“ Against the Dog Only a Dog ” . Talking Canines Civilizing Cynicism in Cervantes ’ “ coloquio de los perros ” ( With Tentative Remarks on the Discourse and Method of Animal Studies )

Deriving its designation from the Greek word for ‘dog’, cynicism is likely the only philosophical ‘interest group’ with a diachronically dependable affinity for various animals—particularly those of the canine kind. While dogs have met with differing value judgments, chiefly along a perceived human–animal divide, it is specifically discourses with cynical affinities that render problematic this transitional field. The Cervantine “coloquio de los perros” has received scholarly attention for its (caninely) picaresque themes, its “cynomorphic” (Ziolkowski) narratological technique, its socio-historically informative accounts relating to Early Modern Europe and the Iberian peninsula, including its ‘zoopoetically’ (Derrida) relevant portrayal of dogs (see e.g., Alves, Beusterien, Martín); nor did the dialog’s mention of cynical snarling go unnoticed. The essay at hand commences with a chapter on questions of method pertaining to ‘animal narration’: with recourse to Montaigne, Descartes, and Derrida, this first part serves to situate the ensuing close readings with respect to the field of Animal Studies. The analysis of the Cervantine texts synergizes thematic and narratological aspects at the discourse historical level; it commences with a brief synopsis of the respective novellas in part 2; Sections 3–5 supply a description of the rhetorical modes of crafting plausibility in the framework narrative (“The Deceitful Marriage”), of pertinent (Scriptural) intertexts for the “Colloquy”. Parts 6–7 demonstrate that the choice of canine interlocutors as narrating agencies—and specifically in their capacity as dogs—is discursively motivated: no other animal than this animal, and precisely as animal, would here serve the discursive purpose that is concurrently present with the literal plane; for this dialogic novella partakes of a (predominantly Stoicizing) tradition attempting to resocialize the Cynics, which commences already with the appearance of the Ancient arch-Cynic ‘Diogenes’ on the scene. At the discursive level, a diachronic contextualization evinces that the Cervantine text takes up and outperforms those rhetorical techniques of reintegration by melding Christian, Platonic, Stoicizing elements with such as are reminiscent of Diogenical ones. Reallocating Blumenberg’s reading of a notorious Goethean dictum, this essay submits the formula ‘against the Dog only a dog’ as a concise précis of the Cervantine method at the discursive level, attained to via a decidedly pluralized rhetorical sermocination featuring, at a literal level, specifically canine narrators in a dialogic setting.

Alignable in tendency with the perspectival inversion characteristic of the Cynic's discourse (as in the above motto), Montaigne-whose Essais (proceeding from an awareness as to contingency) present an assorted accumulation of diverse data guided by, and gathered by way of, a poly-perspectival heuristics-muses: "When I play with my cat, who knows if I am not a pastime to her more than she is to me" (Montaigne 1989, p. 331, II.12;cf. p. 331n.;Montaigne 2009, p. 179, II.xii). 5Likely due to Derrida's affirmative citation thereof in what has come to be a seminal text of Animal Studies (cf.Derrida 2002, pp. 375, 375n.),Montaigne's reflection continues to be reiterated in the respective paradigm, specifically as evidence of a creditable recourse to 'the animal itself and as such '. 6With this accentuation, 'the real animal' is seen to come into focus, thereby counteracting a 'merely symbolic, literary criticism perspective on animal issues is a point of view, a form of consciousness, a way to read any work of fiction" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 343).As to the period in question, Enenkel/Smith emphasize the "variety of discourses on animals among early modern scientists, writers and artists" (Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 12). 5 For Montaigne's observations concerning animals with respect to humankind, see spec.(Montaigne 1989, pp. 330-58, II.12).For comparable instances of perspectival inversion, see spec."This defect that hinders communication between them and us, why is it not just as much ours as theirs?It is a matter of guesswork whose fault it is that we do not understand one another; for we do not understand them any more than they do us.By this same reasoning they may consider us beasts, as we consider them.It is no great wonder if we do not understand them; neither do we understand the Basques [ . . . ] We must notice the parity there is between us.We have some mediocre understanding of their meaning; so do they of ours, in about the same degree.They flatter us, threaten us, and implore us, and we them" (Montaigne 1989, p. 331, II.12;cf. p. 344); see also (Fudge 2006, p. 118); as to the "parity", cf."this equality and correspondence between us and the beasts" (Montaigne 1989, p. 354, II.12).On the whole, Montaigne's Essais tender a dense (Early Modern) summa-an eclectic aggregate of (virtual, historical, proto-empirical) observations, common knowledge, judicious citations, inherited arguments, perceived facts on myriad subject matters (including animals), gathered by way of reading and (purported, personal, vicarious) experience-from a variety of sources, both Ancient and contemporary, collective and private.Cf. "Montaignes Essais sind eine Summe der Vielheit.Diversité ist das Stichwort [ . . .] durch alle Essais [ . . .] Panorama der Vielheit" (Stierle 1987, p. 424); see also (Küpper 1990, p. 272).On the changing knowledge concerning animals during "the early modern period"-triggered by "[t]he discovery of the new world", its "dissemination" considerably "reinforced by the printing press"-see (Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 1). 6 With regard to " Montaigne's [ . . . ] Apology for Raymond Sebond" in general, Derrida states: "You will recognize that as one of the greatest pre-or anti-Cartesian texts on the animal" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 375;cf. spec. p. 375n.).In this respect, cf.Cummings: "Pliny left in place a countertradition on the question of animal rationality that Montaigne and others could still draw on" (Cummings 2004, p. 182); "the violence of Descartes's response, [ . . .] Descartes's denial of animal language [,] can hardly be understood outside its context in a specific refutation of Montaigne and his sympathizers.[ . . . ] Sorabji surmises that Descartes went as far as he did only because of what Montaigne had said" (p.180); cf."'I cannot share the opinion of Montaigne and others who attribute understanding or thought to animals'.Descartes [ . . . ] 1646", qtd. in (Cummings 2004, p. 185n.).In this respect, the following Cartesian assertion ties in refutatively with Montaigne (as qtd.above): "Et on ne doit pas [ . . .] penser, comme quelques anciens, que les bêtes parlent, bien que nous n'entendions pas leur langage: car s'il était vrai, puisqu'elles ont plusieurs organes qui se rapportent aux nôtres, elles pourraient aussi bien se faire entendre à nous qu'à leurs semblables" (Descartes 1969, p. 94, V.11, §59).For positions on Montaigne in the field of Animal Studies generally, see e.g., (Boehrer 2009, p. 545); (Boehrer 2010, p. 7); (Alves 2014, p. 272); (Enenkel and Smith 2007, pp. 11-12, with further references); (Fudge 2007, pp. 42-45); (Fudge 2006, pp. 78, 96, 117-122); (Perfetti 2011, pp. 148-49, 163-64); on "Pliny's elephant", "Montaigne's cat", Descartes, and Derrida, see also (Cummings 2004, pp. 179-81, here 179).For a "representative but not exhaustive" (Wolfe 2009, p. 572n.)overview of seminal publications in animal studies until 2009, see (Wolfe 2009, passim); for a succinct outline of (particularly) formative texts, cf.(Boehrer 2009, p. 543).Concerning "the degree to which an animal is presented true to himself or herself", see (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 344).Generally, cf. the formulations: "the animality of the animal [ . . .] its presence as meaningful in itself" (Fudge 2004, p. 7); "die Tiere selbst, das Tier-Sein der Tiere" (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, p. 7;cf. pp. 12-14); "dass die Tiere nicht für sich selbst, sondern aus der menschlichen Perspektive gesehen werden" (Mussner 2015, p. 174;cf. p. 162); "Freud did not let the dog be a dog" (Beusterien 2016, p. 35).With regard to the author and texts at hand: "The animals of Cervantes remain more than metaphor" (Alves 2011, p. 56); Beusterien "turns to Animal Studies in order to argue on behalf of the elimination of the animal as figure" (Beusterien 2016, p. 36;cf. pp. 8, 109); cf."para encontrar al animal verdadero detrás del tropo antropomórfico" (Martín 2012, p. 462;Martín 2014, p. 476); "varios animales pueden ser examinados como algo más que la abstracción que proveen las metáforas antropomórficas" (Martín 2012, p. 452); cf.(Martín 2014, p. 469); (Martín 2004(Martín , p. 1560)).Contrast Boehrer's descriptive stance: "animal character is always necessarily figurative, a result of socially generated patterns of meaningful action [ . . .] despite [ . . .] Fudge's exhortation that we attend to 'the literal meaning of animals' in early modern texts [ . . . ] animal character [ . . . ] arises through group interaction, in the space between individuals.Whether the groups in question are intraspecies or cross-species, they generate a sense of social being that cannot be reduced [ . . . ] to a literal notion of the Tier an sich" (Boehrer 2010, p. 22).Cf. "the cluster of attributes, often incompatible, associated with each species is historically inflected" (Perry 2004, p. 20).See also Mussner, evoking tropes as "eine auf Erfahrung mit dem Tier beruhende Wendung" (Mussner 2015, p. 174;cf. p. 173)-the selectivity of such (verbalized) experiences or observations (cf."die versprachlichte Beobachtung", p. 175) notwithstanding; in this respect, see Cuneo's suggestive remark: "It matters that it is the horse as opposed to [ . . .] a goat, who is chosen as a symbol for pride" (Cuneo 2014, p. 4) purely figurative use' (judged to be a priori compromised on account of the latter's perceived semantic, notional, structural association with forms of exploitation). 7 In this retrieval or liberation of 'the animal as such', the ensuing (also narratologically significant) aspects may seem to be suspended or elided: the textuality, virtuality, context, historical distance (alterity), and mediacy of the statement (including, in a scholarly environment, its stages of reception); the human being (here: the speaker of the Essais, usually identified with the historical author, referred to as 'Montaigne') performing the conjectural act of taking an animal's perspective based on (what is semiotically represented as) a tangible experience; the respective human recipient visualizing the textually sedimented (putatively authentic) interspecies encounter by notionally accommodating it to her own (previously immediate, now recollected) experience with animals, not necessarily of the feline kind (thereby tying in her own Lebenswelt with what is perceived as the speaker's lifeworld emerging suggestively from the text).
