Los hurtos del ingenio y la paternidad literaria en Miguel de Cervantes

Abstract

Starting from the semantic differences between hurtar (to filch) and robar (to steal), this article analyses the ingenious craft through which, in all his works, Cervantes stole other people's words and quotes, making them his own through a double process of intertextuality and orality. Rather than in the copia verborum, the author of Don Quixote was interested in transforming other authors' concepts and ideas by means of an exercise of ruminatio and compound imitation that went well beyond the rhetorical practices and normative precepts of his age. Without neglecting the requirements of dispositio and elocutio, as an authentic pioneer in every field, Cervantes concentrated his endeavours particularly on inventio, which paved the way to modern fiction. This explains his emphatic claims in his prologues to indisputable fatherhood of the books generated by his intellect, as legitimate sons.

Keywords

• literature
• spain