“Amorous Compliments” in three Exemplary Novels by Cervantes

Abstract

In the preface to his Exemplary Novels, Cervantes builds an image of himself and proudly claims to be the first novelist. The offering of a “tasty and honest fruit” which may be reaped from each story or from the whole collection is perhaps his most disturbing contention. In this work, we propose as the fruit of our readings the “amorous compliments” in three of the Novels. Love, as a socialized emotion, moves across a network of relations between subjects, shaping bodies, bodily practices, and affections. Cervantes’ pen gave birth to a series of love disputes in which female bodies are featured as injured bodies, as a result of abuse, deception, and subjection to male power.