In an Animal Studies perspective, the collocation 'animal narration' might therefore seem a contradiction in terms, seeing that-rather than taking 'the animal as such'-it adds another expression with (semantic) associations and (historical) implications that the paradigm expressly rejects: mediatedness, indirection, irony, semblance, the verisimilar, virtuality, ornament, symbolism, metaphor, figuration, rhetoric; along with certain genres expected to display a particular partiality toward the former, such as fables, satires, emblems, allegories, and the like; as well as a respective hermeneutics (qua more mediacy). 8In a radical view, the aspect of 'narration' might even be judged to be yet another arrantly anthropocentric mode, aiming to superstructure, earmark, instrumentalize, and ultimately veil 'the animate animal itself'. 9By contrast, the language regime obtaining in the field of Animal Studies tends to privilege articulations positing immediacy, literalness, direct access, palpable life, authentic reality, truth, the body, nature, and animals. 107 See Wolfe: "Rather than treat the animal as primarily a theme, trope, metaphor, analogy, representation, or sociological datum [ . . . ] scholars in animal studies" are to 'take the animal seriously' (Wolfe 2009, pp. 566-67).Cf. also the following formulations: "[in] reductive moves [ . . . ] an animal or animal part is an instrument or resource for the use of humans.[ . . .] the animal is reduced radically [ . . . ] [in] symbolic use, 'figurative appropriation' [ . . . ] or ideational exploitation" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 344); "The dog as dog has disappeared [ . . .] animals were prompts to the abstract.[ . . .] animals were [ . . .] used [ . . . ] animal behaviors were used" (Fudge 2006, pp. 106-7); "el empleo figurado del animal suele ser antropocéntrico, podría ser visto [ . . .] como pura explotación estética" (Martín 2012, p. 462); cf."reduce al animal a un tropo" (Martín 2014, p. 472; see also p. 469).All the same, the fundamentally metaphorical 'nature' of language may lead even animal-intentioned critics into statements such as: "Will man sich auf eine ertragreiche Weise mit den Tieren in der Literatur beschäftigen" (Borgards 2015, pp. 226-27).Cf. e.g., "an occasional, tired, animal metaphor" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 343); "animals for Deleuze and Guattari are [ . . . ] conceptual pieces in a philosophical game" (Raber 2013, p. 12).As to the bias against rhetoric on the part of Animal Studies, see (Borgards 2015, p. 226).Regarding the paradigm's rejection of a certain genre, see this catalytic statement on Derrida's part: "Above all, it would be necessary to avoid fables.We know the history of fabulation and how it remains an anthropomorphic taming, a moralizing subjection, a domestication.Always a discourse of man, on man, indeed on the animality of man, but for and as man" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 405;cf. pp. 374, 378, 403, 403n.).9 Generally, see Derrida's incisive caveat against "venturing to say almost anything at all for the cause, for whatever cause or interest" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 398). 10In hermeneutic terms, everything is to be read in sensu litterali, not spirituali (allegorico, tropologico/morali, anagogico).The same as biographistic or psychoanalytical criticism, such proclivities as outlined above may lead to deprioritizing the inevitably mediated state, the historical alterity, the virtuality, the (textually sedimented) rhetorico-strategic functions, of the respective material.Moreover, the reader's active participation in the production of meaning (by selective attention, by contributing associations, etc.) is sidelined along with textuality and mediacy-thereby (ultimately) spiriting away both the recipient and the medium.In discourse historical terms, the Animal Studies paradigm might (eventually) locate itself in a long tradition of cultural critique (along Lucretian, Rousseauist, Romanticist lines, for instance, and with the respective genres; as to the latter generally, cf.(Forcione 1989, p. 349)); in such a view, the field's apparent, occasionally voiced uneasiness with its disciplinary parentage, cultural studies-cf.(Wolfe 2009, passim, spec. pp. 565-66, 568); contrast (Dopico Black 2010, passim, spec. pp. 236-37)-would be the result of its de re affiliation to the above; consequently, certain radical positions might indeed be innocent of an awareness as to-or even feel inclined to expressly disown-their own condition of possibility: human culture.Cf. "natural and timeless because the return belongs with nature (the animal, instinct) and not with culture (the human, reason)" (Fudge 2007, p. 40).Contrast: "the concept of culture that informs cultural studies is always already inhabited by the human" (Dopico Black 2010, p. 237).Regarding the countless variants of a 'return to nature' (as tentatively listed above), see e.g., Derrida's emphasis on nudity (cf.Derrida 2002, passim, spec. pp. 369, 373-74, 390, 418); Fudge's accentuation of 'homecoming' (Fudge 2007, passim), of recovery: "the project of this book is to recover animals from the silence of modern scholarship" (Fudge 2006, p. 4); Raber's stress on a "belief in the Facing this apparent aporia in terms of approach, one might have recourse precisely to Derrida's aforesaid lecture-recognized as foundational for, and widely received in, Animal Studies-for purposes of proposing a provisionally practicable path. 11Two textual gestures seem to be of particular import in this respect: the essay's express and recurrent signaling of its own textuality; and Derrida's ostensive refunctionalization of a notorious Cartesian formula.
While articulating a desire to return to various manifestations of immediacy, the speaker repeatedly points both to the factual nonviability and the virtual possibility thereof: although all returns are virtual, they typically tend to be effectual only if that fact fails to register. 12The desired conflation-taking the virtual as the factual-occurs, as Derrida takes considerable care to render palpable, in the recipient (whether audience or reader), and precisely while acting in that capacity.Addressing others, language lays claim to reality: I must make it clear from the start, the cat I am talking about is a real cat, truly, believe me, a little cat.It isn't the figure of a cat.It doesn't silently enter the room as an allegory for all the cats on the earth [ . . .] that is truly a little cat, this cat I am talking about [.] (cf.Derrida 2002, pp. 374-75)  13   These protestations of verity and (deictic) emphases take place-and the cat exists-in language: "the cat said to be real" (p.378) by a speaker, and potentially perceived as such by a recipient taking primacy of the body [ . . .] the role of the body [ . . .] the significance of the body" (Raber 2013, pp. 12-13;cf. pp. 11, 19-20, 28, 30, passim), spec.as "this constant but incomplete search for actual animals with actual bodies" (p.12); Boehrer's focus on a "return" to a "pre-Cartesian status" (Boehrer 2010, p. 12)-"to move beyond [ . . .] by moving behind [ . . .] to the issues and developments that preceded" (p.12).In a Bataille/Kojève context, Agamben initially signals "a return to animality" (Agamben 2004, p. 5); "man, who has become animal again" (p.6; cf.p. 7); "Kojève returns to the problem of man's becoming animal [ . . .] [']Man [ . . .] must also become purely 'natural' again ['] [ . . . ] [']man's return to animality[']" (pp.9-10); this emphasis is reiterated at the end: "make its way back to [ . . .] from which it came [ . . .] to return to their original place" (Agamben 2004, p. 89); "man's regained animality" (p.90)-returns frame Agamben's book.Having asked "¿cómo recuperamos al animal[?]" (Martín 2014, p. 472;cf. p. 476), Martín-with regard to "interrelaciones [ . . .] con otras especies" in Cervantes' Quijote-states: "ese mundo paralelo [ . . .] hay que recuperar y validar.Hacerlo es sólo una de las recompensas de los Estudios de Animales" (Martín 2012, p. 462); cf.(Martín 2014, p. 476).A similar tendency might be visible even in Cuneo's more cautious statement: "I would like to [ . . .] transport us out of the realm of the academic and the representational at least to the threshold of our lived lives" (Cuneo 2014, p. 13).Less warily, Wolfe asserts: "animal studies intersects with the larger problematic of posthumanism [ . . . ] in the sense of returning us precisely to the thickness and finitude of human embodiment and to human evolution as itself a specific form of animality [ . . . ] we are returned to a new sense of the materiality and particularity not just of the animal [ . . .] but also of that animal called the human" (Wolfe 2009, pp. 571-72); with a complimentary (re)turn inward at the end: "not just 'out there', among the birds and beasts, but 'in here' as well, at the heart of this thing we call human" (p.572).Virtually any (ever theoretico-rhetorical) 'return to' tends to be a 'flight from'-in the case of Animal Studies: from anthropocentrism, most likely. 11As to the import of Derrida's aforesaid lecture, Wolfe states that it "is arguably the single most important event in the brief history of animal studies" (Wolfe 2009, p. 570); cf.(Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, p. 8); see also Fudge's reading thereof (Fudge 2007, passim). 12As to a desire for immediacy in the face of constitutive indirection (given the linguistic medium), see the lecture's first line: "To begin with, I would like to entrust myself to words that, were it possible, would be naked" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 369)-with emphasis on the qualification; similarly, see the gradation and positing accentuated here: "posing them [sc.'some hypotheses in view of theses'] simply, naked, frontally, as directly as possible, pose them" (p.392); as well as, at the end: "the naked truth, if there is such a thing [ . . .] Nudity perhaps remains untenable" (p.418).As to immediacy, see (pp. 369, 372, 374, 376, 378, 400, 418).For express emphasis on indirect structures, cf.e.g., "labyrinthine, even aberrant, leading us astray from lure to lure" (p.392); "It will not be a matter of attacking frontally or antithetically" (p.398).In Derrida's essay, returns are legion-cf.(cf.Derrida 2002, pp. 369, 392-93, 400-1, 413, 418); meta-poetically, the text lays bare its recursive structure as such (pp. 380-381, 390, 401, 406, 412n.);cf.spec."I must once more return to" (p.380); "a term that will come back more than once, from different places and in different registers" (p.381); "Yet I have been wanting to bring myself back to my nudity before the cat" (p.390); "We will have reason to go back over these steps and tracks" (p.401); "But since I wish ultimately to return at length to" (p.406); "I will return to this" (p.412n.). 13For instances of what might appear to be a conflation of the figurative with the factual (and taken as the latter) in the present context, see e.g., (Fudge 2008, pp. 188-89;cf. p. 199); (Alves 2011, p. 62); (Raber 2013, pp. 79-80); (Beusterien 2009, pp. 212, 219); (Beusterien 2016, pp. 8, 38-39).With respect to the poetics of the Cervantine oeuvre, an (a priori) rejection of the modus obliquus, of irony, of intercalated narrative levels and diverse perspectives, would arguably be particularly problematic.
a semiotically mediated as an actual cat. 14In (always) other words: "It is an animal of reading and rewriting" (p.406).
