalga intención» he will take up arms and go to Flanders (146). Our Tomás seeks to honor his padres and patria (43); Avendaño irresponsibly dishonors his. Which of these two Tomases is more deserving of the protagonist's role in a novela ejemplar? (N. from the A.)

Since the seventeenth century translators and creative writers have resisted the narrator's authority, rewriting Vidriera's dichos or even dropping them and correcting other perceived problems in Cervantes' text. Armand Singer notes that Azorín expands the treatment of Tomás's early life and also his final phase in Flanders, and «the apothegms that made up over half of the earlier book are simply omitted» («Literary Progeny» 6364, and 68, 70). (N. from the A.)

«Es posible», says Consuelo García Gallarín persuasively, «que este distanciamiento, nunca aislamiento, se deba al espíritu hipersensible del protagonista ante el comportamiento del prójimo y a la tendencia intelectual de evitar contaminarse con la irracionalidad sentimental que el contacto provoca» (45). (N. from the A.)

«¿Soy yo, por ventura, el monte Testacho de Roma, para que me tiréis tantos tiestos y tejas?» Testacho, we are told, was a hill created artificially out of accumulated rubble. (N. from the A.)