METAFICTION AND THEORIES OF THE NOVEL IN CERVANTES’S <em>PERSILES</em>

Abstract

This article examines the deployment of metafiction in Persiles and how Cervantes delineated, at several points of that text, a theory of modern fiction. This analysis will show that in Persiles he highlights verisimilitude as the main principle of fiction alongside admiratio and elipsis. The verisimilitude in Persiles verges on Aristotelian realism in as much as Cervantes turns to sciences to argue for the reality of the plot, and also to Catholic faith to accept as reality anything that escapes scientific reason. Therefore, in Persiles Cervantes uses metafiction with the purpose of proclaim the principles of his theory of fiction, in similar fashion as he did in Don Quixote, and both works can be regarded as experimental literature designed to establish the canon of modern fiction.