To tentatively put Derrida's move in (counter-)Cartesian terms: the desired "certainty" is externalized into the apparently irreducible being of an 'other than the self'; hence (perchance): 'I perceive (my perceiving) that the other is (other), therefore I am'.In other words: it is by insisting on the other's fundamental alterity that the self comes into (perceiving, being) its self (contrast the tendency in Schopenhauer's Vedantic reference above).Derrida seems to be insinuating which blueprint for conceptualizing 'radical alterity' he is refunctionalizing when suggesting: "I hear the cat or God ask itself, ask me" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 387). 17See Montaigne: "the animals that live with us recognize our voice" (Montaigne 1989, p. 343, II.12); "How could they [sc.'animals'] not speak to one another?They certainly speak to us, and we to them.In how many ways do we not speak to our dogs?And they answer us.We talk to them in another language [ . . .] and we change the idiom according to the species" (Montaigne 1989, p. 335, II.12); see (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 375n.).Cf. (spec.with the qualification in brackets): "In dieser von den Tieren ausgehenden Wirkung auf uns erfahren wir nicht nur etwas über uns selbst, sondern es ist nun sinnvoll möglich zu sagen, dass vermittelst dieser (Rück-)Wirkung wir etwas über die Tiere selbst (aber nicht: über Tiere an sich) erfahren" (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, pp. 13-14).Rather revealingly in this respect, Fudge claims: "In a world without animals, humans [ . . .] would lose themselves" (Fudge 2006, p. 36); "Taking animals seriously [ . . .] offers us [ . . .] another way of conceptualizing both ourselves and the world around us" (Fudge 2006, p. 4;cf. p. 109).Derrida situates his entire oeuvre with respect to "the question of the living and of the living animal.For me that will always have been the most important and decisive question.I have addressed it [ . . .], either directly or obliquely, by means of readings of all the philosophers I have taken an interest in, beginning with Husserl" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 402). 18With the latter only temporarily delayed or deferred by the time it takes to think, say, or write: 'cogito sum' (and but marginally accelerated by eliding the 'ergo').As regards the apparently human need for (self-)reflection (at least in theory), one might-in this particular context-adduce that (as per Agamben's reading) "Linnaeus [ . . .] defined Homo as the animal that is only if it recognizes that it is not" (Agamben 2004, p. 27); "man has no specific identity other than the ability case, human beings arrive at themselves by way of a detour-via an other, specifically animals. 19In Cuneo's felicitously parrhesiastic wording: "We use all kinds of animals as homing 'devices', to tell ourselves and others who we are, where we are, and where we are going.We use animals to orient ourselves" (Cuneo 2014, p. 2). 20By ceaselessly returning to returning, Derrida's essay moreover and at once performs the impossibility (respectively, the virtuality) of direct access, and the ineluctability of indirection (specifically: of language). 21 In light of the above, the fact that virtually all criticism in the field of Animal Studies seems to be (insistingly, tacitly) channeling its efforts through Descartes might be additionally motivated. 22 Naturally, certain Cartesian assertions (blatantly dis)regarding animals render 'him' an expedient antagonist. 23Yet the paradigm's tendency to privilege immediacy-and not the discursive tendencies  (Cuneo 2014, p. 3;cf. pp. 4, 14).See also Bühler's structurally comparable position in an epistemological context, stressing "dass ein bestimmtes Wissen vom Menschen alleine über den Umweg über das Tier gewonnen werden kann.So werden Tiere in Experimentalsystemen zu Objekten des Wissens und fungieren dabei als Substitute des Menschen" (Bühler 2016, p. 20; on substitution in that regard, see also pp.20-21, 23-26, 33, 35-36, 38).For a poetico-literary context, cf."In der langen Geschichte jenes Reflektierens der Menschen über sich fällt dem Tier [ . . .] eine besondere Rolle zu" (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 52).Generally in this respect, cf."[']Yet they needed them [sc.'animals'] in order to draw from their nature an experimental knowledge ['ad experimentalem cognitionem'][']", Aquinas qtd. in (Agamben 2004, p. 22).In terms of animal heuristics, see also Montaigne's formulations: "These are particular actions; but what everyone has seen and what everyone knows" (Montaigne 1989, p. 342, II.12); "if anyone studies closely what we see ordinarily of the animals that live among us, there is material there for him to find facts" (pp.342-43, II.12). 20Cf. "There are many stories, told by philosophers, historians, poets, about dogs [ . . .] the stories told about dogs [ . . . ] are never really about dogs at all, they are always about humans" (Fudge 2007, p. 37).See Beusterien, paraphrasing "Garber's position", which "argues that the critical return to the human is [ . . .] taking place in the study of the dog" (Beusterien 2016, p. 5n.). 21In appropriating Derrida's lecture, the paradigm of Animal Studies may seem to have isolated the instances calling for immediacy; such a reading would also have been facilitated by passing over the explicit signals of indirection as are provided in the text's various auto-referential gestures, including the ironies of apparent authorial intent, which signal its constitutive state of mediatedness, of virtuality.For such techniques tender a structural, syntactico-semantic realization of the underlying configuration (indirection over immediacy) in a quasi-permanent 'mise en abyme du discours'-to adopt Küpper's formulation from another context (Küpper 1990, pp. 342, 370, 372, 381); this procedure is arguably characteristic of Derrida's écriture in general.Cf. "Derrida's tale [sc.'its end'] ultimately [ . . .] returns us, it seems, to its beginning" (Fudge 2007, p. 48).The aforesaid pattern also appears to transfer itself into readings of his work: "I want to read Derrida as the re-teller of a key myth of modernity that brings together the dog, the home and the human.[ . . .] I will, like Lassie to her home, return to Derrida" (Fudge 2007, p. 38). 22See Fudge's findings concerning the reception of Descartes, particularly in Early Modern England (Fudge 2006, pp. 5-6, 147-74;spec. pp. 153, 156, 160, 172); as well as her incisive critique of the (tacit) presence of a Cartesian approach (including the respective notions as to animals) in contemporary scholarship, which, in part, is seen to project that discourse back on, or into, pre-Cartesian writings (Fudge 2006, pp. 175-93, especially 179-80, 185); needless to say, spec.Cartesian positions cannot apply to Cervantine texts.On Descartes in the context of Animal Studies, see also (Boehrer 2009, pp. 545-46); (Boehrer 2010, pp. 9-10;spec. pp. 12, 24); (Martín 2014, p. 475); (Bühler 2013, p. 191); likewise Raber, who (while stating that "[b]oth of these critics [sc.'Boehrer', 'Fudge'] clearly struggle against Descartes' legacy") wishes to "fully subvert[ . . .] Cartesianism" by way of "look[ing] to histories and narratives about embodiment"-since, "[a]s long as we fight over reason, we are stuck on Descartes' playing field" (Raber 2013, p. 11).Cf. "As any medievalist or early modern scholar will tell you, the question of the animal assumes, if anything, even more centrality in earlier periods; [ . . .] the idea of the animal that we have inherited from the Enlightenment and thinkers such as Descartes and Kant is better seen as marking a brief period" (Wolfe 2009, p. 564).Similarly: "in most posthumanist accounts, Descartes tends to be the go-to man [ . . .], a habit we might question" (Dopico Black 2010, p. 237). 23For the Cartesian positions on animals in this respect, see (Descartes 1969, pp. 90-97, V.9-12, § §56-60); spec."le corps de chaque animal [ . . .] comme une machine" (p.90, V.9, §56).Cf. "Between Augustine and Rousseau, [ . . . ] within the evolving history of the ego cogito ergo sum, stands Descartes.He waits for us with his animal-machines" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 391;cf. pp. 396, 400).Such (apparently unworldly) Cartesian speculations about beings other than humans would likely have made (or make) no sense to anyone in the presence of-and engaging with-animals on a daily basis: "Cartesius certe non vidit simios", Linnaeus qtd. in (Agamben 2004, p. 23); cf."the orthodox philosophical debate sits at odds with what was apparently obvious to day-to-day living.Animals think" (Fudge 2006, p. 145); see also Thomas as qtd. in (Boehrer 2010, p. 26).
in Derrida-may seem to align it with the Cartesian pattern, suggesting another reason for why Animal Studies can apparently neither do with nor without 'Descartes'.Arguably, the seemingly comfortable Cartesian recourse (with its negative leading sign only increasing that effect) results in a perspectival foreshortening, one outcome of which appears to be a virtually complete pretermission of discourses with cynical affinities from the pertinent discussions within Animal Studies-and this despite Cynicism's sustained impact since its emergence in Antiquity, particularly also in terms of always already destabilizing the (now) so-called "human-animal divide" (Boehrer 2010, p. 3;Raber 2013, p. 30). 24In this respect, the (historically pre-Cartesian) Cervantine texts to be described below might provide a perspectival counterpoise, seeing that they (explicitly, by implication) draw attention to the import of discourses with cynical affinities, and precisely in a context featuring (speaking) animals at a literal level; conceivably, such a nexus might tender a plausible basis (or incentive) for judiciously engaging with discourses of a cynical color also in the field whose discourse and method are under scrutiny here.
Having tentatively outlined (via Descartes, Derrida) selected discursive ground swells of Animal Studies, one might return to the above aporia, and formulate certain provisional observations in terms of method, specifically with a view to the nexus of 'animals' and 'narration'.
As a focalizing device, an Animal Studies approach might serve a heuristic function in addressing textualized aspects hitherto unacknowledged, accentuating hermeneutic lacunae, drawing attention to data on, and descriptions of, animals sedimented in material and virtual documents, in works of art. 25 24 Cf.Bühler, condensing theorizations on the part of (among others) Plessner, Simmel, Derrida, Luhman, and Lotman into the formula: "Grenzen sind nicht gegeben, sondern werden gemacht" (Bühler 2013, p. 13).Faced with "the border between human and animal" (Agamben 2004, p. 21;cf. pp. 22, 36)-this "hiatus" (p.92) that, "[i]n our culture", may seem to be "the decisive political conflict" (p.80)-Agamben posits "a mobile border within living man" (p.15): "the caesura between the human and the animal passes first of all within man" (p.16; cf.p. 79); in so doing, he searches for instances where the "critical threshold, at which the difference between animal and human, which is so decisive for our culture, threatens to vanish" (p.21).Describing "the blurring of the lines between humans and animals" in the Middle Ages, Salisbury states: "The separation between animals and humans seemed to be lost even as contemporary influential thinkers like Thomas Aquinas were asserting the absolute difference between the species" (Salisbury 1994, p. 134); he stresses that, from a Medieval viewpoint, "the species were ['closely'] linked in people's minds: animals cannot live without men" (pp.18-19)-concerning the manifold ties between dogs and humans in the Middle Ages, see spec.(pp. 45-49, 135).Cf.Raber, remarking that in "Renaissance culture, [ . . .] the boundary that divides human from animal is neither fixed nor stable" (Raber 2013, pp. 9-10).With regard to notions concerning animals in Early Modern times, Fudge notes the-discourse historically significant-impact of (Ancient) Skepticism, spec. in terms of its (effectively dissimilar) influence on Montaigne and Descartes; in particular, she accentuates "the impact on human-animal relations of the rediscovery of the skeptical writings of Sextus Empiricus in the sixteenth century" (Fudge 2006, p. 5;cf. pp. 116-22)-spec.that "Sextus constantly takes animals as evidence of the boundary of human understanding" (p.117).As to the pretermission of Diogenes and Cynicism where mention would seem requisite (discourse historically speaking), cf.e.g., "I plan to speak endlessly of nudity and of the nude in philosophy.Starting from Genesis" (cf.Derrida 2002, p. 369;cf. p. 374); "a properly transgressal if not transgressive experience of limitrophy" (p.397; similarly: pp.399, 408); likewise in Fudge, see (Fudge 2007, p. 45;cf. p. 46), e.g., when speaking of "this undermining of the opposition between reason and unreason" (Fudge 2006, p. 3); and especially, when citing Joubert's definition of "'untrue' [ . . .] laughter" as "'dog laughter' or the 'cynic spasm'", since "'angry and threatening dogs have this look'", qtd. in (Fudge 2006, p. 17;cf. pp. 25, 35); similarly when Fudge later mentions the "connection between scornfulness and laughter" as "repeated by numerous early modern thinkers in England" (p.19); likewise: "a pissing dog comes to stand for everything that a human is not, and cannot be" (Fudge 2008, p. 198); cf.Raber, referring to the latter remark, as well as to "Topsell" on "'rayling' as a characteristic of the cur: 'The voice of a Dogge [ . . .] is by the learned interpreted as rayling and angry speech', which is why dogs are sometimes used as 'emblems of vile, cursed, rayling, and filthy men'", qtd. in (Raber 2013, p. 145).In such instances, mention of cynicism would seem indispensable (discourse historically speaking).Given her topic, Mussner's omission of cynicism may seem striking (Mussner 2015, passim).A Cultural History of Animals in the Renaissance, cf.(Boehrer 2011, passim), mentions "Diogenes of Sinope, the Cynic philosopher" only in passing, and apparently without the critical attention requisite (Perfetti 2011, p. 163); the other references to cynicism in that ed.volume seem to be valuative, rather than discourse historically motivated: cf."cynical overtones" (De Ornellas 2011, p. 31); "less cynical, demonstrably sincere" (p.34); "the [ . . .] cynical use of the pelican image [ . . .] inspire[s] equal cynicism" (p.36).By contrast, Perry-who examines instances of Early Modern English animal narration without rejecting rhetoric, cf.(Perry 2004, pp. 19, 30, 33), or certain genres (such as fables and satires)-refers to "Swetnam['s] [ . . .] following the model of Diogenes", with "several responses [ . . .] turn[ing] his self-representation as a snarling dog back on himself" (p.24). 25 Generally in this respect, Fudge emphasizes that "there is no such thing as a pure human society" considering "the number of day-to-day interactions between humans and animals in all areas of life" (Fudge 2004, p. 6).Cf. "there is no such thing as human identity, history, culture, without the prior cooperation, collaboration, habitation, ideological appropriation, consumption of animals, without animals as the 'always already' of both materiality and culture itself" (Raber 2013, p. 28).
