First published in 1490, Tirant lo Blanc has been called "the best
book in the world" by no less than Miguel de Cervantes, author of
the immortal Don Quixote de la Mancha. And in our own time, Mario
Vargas Llosa has said the following: "Tirant lo Blanc is a novel
that nourishes that all-encompassing yearning of the great novels
of all times which, like the Quixote, War and Peace, La Comedie
Humaine, Moby Dick, the saga of Faulkner, seem to want to emulate
the Supreme Being in the creation of a world as diverse, complex
and self-sufficient as the real world, of a fiction that competes
with life in its ever-increasing diversification." A spicy,
brutally realistic novel of knights and ladies of medieval times,
this book was written in Catalan, translated into Spanish in 1511
in an abridged form, into Italian in the 16th century, into French
in the 17th century, and did not make an appearance in English
until late in the 20th century. It has since then been made into a
movie directed by Vicente Aranda, alternately entitled "The
Maidens' Conspiracy." Among the reasons that the world outside of
Spain has been somewhat late in responding to the value of this
novel may be that it was originally written in Catalan, whose
literature is not widely read in the original tongue. But another
reason may be its overemphasis on rhetorical elements. As one
scholar says, if the novelist had cut many of these elements, "his
book would in that case have been reduced to approximately
one-fourth of its present size, but quite probably it would now be
considered a masterpiece of narration and dialogue." Such has been
the aim of this translation: The story line has been slightly
abridged, but the most dramatic change is that most of the rhetoric
has been eliminated, leaving in the major plot line, with its
brutal tournament jousts, bloody battles between the Christian
forces and their enemies, its treachery, slapstick humor, ribald
bedroom scenes and tender moments of love. As Cervantes puts it in
the Quixote, "'Heaven help me ' shouted the curate. 'Here is Tirant
lo Blanc Hand it to me, my friend. I tell you that in it I have
found a treasure of contentment and a mine of entertainment. Here
is Kyrieleison of Montalban, a valiant knight, and his brother,
Tomas of Montalban, and the knight Fonseca, and the battle that the
valiant Tirant waged with the greyhound, and the witticisms of the
maiden Plaerdemavida, along with the amours and deceit of the Widow
Repose, and the Empress in love with the squire Hippolytus.'"
Having read this novel, who could forget the characters that
Martorell has brought to life? Who would not feel grief at the
death of Tirant and the princess, no less united in soul than
Calisto and Melibea in Spain (making their appearance a few short
years later in Fernando de Rojas' masterpiece, La Celestina), than
Romeo and Juliet in England, and no less tragic? And in remembering
Tirant, who would not smile at the thought of him serving as a
go-between for Prince Philippe and the infanta, Ricomana? Could
anyone be more delightful than the forthright Plaerdemavida (whose
name translates literally as "Pleasure-of-My-Life") - surely one of
the best delineated characters in any literature? Or anyone more
villainous than the odious Widow Repose - a figure stamped
indelibly on our minds, wearing her ridiculous red stockings and
hat in the bath? If Don Quixote's Dulcinea did not exist until she
took form in his (or in Cervantes') mind, or the windmill that was
a giant, or the Cave of Montesinos, they have now come into
existence in the mind of every reader of that novel. So may Tirant
and his men, the princess, the emperor, Plaerdemavida, also come to
life alongside the gentle and not so gentle folk of Cervantes, in
every reader's imagination. Let us leave the reader with these
final words from the pen of Cervantes about Tirant lo Blanc: "Take
him home and read him, and you will see that what I have said of
him is true."
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