La verdad en la historia y la verosimilitud en la literatura

el sintagma “Libros de Caballerías” en el Quijote y un episodio poco conocido de la vida de Lope de Vega

Abstract

We can read in the text of  the “Aprobación” of the Second part of Don Quixote by Francisco Márquez Torres —a text perhaps sponsored or inspired by Cervantes himself— that his objective in writing the work was to “remove the vain and lying books of cavalry”. Which Cervantes and Avellanedac(that is, Lope de Vega and his circle of writers) reiterate, on several occasions, as their common goal. But when Cervantes mentions the “books of chivalry” as the recipients of his satirical parody, he is not thinking of the stories of the Amadises, Palmerines, and Esplandianes. The true books of chivalry were exhausted as a genre, so this last push by Cervantes was not necessary to discredit them. This has been said repeatedly by critics, but we have always stayed there, without going any further, so that, since Clemencín, chivalric books continue to be studied to seek in them an explanation for the genesis of Don Quixote.