Such would include (Ancient, contemporaneous) notions about a perceived flora and fauna (common knowledge, particular views) as conveyed by the respective text or object. 26 Written animals speaking (narrating) in the human tongue appear in texts, whose protagonists are virtual characters; Borgards suggests the term "diegetic animals" qua "appearing as living beings [ . . .] within the narrated world" (Borgards 2015, p. 225;trans. dsm). 27This does not necessarily involve their standing (in) for something else (such as human beings), nor that theirs would be a 'merely Boehrer speaks of a "heavy integration of animals into" numerous "aspects of early modern society"-which includes the "literary": "Montaigne's Apology for Raymond Sebonde [ . . .] abounds with sentient beasts" (Boehrer 2009, p. 545); cf.(Boehrer 2010, p. 7); "in early modern culture" there was a "literal and figurative proximity of nonhuman to human animals" (Boehrer 2009, p. 545); cf.(Boehrer 2010, p. 8).For the Spanish context, Alves stresses: "all ranks and estates interacted to a greater or lesser extent with nonhuman animals" (Alves 2014, p. 271).As "the three principal uses to which early modern Europeans put the beasts in their lives", Boehrer suggests: "haulage, companionship, and food" (Boehrer 2010, p. 18).Cf. what Raber gives as "some of the most ordinary, unremarkable, and unremarked experiences of early modern life: using a dog to hunt or herd, petting a cat, riding a horse" (Raber 2013, p. 14); with respect to "the dog" as "[t]hat most ubiquitous of pets", she accentuates a "wide set of useful tasks for individual businesses (butchers [ . . .] still used dogs to bait bulls [ . . .])", which "brought them into the city in huge numbers" (p.140).Alves has: "On the ground, in practical application, many Spaniards, like other early modern Europeans, predominantly saw animals as sources of labor, food, and entertainment-as objects to be used to enhance their human lives" (Alves 2014, p. 273); cf."en la temprana época moderna los animales eran absolutamente centrales en las vidas de los humanos, como alimento, ropa, medios de transporte y trabajo, y como compañía" (Martín 2014, p. 468). 26A note on alterity-on the other that is the text-may seem requisite at this point.If the initial, producing and receiving culture considered certain views plausible, it is not for the 'modern critic' to ignore them (to say nothing of deeming them absurd).Cautioning against positivistic approaches, Enenkel/Smith highlight "its [sc. of 'early modern zoology'] striking alterity and discontinuity from modern science" (Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 5), and call for contextualization: "Various methods of animal description may occur at the same time [ . . . ].Most important are the specific historical contexts, interests, needs and the literary, theological, philosophical and artistic discourses" (p.5).For a seventeenth century context, Bühler stresses: "die Antike ['blieb'] als Argumentationsfolie auch weiterhin erhalten" (Bühler 2016, p. 20).Emphasizing alterity ("strikingly different from our own"), Salisbury cautions: "Our notions about animals were not uniformly acquired nor have they remained constant over time" (Salisbury 1994, p. 3)-cf.what may seem a particularly marked instance of Medieval alterity: "a saint's cult that completely eliminates the lines between humans and animals", "that of Saint Guinefort, a greyhound" (p.175); at once, Salisbury notes certain relatively durable continuities: "dogs had been serving the same functions for millennia" (p.18).See Callaghan, stressing "the radical alterity of nascent modernity" (Callaghan 2003, p. 58), spec.with regard to "that shady area, both literal and metaphoric, of relations between the species" (p.64).Contrast the following claims: "para buscar al animal en Don Quijote a veces hay que leer a Cervantes contra Cervantes [ . . .] para encontrar al animal verdadero detrás del tropo antropomórfico hay que mirar dentro y más allá del texto en sí" (Martín 2014, p. 476); cf.(Martín 2012, p. 462); as well as the obverse: "Cervantes anticipates postures from Animal Studies" (Beusterien 2016, p. 42;cf. pp. 47, 49).Texts and material objects (such as paintings) are embedded in their (back)grounds of emergence in manifold ways, not least in carrying along sedimented assumptions, views previously held.Moreover, general and prevalent, widely held notions (also about animals) may tend to be of greater import with regard to works of art (including literature) than particularist notions not available to most recipients (in terms of prior knowledge)-unless expressly contained in the respective document or material item itself.What Cuneo describes with reference to a particular context-"a suggestive mixture of eye-witnessing and authoritative accounts (textual and verbal) with folklore, literary conventions and [ . . .] anecdotes" (Cuneo 2014, p. 12)-may apply to animals (as represented) in literature generally.Cf.Boehrer, stressing "the innumerable [ . . .] commonplaces whereby traditional language assumes a continuity between human and nonhuman animal experience" (Boehrer 2010, p. 3).Arguably, it is only as a relative remark that the following holds good even 'today': "Nahezu alles, was wir heute als alltägliches Wissen von Tieren haben, ist geprägt durch wissenschaftliches Wissen" (Bühler-Dietrich and Weingarten 2016, p. 15); contrast Mussner, stressing "dass die in der Allgemeinsprache verwendeten Tierbezeichnungen häufig nicht der wissenschaftlichen Taxonomie entsprechen" (Mussner 2015, p. 161).Cf.Blumenberg's remark concerning the relative 'inertia or remanence of language'-"daß die Sprache von hoher Trägheit ist" (Blumenberg 2009, p. 129)-in another context; also exemplified in this: "Was auch immer wir wissen, die Sonne geht über uns auf und unter, insgeheim sogar für uns auf und unter" (Blumenberg 2011, p. 311). 27In her reading of "talking animals" in Early Modern English satire-with spec.focus on their inducing "pleasure for readers" (Perry 2004, p. 20;cf. pp. 19, 27, 29, 31, 33), and emphasizing "the power of rhetoric" (p.19; cf.pp. 30, 33)-Perry, tentatively "borrow[ing] [ . . .] Ritvo's term", speaks of "'rhetorical' animal[s]", while simultaneously signaling their having "very little in common with [ . . .] [their] 'material' counterpart" (Perry 2004, p. 20).Concerning speaking animals from a generally narratological perspective, see (Borgards 2015, p. 226)); while initially admitting that "die Tiere der Literatur zunächst aus Wörtern ['bestehen'].Literaturtiere sind Textgestalten" (Borgards 2015, p. 225 symbolic' use. 28In a crafted textual environment, animals will inevitably be rhetorically rendered, strategically placed, often also with discursive implications; yet this need not entail their not also being present-at a literal level-as (the portrayal of) an animal in its capacity as animal within a virtual realm. 29 A textual dog, for instance, might be represented (and appresented) as barking, retrieving, biting, shepherding, etc.-with there being no need to allegorize (and moralize) such semiotized phenomena with a view to human behavior.While not passing over other planes textually present, one might stay at a literal level, provisionally: the recipient is faced with the description of a virtual canine, appearing-in the context of a world semiotically induced-as a dog.The terms 'rhetorical' and 'figure' would then signify a plausibly rendered, textual canine, significantly and strategically placed in a virtual context, crafted by recourse to a (verbal) medium-and 'realized' by a recipient. 30The latter would supply the corresponding-culturally conditioned, personally inflected-signifieds; tie the semiotically engendered virtual realm in with her (immediate, recollected) experience, translating a textual reality into her own; and, perchance, attempt to take a respective animal's perspective.Via this detour-a virtual appresentation, particular appropriation, grounded in a human being's potential for conceivably putting itself where it is not (in another's place)-such may indeed lead to an altered perception of, and appreciation for, actual animals in the respective recipient's realm of (haptic, olfactory, etc.) immediacy, in her material lifeworld. 31 If these observations are held plausible, it might seem to be a viable approach to describe a work's inevitably mediated status (its virtuality, textuality), its historicity, (socio-moral) alterity, its structural (including narrative) devices, its rhetorico-strategic disposition (without reducing the art to elocutio)-while also accentuating the descriptions of (historically observable) animal behavior and (culturally specific) practices involving animals sedimented in a given work (of art). 32In addition 28 Cf.Fudge, "asserting that the animals within these texts are to be interpreted as animals and not simply as symbols of something else" (Fudge 2006, p. 4)-with 'interpretation' qua mediacy. 29In terms of genre, it might especially be epics and novels that-in characteristically crafting (the impression of) 'entire worlds'-would all but naturally seem to include 'animals as animals'; hence (perchance) the tentative plausibility of suggestions such as: "Don Quixote's animals are the animals of Spain in [a] literary microcosm" (Alves 2011, p. 58); "Don Quijote [ . . .] contiene una cantidad elevadísima de animales reales" (Martín 2014, p. 470); cf.(Martín 2012, p. 452). 30If inclined to do justice to a mediated (textual, virtual) animal, one will arguably have to take seriously the media (texts, paintings, etc.) providing the semiotic stimuli for the recipient's notional 'realization' of the animal represented.Close attention to the medium, to mediatedness, is the premise of a careful reading of a given textual animal, of the descriptions and views concerning animals.The reader makes-renders, 'realizes'-the animal; consequently, contextualization (including the reception) is needful.To spirit away the reader is to do likewise unto the animal: isolating a perceived 'animal as such' will lead to its effacement.Any perceived (interpreted) 'reality'-including an otherwise textual one-will be the 'realization' of its respective recipient.Striving to work as descriptively as possible, scholarship can attempt to describe these processes, their workings, and can never be free of them.The same obtains in a related matter: for, as far as "question[ing] anthropocentrism" (Wolfe 2009, p. 572;cf. pp. 568-69) is concerned, one might have to add that, for the most part, such curiously inquisitive conduct seems to be performed by animals capable of engaging in virtuality, and spec.such as they themselves have set up by, and for, themselves.In this view, perspectival inversion ('theriocentrism', 'posthumanism', cultural critique) is human.Structurally, see Raber on "the use of the term 'nonhuman animal'", while not also "refer[ring] to a human as a 'non-canine' animal": "of all animals only we feel we need to signal our lack of distinction" (Raber 2013, p. 195n.).Generally, cf."Doch scheint die Spezies Mensch ein großes Stück weit über das hinaus zu gehen, was andere Tiere machen, mithilfe oder aufgrund ihrer Sprache" (Mussner 2015, p. 157). 