“Betwixt Wisdom and Folly”: a brief analysis of the historical category of “discretion” in Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote of La Mancha

Abstract

This article aims at investigating the historical category of the “discreet” in Don Quixote of La Mancha (Part I, 1605; Part II, 1615), in order to hear the 17th century voices inscribed in the discourses addressing the book’s first audience. To do so, we examine selected episodes from Cervantes’ work together with specific terminology from contemporary dictionaries and treatises on grammar, rhetoric and poetics, mainly Sebastián Covarrubias’ Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española (1611). With this approach, we intend to avoid making anachronic interpretations which prevent a closer understanding of the characteristic semantic and symbolic fields involved in 17th century works of fiction, both in their inventive and elocutive dimensions.