Los episodios de Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda

Abstract

One of the morphological characteristics of the novels of big magnitude in the Spanish Golden Age Literature is the insertion of several episodes or short stories into the narrative core, which can be called the main plot. Among Cervantes’ narrative works, Persiles contains the biggest number of inserted episodes. Alongside the lack of plausibility, one of the reasons why this work has been traditionally criticised is precisely the profusion of appendages. This essay focuses on the techniques used by Cervantes not only to insert episodes, but also to draw a big number of links between the main plot and the episodic short stories, thus aiming at the cohesion and unity of the romance. Besides, in the course of the analysis of these techniques, Persiles will be studied within the
tradition of romance, which is the narrative subgenre it belongs to.