31Cf.what Wolfe calls "the mobilization in literary texts of identification and sympathetic imagination regarding animals" (Wolfe 2009, p. 569); he emphasizes "the embodied finitude that we share with nonhuman animals" (p.570; cf.p. 571).Borgards suggests: "Literatur kann versuchsweise die Perspektive eines Tieres einnehmen" (Borgards 2015, p. 227)-a performance on the part of human beings, who conceive of, and receive, literature.Cf. "We all have some knowledge of the life of a nonhuman animal and [ . . .] some ability to empathize with the world-as-experienced by that animal" (Shapiro and Copeland 2005, p. 345).As regards the author and texts at hand, see also Beusterien, with reference to Haraway (Beusterien 2016, pp. 3, 7, 42, 47). 32Cf."historians [ . . .] depend on documents written by humans for other humans.The animals have left no documents behind.[ . . .] We cannot hear the animals-all we hear is human chatter" (Cuneo 2014, p. 3)-hence "an acceptance of the mediated nature of historical knowledge" (p.4) is requisite.See also the balanced formulation of Cuneo's guiding questions: "What kinds of identities (both human and animal) were generated by interactions between human and animal?How were these identities articulated, for what purposes, and for what kinds of audiences" (Cuneo 2014, p. 2); as well as her nuanced remark: "animals were used both physically and symbolically by human animals [ . . .] some interactions between humans and animals can do more than one thing simultaneously" (pp.4-5).See Fudge: "to ignore animals is to (and as the case may require), one might tender hypotheses concerning textually implicit attitudes towards animals, perhaps in conjunction with wary observations comparing multifaceted historical positions and points of view with those of a given present or paradigm. 33One might, in Blumenberg's formulation, 'mobilize implications in retrospect'. 34 In anticipation of the findings to be detailed in the ensuing readings, further aspects relevant to the matter at hand might be adduced at this point, and tied in with the above reflections on method: while cultivating a dialogic form in arrangement and presentation, the novella and colloquy studied herein are-in discourse historical terms-rather proximate to the Montaignian approach of staging a pluralistic panorama of voices (including the cynical), of juxtaposing various viewpoints or positions (also with respect to animals), and permitting their textual coexistence and concomitance.In terms of design, the Cervantine novelas-as his oeuvre by and large-might also be seen as paradigmatic instances of manifold forms of indirection, accentuating mediatedness (the medium, situation of reception, the reader's role in appresenting a tendered realm and its virtual residents, here specifically speaking animals), and effectually deploying diverse techniques of layering: in terms of a poetics of plot, and as regards the different notional levels textually present (relating to a possible reception)-such as a potential simultaneity of discursive, figurative, and literal planes (the latter being of particular significance in the present context).
The texts to be described in the following take and tender the perspective of an animal-specifically one that has always been particularly proximate to human beings (and vice versa). 35Even so, the agent performing that 'taking' is-intratextually (in the narrative framework: ignore key aspects of our own culture.[ . . .] it is not only real animals that are significant to so-called human culture.It is also conceptual animals [ . . .] animals of the mind" (Fudge 2008, p. 187); "the real and the conceptual are not [ . . .] wholly separate spheres.In the early modern period they can become enmeshed" (p.188)-the latter apparently modifying her earlier claim: "to ignore [ . . .] the link made between humans and real animals in many texts from the ['early modern'] period [ . . .] is to translate real animals into figurative ones [ . . . ].If there was a beast in man, there were also numerous beasts outside of man" (Fudge 2006, p. 177).Generally, cf."die Tiere der Literatur [ . . .] stehen mit den Tieren der Welt in einem vielfältigen und wechselseitigen Austausch" (Borgards 2015, p. 229;cf. p. 228); "the metaphor is intertwined with the realities of human animal-relations" (Alves 2011, p. 60n.;cf. p. 62)-a remark that might be infinitized.As regards sedimented historical knowledge, see Boehrer's formulation: "to concentrate on the semiotic residue of earlier social practices" (Boehrer 2010, p. 20); cf."für eine [ . . .] Wissensgeschichte der Tiere ist die Literatur [ . . .] von konstitutiver Bedeutung" (Borgards 2015, p. 228).Fudge stresses: "animals" are "an important aspect of the cultures we interpret" (Fudge 2004, p. 7); "ignoring animals in our reconstructions of the past is also failing to fully represent those past worlds.[ . . .] If animals are absent from the histories we write, then those histories remain incomplete" (Fudge 2008, p. 186); in particular, she stresses "the relevance and significance of animals to a reading of early modern literature" (p.187).Referring to Fudge, Dopico Black emphasizes "the value of [ . . .] the study of animals (and of human-animal relations) in order to understand the past" (Dopico Black 2010, p. 246n.). 33The latter might be induced by the contrast agent commonly referred to as 'Theory'-with its administration clearly marked; in this respect, 'critical' will mean 'descriptive' attention.Contrast Wolfe, calling for "a critical and not just descriptive practice" (Wolfe 2009, p. 567); otherwise Boehrer: "this project is descriptive rather than ameliorative in nature" (Boehrer 2010, p. 199;cf. p. 27).Wolfe's angle-asserting "the radically ahuman technicity and mechanicity of language", and speaking of "creatures" in the same sentence (Wolfe 2009, p. 571); similarly: "Kreatur" (Borgards 2015, p. 227); "creature" (Beusterien 2016, p. 47); "criatura" (Martín 2014, p. 473)-seems to proceed from an ontologico-metaphysical premise that is no matter, here. 34See his guarded wording in the German: "es gibt die nachträgliche Mobilisierbarkeit von Implikationen" (Blumenberg 1999, p. 73 Similarly, Martín seeks to "ilustrar el papel social y cultural del perro en la temprana época moderna en Europa, tal como lo representan en su coloquio los finos interlocutores Berganza y Cipión" (Martín 2004(Martín , p. 1559)); for a brief overview of "qué se sabía en su época sobre esos cuadrúpedos", cf.(Martín 2004(Martín , pp. 1561(Martín -1562(Martín , passim, here 1561)).With regard to the text's historical substrates, she states: "los discursos de la literatura, de la cría de animales y de la vida real convergen en la narración de  2. The Novellas in Question: "The Deceitful Marriage", "The Dogs' Colloquy" púselo en forma de coloquio (Cervantes 2002b, p. 295) A brief synopsis of the Cervantine texts under scrutiny seems requisite.From a narratological perspective, the "Novela del casamiento engañoso" and "El coloquio de los perros" are closely interrelated: the former serves as a framework for the latter; via myriad echoes, they reciprocate at various levels (the structural, semantic).
After meeting the licentiate Peralta, the ensign Campuzano (having left a hospital after treatment) narrates a first (apparently autobiographical) story, then promises a curious tale concerning a conversation overheard and put to paper.While (the intratextual author) Campuzano rests, Peralta reads what is 'the colloquy of the dogs'.
Apart from a brief conclusion (closing the frame), the second narrative is in the form of a dialog between the aforesaid hospital's two hounds (Berganza, Cipión): after some reflections concerning their unexpected capacity for articulating themselves in the human tongue, Berganza proceeds to tell the story of his life ab ovo, along the lines of episodes experienced in the service of various masters (butcher, shepherds, merchant, students, bailiff, magistrate, soldiers, sorceress, gypsies, morisco, poet, theatrical producer, hospital worker). 36This largely chronological narrative is interspersed with remarks, replies, and reprimands on the part of Scipio, with assorted mutual digressions of an often metapoetical or moral philosophical nature. 37
Similarly, the colloquy initially ties in with customary assumptions: "the difference between the brute animal and man is that man is a rational animal ['animal racional'], while the brute is irrational" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 452;Cervantes 2002a, p. 299;cf. p. 309). 46Berganza and Cipión then proceed to log and exchange apparently prevalent notions concerning various canine characteristics, taken up from human conversations overheard during their lives, and evidently stored in a copious retentive faculty: "ever since I could gnaw at a bone I have wanted to be able to talk, to express things [ . . .] I had accumulated in my memory ['depositaba en la memoria']" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 453;Cervantes 2002a, p. 301). 47 Teeming with rhetorical techniques aiming at rendering plausible the tendered tale featuring speaking animals, the narrative framework presents a conversation between the convalescing "ensign Campuzano" and the "Licentiate Peralta" (Cervantes 2016a, pp. 433-46, here 433-34), which leads to the latter's perusal of the former's manuscript-the coloquio. 48Setting the scene for canine interlocution, the "Novela del casamiento engañoso" is decisive narratologically: its transition to the dialog of the dogs demands detailed analysis.
speech ['discurso concertado']" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 444;Cervantes 2002b, pp. 293-94). 52Regarding other animals-'elephant, dog, horse, ape', see (Cervantes 2016b, p. 453)-this acknowledged state of affairs is given as inverted within the coloquio: for such beings are said to be capable of (retentive and) seemingly rational acts, while lacking the capacity for articulation in the human tongue. 53 In another rhetorical move to craft a common ground, Campuzano skillfully concedes his own skepticism, "yo mismo no he querido dar crédito a mí mismo, y he querido [ . . .] tener por cosa soñada" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 294)-yet only to willfully assert (and later repeat: "contra mi opinión vengo a creer que no soñaba") that he was "wide awake and in full possession of his senses ['con todos mis cinco sentidos']"; that he recorded everything verbatim ("sin faltar palabra"), to serve as a testimony "from which one may obtain sufficient evidence ['indicio bastante'] to incline and persuade a person to believe ['mueva y persuada a creer'] that truth of what I'm saying" (Cervantes 2016a, pp. 444-45;Cervantes 2002b, p. 294). 54The terminology being evidently rhetorico-forensic, it will be little 52 See Montaigne: "Yet the animals are not incapable of being taught also in our way.Blackbirds, ravens, magpies, and parrots we teach to speak; and that facility with which we see them rendering their voice and breath so supple and manageable for us [ . . .] testifies that they have an inward power of reason which makes them so teachable and determined to learn" (Montaigne 1989, pp. 339-40, II.12)-emphasis on "we see", and "for us".The above is precisely what Descartes would later explicitly oppose (among other aspects).Cf. "Up until the eighteenth century, language [ . . .] jumps across orders and classes, for it is suspected that even birds can talk.[ . . .] even the physical demarcation between man and the other species entailed zones of indifference in which it was not possible to assign certain identities" (Agamben 2004, p. 24).See also Cummings' remarks on the issue in general: "the question of animal language [ . . .] is always a question of epistemology.
