«Un adarme de seda verde» (Quijote, II, 44): telling and illustration a detail

Abstract

In the castle of the dukes, separated from Sancho who has gone to govern the island of Barataria, Don Quixote retires to his apartments refusing to be looked after by the maidens that in vain the duchess offers again and again. The loyalty towards Dulcinea entails modesty and the modest gentleman does not allow any woman to approach him to undress him. However, from the inside, the gentleman's decorum, so well guarded as it pertains to moral virtue, is in danger from an evidence of material order, that is, the lamentable state of his clothing. In particular, it is a broken media, which Don Quixote regrets not being able to mend for lack of "a green silk adarme", the garment that allows the approach of chivalrous vicissitudes from the detail. Following the critical path of Roland Barthes and Daniel Arasse - among others-, working on the detail implies a hermeneutic detour about an episode that Cervantes's enunciative strategy, between sarcastic and compassionate, leaves in the greatest uncertainty. The reception of the text becomes even more complex when that detail is chosen and illustrated by an artist like Gustave Doré, opening an intermediary dynamic that has changed over time according to the editions of the book, since the original placement of the image varies inside the chapter and therefore the verbal / visual competence of the person who reads and at the same time looks, with the consequences held by that the iconic act.