A note on the topic: Cervantes and the partes artis

Abstract

This paper analyzes the Cervantes’ use of the terms that designate the partes artis in classical rhetoric: inventio, dispositio, elocutio, memoria, actio. The rhetoric on this question was not exhausted, but together with the parts of the discourse, it constituted its nucleus and allows us to approach a not insignificant aspect of Cervantes literary thought. Our research can be defined as rather lexicographic, that is, it addresses the mention or silence regarding these words in context and their variations of meaning. The central articulation of the rhetoric in res y verba underlies the well-known Cervantine difference between the value of a story itself and the way of telling it from the Coloquio de dos perros or the Curioso impertinente, which demonstrates the rhetorical formation of the author, whose probable source should be Cipriano Suárez’s manual, De Arte rhetorica libri tres (1569). We examine what terms Cervantes mentions and why and discuss in which cases there are new meanings that depart from tradition. Cervantes uses two rhetorical terms of preference: invention (inventio) and elocution (elocutio). By invention he understands the ability to see both in what surrounds him and in the preceding textual tradition what can be converted into narration, what is the narratable: his sense departs, therefore, from the rhetorical and approaches the aesthetic. Elocution has to do rather with lexical selection, festive intention and appropriateness to the context. The dispositio Cervantes cites it much less, perhaps because he considers it a question of practice rather than theory. Related problem is that of the part that corresponds to rhetoric and the part of poetics in relation to this terminology: that provides the terms, the general conception is a matter of poetics, and in more modern terms, of aesthetics. We believe that our analysis allows us to improve the annotation of editions of Cervantes works.