Between these two reciprocal passages occurs the most effective rhetorical move, similarly structured along an articulated act of apparent self-persuasion via argument in utramque partem. 55Peralta having voiced his view to the effect that Campuzano be telling tall tales, the latter immediately concedes, but only to deliberately reassert his sensorial confidence, his faith in the power of words to craft credence, his willingness to intersubjectively suspend his judgment ("mi verdad") yet again-culminating in a rhetorical question regarding his interlocutor's attested desire for a narrative's delightful function: But As with all things in nature, the strongest argument is always pleasure. 56Peralta immediately falls into the rhetorical trap, believes the attempts at persuasion to be of the past, and consents: As long as your honor [ . . .] doesn't waste any more time trying to persuade me ['persuadirme'] that you really heard two dogs talking, I will right gladly listen to ['de etc.; in Spadaccini's/Talens' felicitous wording: "The reader enters the world of the Coloquio through a series of filters" (Spadaccini and Talens 1989, p. 226).Of a similarly problematic status as a nondifferentiation of a text's various narrative planes is the conflation of the intra-with the extratextual level: "Cervantes accurately had his Berganza tell us" (Alves 2011, p. 84).It is precisely from the perspective of Animal Studies that claiming authorial intent (especially if harnessed as a warrant for a perceived authenticity) will effectively spirit away the animal in the process.A mindful, even wary correlation of the various textual planes potentially present simultaneously (e.g., literal, putatively authorial, discursive, epistemological, etc.) is requisite, in order to bring an animal into focus in its capacity as animal.When Beusterien briefly refers to "the ensign" for purposes of a construal combining "psychoanalytic interpretations" and "Animal Studies", he asserts that Campuzano actively narrates ("the oral telling of the dog dialogue itself", (Beusterien 2016, p. 42)) or 'reads' the coloquio 'to' Peralta ("the ensign's [ . . .] reading to his friend", p. 42n.), neither of which is supported by the text.If opting, as Beusterien does throughout, for the supposition of a perceived authorial intent as the (sole) basis for his case, and for what he takes to be the respectively authoritative reading-cf.e.g., "This intentional lack" (Beusterien 2016, p. 38); "Cervantes deliberately emphasizes" (p.39); "Cervantes anticipates postures from Animal Studies" (p.42); "Berganza, a creature intentionally defined" (p.47); "Cervantes intentionally tangles" (p.49; cf.pp.50, 53); "'The Dialogue of the Dogs' should be read as disposing of certain foundational anthropocentric precepts" (p.54)-maintaining the impression of having focused on 'the animal as animal', "studying the animal itself" (p.35), on the "elimination of the animal as figure" (Beusterien 2016, p. 36;cf. pp. 8, 109) might prove difficult; and all the more so, when insisting on a biographically inflected poetics: "I have given preference to the stuttering thesis as an influence in Cervantes' creation of the talking dogs [ . . .] Cervantes' stuttering inspired him to conceive the human-animal divide in the innovative ways that he does" (Beusterien 2016, p. 39n.); cf.(Beusterien 2009, pp. 218-19).With respect to apparently oneirically induced animal speech in general, see also Fudge's reference to "Artemidorus's dream text", and "the speaking animal of the dream" (Fudge 2006, pp. 35-36); as well as Perry on "Woodhouse's Flea speak[ing] for himself [ . . .] from the shelter of a Dog's ear"-which speech act "is framed by two dreams" (Perry 2004, p. 30). 55See this arch-rhetorical (forensic) technique: "in utramque partem vel in plures" (Quintilian 2001, p. 156, 3.11.2);cf.(Mayfield 2017b, pp. 14-16). 56Cf. "What matters is not the truth, but the virtuosity of the 'engaño'" (Gossy 1989, p. 72).Rhetorically, this pertains to the function of delectare, chiefly produced by the elocutio (including the ornatus) and actio; see Scipio's metapoetical remarks (Cervantes 2016b, pp. 455-56;Cervantes 2002a, p. 304); Campuzano on his lady: "tenía un tono de habla tan suave que se entraba por los oídos en el alma" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 284;cf. p. 285).Generally: "el deleite mucho mayor es imaginado que gozado" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 343, cf. p. 342); see (Hart 1979, p. 383); (Teuber 2005, p. 257); (Boyd 2010, pp. 22, 39); cum grano salis (Dunn 2010, pp. 97-101).On the etymological 'sweetness' in the word 'persuasion', see (Bers 1994, p. 188); (Mayfield 2017b, p. 19n.;Mayfield 2017d, p. 210).
muy buena gana oiré'] this colloquy, which I already judge to be good ['juzgo por bueno'], seeing that it has been composed and written down as the product of his honor the ensign's notable literary talent ['buen ingenio'].(Cervantes 2016a, p. 445; Cervantes 2002b, p. 294;  cf.p. 359) 57   All the while, the reader is fully aware that Campuzano has just left the hospital, apparently after a rather laborious treatment ("I underwent the sweatbox cure forty times"), suggesting that he had not exactly been in control of his senses at all times (Cervantes 2016a, p. 443;cf. p. 434;Cervantes 2002b, pp. 282, 282n.).The ensign's preemptive giving of (quasi-empirical, medico-nutritional) reasons for his asserted attention to detail and acoustico-textual fidelity might thus be received as (highly) ironic-pleasing the reader into persuasion, into a considerable readiness for (being Another inverted echo-the animal rationale here behaves ("todo lo tomé de coro") like the 'verisimilitudinous' avians: "toman de memoria" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 294).Given all of the above, the intratextual reader plausibly takes the tale as an occasion for delight: "the licentiate [ . . .] accepted the notebook, laughing ['riyéndose'] and acting as if he were making fun ['como haciendo burla'] of everything he had heard, and everything he was about to read" (Cervantes 2016a, p. 446;Cervantes 2002b, p. 295).This insinuated form of reception is decisive: having ostensively relinquished the explicit claim to be presenting a per se persuasive narrative (with animals conversing in the human tongue), and having thus implicitly advocated that the extratextual reader take in what has been announced as a delightful tale in the corresponding manner, the colloquy seldom seems to fulfill the expectation raised by its framework.The arrangement (dispositio) is analogous to giving a dog its medication embedded in some liver.At intervals, this textual technique recurs in the canine tête-à-tête itself: a pleasant sugarcoating is administered in the form of often brief, waggishly clever (levis), subtly ironic interludes (delectare), while the dialog's tart core is conveyed as a series of quasi-descriptive observations (docere)-its topic and tone being predominantly serious (gravis). 58The latter also applies to the presence and significance of a complex set of discursive implications pertinent to the selection of a particular animal-present and significant, at a literal level, precisely as animal-for the sermocinatio that is the "coloquio de los perros". 59
Throughout this essay, the heuristico-hermeneutic application of discourse analysis to literary texts follows Küpper's take on the Foucauldian blueprint (Küpper 1990, pp. 30-32, spec. 31n.); cf.(Küpper 2001, passim).On sermocinatio, see (Rhetorica 2004, pp.394-99, IV.lii.65); for varying terminologies, cf.(Lausberg 1990, p. 140, §425;pp. 142-143, § §432-433;Lausberg 2008).(Aristotle 1944(Aristotle , p. 11, I.i.10, 1253a) ) A discursive struggle inscribed into the text, and directly pertinent to the question of animal narration, is the very fact of-in what is officially a Counter-Reformation context-endowing animals with a human form of articulation in the first place.As the Christian religion has a notoriously polyvalent relation to 'speech'-in both its Jewish legacy (see the performative "fiat lux" in Gen 1:3; Vulgate) and the New Testament, blending the former with (Neo-)Platonizing inheritances via the polysemous Greek word 'lógos' (cf.spec.Jn 1:1)-granting animals a locutionary capacity might be problematic, could be seen to destabilize man's primacy (cf.e.g., Gen 1:27-28, Mt 10:31), likely also in Salvation Historical respects. 60At the same time, Scripture's last book (Apocalypsis) not only 'opens the eyes', but apparently also the mouths: at the end of days, "every creature which is in heaven, and on the earth, and under the earth, and such as are in the sea, and all that are in them" are said to praise the Lamb of God (Rev 5:13); "the four beasts" also speak (Rev 4:6-7, 6:1); likewise, the adversary one: "there was given unto him a mouth speaking great things and blasphemies" (Rev 13:5; cf.Dan 7:3-8, 11, 20, 25; KJV). 61While the possibility of animal locution (if taken literally) is thus inscribed into the tradition-hence conceivable generally speaking-it seems to be reserved for exceptional times, to say the least.
In its discursive climate of conception (with the Counter-Reformation well underway), the coloquio must therefore (seem to) employ several strategies of either mitigating what is likely to have been a discursively volatile matter; or of justifying the latter in (apparently) orthodox terms-hence these words, put into Berganza's mouth: "I find myself enriched by this divine gift of speech ['deste divino don de la habla']"; also implicitly equating speech with life (in an orthodox acceptation): "this gift ['bien'] [ . . .], which I consider to be something on loan ['prestado']" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 453;   60 To say nothing of the host of passages on "dumb idols" (Hab 2:18, 1Cor 12:2; KJV; cf.e.g., ; nor of these notoriously thorny lines (Lev 24:16; Mt 12:31-32; Mk 3:29).As everyone knows, there is also a speaking serpent in Gen 3:1, 4-5; naturally, this particular precedent for animal narration in Scripture will likely be considered rather problematic, in a Christian context.Cf.Cummings, noting (with regard to Early Modern England): "As if to provide authority, Browne cites (with disingenuous seriousness) 'the Serpent that spake unto Eve' and dogs and cats that talk to witches" (Cummings 2004, p. 165).For speaking animals (donkey, dog, lion) in Scriptural traditions from a dogmatic point of view, see also (Hobgood-Oster 2014, passim), with spec.reference also to Balaam's speaking donkey at Num 22:28-30 (pp.217-18); the readings-including a "story of a preaching dog" from "The Acts of Peter" in "Christian apocrypha"-are problematic (p.218; cf.p. 219), to the extent that they may seem to be uncritically dogmatic; as to the centrality of the lógos in the Christian tradition, see also (Hobgood-Oster 2014, passim, spec.pp.211-15, cum grano salis).Generally-and like the Cervantine oeuvre overall-the coloquio teems with (largely) oblique references to Scripture, see (Forcione 1984, p. 72, passim).
In line therewith, scrutinizing the dialog's intratextual situation of communication is needful. 65In many passages, the referential and emotive functions dominate textually (Berganza narrating observations, experiences). 66Whenever Scipio is speaking, the conative function tends to be in the forefront; several (interactive) sections feature metalingual, metapoetic assessments-including those where the dogs speak about their surprise at being capable of speech (partly, this involves the phatic function). 67Typically a source of pleasure for the recipient, the poetic function subtly prevails throughout (to a greater degree in the highly rhetoricized original). 68This is decisive, since (at a metalevel) a text's poeticity integrates with its discursive dynamics in several respects: "poeticalness is not a supplementation of discourse with rhetorical adornment but a total reevaluation of the discourse and of all its components whatsoever" (Jakobson 1987a, p. 93).In Cervantes' case, this is particularly pertinent in terms of assorted (poetically functionalized) echoes, inversions, frequent equivalences at the structural level-including (narratological) mise en abyme, recurring discursive latencies, forms of notional suspension with a tendency to produce various effects of irony. 69
A self-reflexively rhetorical dimension is woven into the text itself. 70In a respective approach, it is requisite to describe what is stated (de dicto, de re)-and, more intricately, what could have been, but is not.In a context referring to inventio, sermocinatio (qua device in terms of tractatio), and aiming at crafting an effect of plausibility, Campuzano claims: The things they talked about ['trataron'] were important and diverse ['grandes y diferentes'], and more aptly debated ['tratadas'] by wise men ['varones sabios'] than spoken out of the mouths of dogs ['dichas por bocas de perros'].So that, since I could never have made up ['inventar'] these utterances on my own, I have come to believe ['vengo a creer'], in spite of myself and against my better judgment ['contra mi opinión'], that I have not been dreaming ['soñaba'], and that the dogs have been, in fact, talking (Cervantes 2016a, p. 445;Cervantes 2002b, p. 294). 71t the metalevel, the choice has been precisely for dogs speaking 'wisely' (literally: to and with each other, in their capacity as canines, and in what is, to their knowledge, an 'intraspecies' colloquy)-and not for other, equally conceivable entities (else one might as well think of two owls, horses, or elephants); it is a discourse historically motivated selection, as the following will demonstrate. 72 recent translator of the Exemplary Novellas labels four of them-including "The Glasswork Graduate", "The Deceitful Marriage", "The Dogs' Colloquy"-"darker", "gloomier narratives" (Cervantes 2016c, p. 431). 73Typifying the protagonist of the first as "[a] thoroughly disillusioned pessimist" (Cervantes 2016c, p. 210), he avers-with (Forcione 1982, pp. 242-50)-the "destructive negativity of cynical philosophy" (Cervantes 2016c, p. 212). 74Reflecting a widespread attitude toward 'cynicism'-cf.(Mayfield 2015, pp. 3-11)-such value judgments tend to arise from certain (personal, moral, notional) expectations, as per which something is then seen to fall short.While the gauge applied is naturally up to the respective reader's proclivity, the above is not the only possible measure and assessment.

USV Symbol Macro(s) Description
Regarding their intratextual portrayal, these specific dogs-in their textual capacity as animals-are here markedly (re)functionalized by human beings: as organico-technical mélanges (body, lantern); as ambulant luminaries, characterized by a knowledge of human habits (later presented as capable of articulating the like).In material, metaphorical, and abstract terms (all of which are simultaneously present textually), both aspects appear as leitmotifs of the following coloquio: 'to shed light on', focusing on sight and ken (by figurative extension); 'to know customs', accentuating a retentive faculty (among other things). 88behavior, [ . . .] common enough, of the dogs that blind men use both in the fields and in town; I have noticed how they stop at certain doors where they have been accustomed to receive alms, how they avoid being hit by coaches and carts, even when for their part they have enough room to pass; I have seen one, along a town ditch, leave a smooth flat path and take a worse one, to keep his master away from the ditch" (Montaigne 1989, p. 340, II.12); cf. the spec.pertinent passage in Montaigne's French with the Cervantine wording above: "je me suis pris garde comme ils s'arrêtent à certaines portes, d'où ils ont accoutumé de tirer l'aumône" (Montaigne 2009, p. 196, II.xii).The other segment perhaps relevant here, "j'en ai vu le long d'un fossé de ville, laisser un sentier plein et uni, et en prendre un pire, pour éloigner son maître du fossé" (p.196, II.xii), may seem like a rendering of dogs as anti-pícaros, if contrasted with Lazarillo's vengeful termination of serving "el ciego", at the end of the first tractado (Lazarillo 2011, pp.44-46, I)-for whom he acts as a sort of human seeing-eye dog, and an aide in begging alms, "salimos por la villa a pedir limosna" (p.44, I)-by deceiving the blind man into leaping headlong ("de toda su fuerza") into a post ("poste"), leaving him "medio muerto" (Lazarillo 2011, p. 45, I). 86Concerning the dogs with their lanterns, Beusterien writes: "Cervantes evokes the commonplace notion from the day that the dogs are connected to the pursuit of an exemplary life associated with Saint Dominic and his order.A multitude of images from the sixteenth and seventeenth century can be found of Dominican dogs holding torches in their mouths [ . . .] Rosal's description of the Dominicans states: 'the preaching order of [ . . .] Saint Dominic has the dog with a torch in its mouth as its coat of arms, a symbol of preaching and representative of the purest doctrine and an exemplary life'" (Beusterien 2016, p. 49;cf. p. 49n.); as to Dominicans and canines, see also (Forcione 1984, pp. 155n.-156n.);(Alves 2014, p. 277); (Manning 2007, p. 148).In the latter case, dogs are indeed (only) instrumentalized as symbols, wherefore Beusterien's all but exclusive privileging of this imagery-which would have contributed to the Early Modern recipients' being able to tie in their experience with the coloquio's virtual world-may seem somewhat remarkable, considering his claim to a decidedly non-figurative, Animal Studies approach otherwise (Beusterien 2016, pp. 35-36, 48n., passim).The reference to Cervantes' being "also interested in the Cynics" (Beusterien 2016, p. 78n.) occurs later, as a footnote in the context of a discussion concerning Velázquez' painting of "Mennipus [sic], known as Cynic or 'little dog'" (p.78), where Beusterien asserts: "While the dogs carrying torches principally connected them with Dominican iconography, it also connected them with the Cynic philosophers" (p.78n.).Given the express reference to cynicism in the coloquio, as well as the textual presence of Platonico-Socratic and Scriptural indications even at the semantic level, an effectively exclusive emphasis on Dominican iconography (which, in turn, would have been influenced by the aforesaid traditions) may seem problematic.Beusterien's reading of the coloquio as "a revolutionary animal exemplum" (Beusterien 2016, p. 39)-contrast (Kohlhauer 2002, p. 61)-hinges on the dualism of "the dog's connection to saintliness" and "to a tradition in which they are icons of the diabolic" (Beusterien 2016, p. 50;cf. p. 51); a reference to the text's explicit gesture(s) toward cynicism would have significantly diluted the alleged polarity Beusterien requires, in order to make his case. 87Cf. (D. Laertius 2005, p. 47, VI.46, p. 51, VI.49, p. 61, VI.59, pp. 69, 68n., VI.67); see (Mayfield 2015, pp. 26n., 30, 45, 48, 51, 52n., 61, 306).Cf.Berganza on the gitanos: "Cuando piden limosna, más la sacan con invenciones y chocarrerías que con devociones" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 348). 88"Cipión and Berganza serve as watchdogs and 'lightdogs'" (Nerlich 1989, p. 309).Throughout the coloquio, the dogs are not 'employed' in line with what might seem their most 'utile' natural capacity (the olfactory) from a human perspective; instead, they serve as audiovisual observers-a tendency accentuated by frequent mentions of terms referring to the respective senses (in physical and figurative contexts); but cf."llegó a mis narices un olor de tocino [ . . .]; descubríle con el olfato, y halléle" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 325)-ironically, this instance (where Berganza's scent plays a crucial role) causes considerable havoc for the humans involved.Generally, cf. also Raber's heuristic contrast: "When early modern texts discuss cats, they rarely if ever dwell on the haptic zone that for postmoderns may be the most significant source of pleasure for both parties: petting cats simply does not figure in early modern texts or cultural artifacts, although we must assume that it happened" (Raber 2013, p. 25).
This discursive setting is melded with another venerable point of reference.The discussion of the guardians (phýlakes) in Plato's Politeía-here (Plato 2013, pp. 182-91, II, 374e-376c;see pp. 314-19, III, 410c-411d), cf.(Ziolkowski 1983, p. 96), (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 58, 58n., 71, 74-75)-seeks a literally natural occurrence coalescing (inward) affability (towards familiars) and (outward) aggression (against externals): "they [sc. the guardians] must be amenable ['práous'] toward their own people, but intractable ['chalepoús'] against their enemies" (Plato 2013, pp. 184-85, II, 375c); and heuristically encounters it in the factual conduct of canines: Where shall we find a gentle and stouthearted ['praon kaì megalóthymon'] character together?[ . . .] surely gentleness of nature and strong spirits are opposing qualities.[ . . .] Yet whichever of these qualities you removed, the result would never be a good guardian ['phýlax agathòs'].[ . . . ] there are natural dispositions [ . . .] which have these opposing qualities.[ . . . ] We may see it in other animals ['állois zóois'], not least in the one we compared to our guardian.I'm sure you know about dogs with good breeding ['ton gennaíon kynon']: that their character ['ethos'] is naturally to be able to be most friendly to those they are used to and recognize, but the opposite with those they don't know.[ . . . ] Then this is possible [ . . .] and we are not looking for our guardian to be the type that contradicts nature ['ou parà phýsin'].[ . . . ] he who is going to be watchful ['ho phylakikòs'] still lacks something: in addition to being strong-spirited, he must be naturally interested in philosophy[.][ . . .] You will also see this in dogs, something that deserves our admiration in the animal.[ . . .] at the sight of someone unknown to it, it becomes aggressive, even if it hasn't had an adverse experience before.But whoever it sees that it recognizes, it welcomes them even if it has never been treated well by that person [ . . . ] this natural instinct of the animal makes it seem clever ['kompsón'] and truly a philosopher ['alethos philósophon'] [ . . .] in that it distinguishes what it sees as either friendly or hostile ['phílen kaì echthràn'], by no other means than being familiar with the one and not recognizing the other.Yet how could it not be eager to learn [,] when it can distinguish by what it knows and what it does not know what belongs to its world ['oikeion'] and what is alien ['allótrion'] to it?[ . . .] is [not] passion for knowledge ['philomathès'] the same thing as the passion for wisdom ['philósophon']?[ . . . ] In that case, let's [ . . .] apply it to mankind as well.(Plato 2013, pp. 186-89, II, 375c-376b)  89   Again, the Cervantine text-staging the hospital's environment as a quasi-micro-pólis-provides a catchword, "guardando" (Cervantes 2002b, p. 293) to support the signaling of this intertext, echoed at several levels (semantic, structural) in the coloquio. 90In both Plato and Cervantes, the respective dogs are textual canines, but precisely in their capacity as animals; the recipient is to (and likely will) 89 The dog had already been introduced at (Plato 2013, pp. 182-83, II, 375a); mentioned again, with the horse II,375a).The glosses at (Plato 2013, pp. 188n.-189n.)seem to be innocent of a serious appreciation for the rhetorico-hypoleptic dimension of Plato's écriture; on this problem, see (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 96).Given a respective readiness, a polyfunctional view of semiotic artifacts might demonstrate that apparent or near opposites (the ironic, grave, cheerful, severe, etc.) may be simultaneously present; re the coloquio, see (Forcione 1984, pp. 171-74, 177-78, 195, 200, 214, 231)-spec."contexts of rapidly shifting perspectives and varied tones" (p.173); "[t]he plurality of meanings effected" (p.174); "play of possibilities" (p.177).90 Scipio refers to the "amistad y fidelidad inviolable" attributed to dogs with the respective term figuratively employed, "guardaron" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 300;cf. p. 300n.).Regarding outward aggression, Berganza states: "servía con gran cuidado y diligencia; ladraba a los forasteros y gruñía a los que no eran muy conocidos; [ . . .] hecho universal centinela de la mía y de las casas ajenas" (pp.312-13).In his shepherding episode: "it seemed to me that the proper and natural function of dogs ['propio y natural oficio de los perros'] is to stand guard over ['guardar'] livestock, which is a task entailing a very visualize virtual dogs, based on her experience with tangible, olfactible ones.Even so, the necessary presence of this literal level does not signify that-at the discursive level concurrently present-the natural, factually observable conduct of dogs could not also have further implications (as is the case in both texts).In other words: not only does a discursive reading not efface the literal plane; but the former actually depends on the latter.
above all, the Cynic's governing principle should be purer than the sun; if not, he must needs be a gambler and a man of no principle, because he will be censuring the rest of mankind, while he himself is involved in some vice.(Epictetus 1928b, p. 163 (Cervantes 2016b, p. 471;Cervantes 2002a, p. 319) The translation of "murmurar", "murmuración", "murmuradores" as "gossip" seems infelicitous, here; for such arguably mitigates the term's impact, obscuring the import of the discursive reference to the history of reception and various refunctionalizations of cynicism. 95The damage (potentially) 94 Cf. the second quote with Scipio's ensuing guidelines: "murmura, pica y pasa, y sea tu intención limpia, aunque la lengua no parezca" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 308).On 'Diogenes' qua "spy" (Epictetus 2011, pp. 45-46, I.24); Epictetus ties to this literary persona the 'espying' of the following: "death is no evil, for it is not shameful either.[ . . .] ill repute is the empty noise of madmen" (p.45); "to be simply clothed is better [ . . .] to sleep on the bare ground is the softest bed": "This is a proper spy" (p.46).Dobbin glosses: "Diogenes is a 'spy' because he has scouted out the extremes of hardship, and is in a position to report that nothing there is beyond endurance" (Dobbin 2011b, p. 202)-adding that suchlike is "part of a revisionist effort to rescue Cynicism's reputation by bringing it more into line with traditional Hellenic values" (p.203). 95As the third meaning of three, the DRAE offers: "Conversar en perjuicio de un ausente, censurando sus acciones" (Real Academia Española 2014, s.v."murmurar")-with "perjuicio" conveying a clearly severe implication.Cf. the witch's self-description: "no puedo [ . . .] pensar en bien, porque soy amiga de murmurar" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 343;cf. p. 340).

'Against the Dog only a Dog': Talking Canines Humanizing Cynicism
qué quiere decir filosofía; que aunque yo la nombro, no sé lo que es; sólo me doy a entender que es cosa buena.(Cervantes 2002a, p. 320) Rhetorical techniques of indirection (especially such as pertain to a multiplication, interlacing of narrative levels) are prevalent in the Cervantine oeuvre overall-and also in the novellas at hand. 102 Rather than lecturing the addressee by itemizing how the human Cynic must be and act, the coloquio's two dogs talk-as textual canines-about how they are and behave in (literary) fact: a vivid, virtually actual embodiment of the etymological root of the word 'cynic' ('kýon')-rather than a human being observing and adopting animal traits, with 'Diogenes' being dubbed a 'dog' due to his flagrantly crude conduct. 103Via the contrast of Berganza's (articulated) bearing (as a literal canine) to that on the part of the humans in his narrated lifeworld, the reader-taking the textual dog's perspective at a metalevel-may have a tendency to side with the colloquy's canine approach as represented by this interlocutor in the dialog. 104In this indirect way, the persona of a human cynic (generally conceived) is implicitly (at the discursive level) reshaped by a textually literal recourse to the very animal that provided the name in the first place-a complex situation of (partly latent) discursive remodeling that relies precisely on (the recipient's appresentation of) the dogs textually present in their capacity as animals.
Echoing the framework narrative's account concerning the apparently renowned conduct of the clinic's canines, the ensuing tenders Berganza's perspective, describing his (view of his) canine performance within the colloquy's (virtual) world: one night, seeing you ['viéndote'] carrying a lantern ['llevar la linterna'] in the company of that good Christian, Mahudes, I perceived you to be contented, virtuous, and engaged in pious actions ['contento y justa y santamente ocupado'].And, full of righteous envy ['buena envidia'], I sought to follow in your footsteps ['quise seguir tus pasos'], and with this laudable intention I presented myself to Mahudes, who straightaway chose me to be your companion and brought me to this hospital (Cervantes 2016b, p. 507;Cervantes 2002a, p. 355). 105  Concurrently present with the (socio-historically, zoopoetically plausible) literal plane, the concept of (visually induced) imitatio appears to be patent at a discursive level. 106The dogs, as animals, seem 'humanized' (qua process)-especially Berganza.Still, he is not presented (respectively: does not represent himself) as an idealized specimen-even after joining the hospital crew. 107Throughout his (narrated) life, he often acts in not exactly ethical ways: partly (and plausibly) due to his factually 102 See e.g., (Forcione 1984, pp. 24, 27, 178-79); (El Saffar 1976, p. 16); (Aylward 2010, pp. 250, 253, passim); (Kohlhauer 2002, pp. 75, 79-81, passim). 103With the second to last item cum grano salis, the ensuing précis might be utile: "Various reasons were given for the [ . . . ] canine title: [ . . .] sexual shamelessness, [ . . .] biting criticism-and [ . . .] sycophancy-[ . . .] homeless frequenting of the streets" (Riley 1976, p. 192;cf. and contrast p. 196); see (Ziolkowski 1983, p. 97). 104Rhetorically, this is a most effective (because indirect) device, since (even provisionally) 'identifying' with the hounds is not necessary: the delegation of humanity to dogs does not inevitably make a claim as to the comportment of humans (only potentially)-thereby refraining from a moralizing 'you should/ought to'; generally, see (Aylward 2010, p. 258).Cf. "One of the peculiar effects of the Colloquy [ . . .] is its heavy thrust toward dogmatic assertion and its simultaneous resistance to that very thrust.A double elusiveness" (Forcione 1984, p. 17;cf. p. 18) (Krauss 1940, p. 22). 105While also being a reference to a traceable historical individual, cf.(Alonso 1942, passim, spec. pp. 301-302), the syllables in the name of Berganza's and Scipio's master may also allude to the other world religions (previously) present on the Iberian peninsula-a hypothesis reinforced by the emphatic phrase in its vicinity (with thanks to Prof. Küpper for this suggestion). 106As to his previous capacity for imitative behavior: "cuando me daban nueces o avellanas las partía como mona [ . . . ] ensalada [ . . .] comí como si fuera persona" (Cervantes 2002a, p. 316). 107Contrast (Forcione 1984, pp. 161-63).canine nature-see (Schmauser 1996, pp. 78-79); in part because his behavior as animal always seems influenced by human (while not strictly humane) conduct-with the doctrinal root of this ('fallen') state of affairs being explicit. 108Even so, Berganza's actions are humanized (at a metalevel) in that he does not partake in 'man's inhumanity'-on account of his kind caninity (as commonly conceived); and since he ties in with human(ist) values otherwise (considered) inaccessible to an animal, such as moral philosophical musings of the following nature: "premeditated vengeance bespeaks cruelty and a spiteful disposition" (Cervantes 2016b, p. 506). 109 From a meta-perspective, Berganza is neither portrayed as an utterly deprived, all but depraved, and then (partially) reformed 'pícaro'-nor as an idealized sage in canine skin.Rather, he is presented in terms of a conceivable 'errare caninum est': a flawed, ultimately considerate animal quasi rationale, concurrently capable of aggressive and gentle conduct-precisely as Plato's 'Socrates' had envisioned the guardians of his pólis by heuristically tying in with an apparent coincidence of opposites occurring naturally in the observable behavior of dogs (precisely in their capacity as animals).Alleviating its rigor, the Cervantine version outperforms the Epictetian reformulation of the Cynic by rendering the cynical Berganza a dog in fact-a decidedly down-to-earth one, with visible defects in accord with the current discursive climate (Original Sin, affecting nature as a whole). 110While still 'only' barking 108 Cf.
At the metalevel-and in contrast to Baroja's view, stressing the "humorous touches" regarding the witch's depiction qua mediated via a dog (Baroja 2001, p. 219;cf. p. 220)-it will hardly be without discursive import that the didactic formulation of the doctrine (and vicious cycle) of Original Sin-thereto, cf.(Küpper 1990, pp. 51n., 55-56, 56n., 116, 122, (a literal dog in his own narrative), Berganza is forced to keep his observations to himself; not speaking the human tongue, he is naturally unable to gradually alter or somewhat alleviate (say, by introducing laws) the state of affairs-the human condition-he witnesses: since it was easier for me to perceive all these things than to reform them, I decided not to pay any attention to them.I therefore sought refuge in a sanctuary, as so many do when they renounce vices when they can no longer practice them, although it's better late than never (Cervantes 2016b, pp.506-7). 111  While freely admitting to his shortcomings and not abandoning his canine nature, Berganza (at the literal level, in his textually natural capacity qua dog) does indeed do his part throughout (not only at the hospital)-mostly (alleging that he is) acting more 'humanely' (in a humanist acceptation) than ostensive 'humans' (in the textual realm he crafts in his capacity as narrator, and by way of his narrative). 112Even so (one might conjecture, at a metalevel), a human being-while not able to give up its flawed nature (in the orthodox view)-may play its part for the time being.
Campuzano as author, Peralta as reader), extratextually (from a poetic and hermeneutic point of view: 'Cervantes', the respective recipient)-still and always a human being.In this respect, neither the recipient nor the medium (including various dimensions and forms of mediatedness) may be spirited away: "Our starting point lies[ ...]in the [ ...] works themselves and in the way they reflect upon animals"(Enenkel and Smith 2007, p. 11).