Blest Gana via Machiavelli and Cervantes : National Identity and Social Order in Chile [1 ed.] 9781443862257, 9781443899772

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Blest Gana via Machiavelli and Cervantes

Blest Gana via Machiavelli and Cervantes: National Identity and Social Order in Chile By

Patricia Vilches

Blest Gana via Machiavelli and Cervantes: National Identity and Social Order in Chile By Patricia Vilches This book first published 2017 Cambridge Scholars Publishing Lady Stephenson Library, Newcastle upon Tyne, NE6 2PA, UK British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library Copyright © 2017 by Patricia Vilches All rights for this book reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the prior permission of the copyright owner. ISBN (10): 1-4438-9977-1 ISBN (13): 978-1-4438-9977-2

For Mario Vilches, Adela Bustamante, and Christian Vilches.

“sanza quella occasione la virtù dello animo loro si sarebbe spenta, e sanza quella virtù la occasione sarebbe venuta invano” —Machiavelli

CONTENTS

Acknowledgements .................................................................................... ix Preface ......................................................................................................... x Abbreviations ........................................................................................... xiv English Translations from Spanish and Italian .......................................... xv Introduction ................................................................................................. 1 Passage to Chile, 1814 The Old Word and New Order ............................................................... 1 Narrating Chilean National Identity ....................................................... 8 From Rome and Spain to the New World ............................................ 21 Blest Gana: His Literary Career ........................................................... 38 Art as in Life ........................................................................................ 48 Triumph of the Dreamers ..................................................................... 51 Heroes and Enemies ............................................................................. 55 Chapter One ............................................................................................... 61 Caballeros and the Nation The Politics of Liberty in Machiavelli and Cervantes.......................... 61 The Theatre of the Insula Barataria...................................................... 78 Fortuna and Virtù in the Pursuit of Liberty ....................................... 100 A Frustrated Voyage to the New World ............................................ 109 Cervantes: Reader of Italian ............................................................... 116 Spain: Everywhere and Nowhere ....................................................... 118 The Index and the Anti-Machiavellians ............................................. 125 Caballeros of Antiquity and Razón de Estado ................................... 133 Chapter Two ............................................................................................ 141 Alberto Blest Gana The Social in Social Order: The Rise of the Siútico .......................... 141 Martín Rivas: Constructing a Nation ................................................. 152 Heroic Masculinity ............................................................................ 153 Chilean Independence: Order in Disorder.......................................... 165

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Contents

Revenge of the Pelucones and Pipiolos ............................................. 167 Figuración Social and the Making of the Constitution ...................... 170 Martín the Hero and His Path to Leonor ............................................ 174 All in a Letter ..................................................................................... 181 Civic and Business Engagements ...................................................... 187 Tertulia and Picholeo: The Drawing Room and the Public Performance of Masculinity ......................................................... 191 Rafael San Luis: Narrator of the Picholeo ......................................... 198 Loyalty, Friendship and Bad Business ............................................... 207 Fighting in the Streets … and the Salons ........................................... 215 Chapter Three .......................................................................................... 229 From Durante la Reconquista to the Coup Chile: Yesterday and Today............................................................... 229 The Making of a Siútico ..................................................................... 249 Innovators and Irreconcilable Ideologies ........................................... 279 Allende and Pinochet ......................................................................... 297 Bibliography ............................................................................................ 321 Index ........................................................................................................ 343

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

I would like to express my immense debt and gratitude to Gerald Seaman for his continuous support as I developed, worked on, and finished this volume. I thank him for patiently reading and commenting on my chapters and, overall, for his tremendous encouragement. I also would like to thank Ameya Balsekar for his generosity and willingness to read my material and for giving me sound and critical feedback on my ideas in their early stages. My sincere thanks also go to Andrew McSorley, Meg Atwater-Singer, and Linda Dawes and their staff members, from Lawrence University, the University of Evansville, and Harlaxton College libraries, respectively. Their help and input greatly facilitated the research for this book. I am most grateful to my sons Mario and Riccardo Seaman. They generously gave me the time and inspiration to see this project through to the end. Writing about the history of my country in the early seventies transported me back alongside three individuals who personally influenced my life: Omar Bustamante, Denise Bustamante, and Sandra Gajardo. I will always be thankful to them for the experiences we shared during those ebullient times, when everything seemed possible. The beautiful surroundings, peace and quiet of Harlaxton Manor provided the perfect environment for reflecting upon Machiavelli, Cervantes, and Blest Gana.

PREFACE

All the protagonists in this study are fictional or dead. In a sense, my analysis is a journey into the cemetery of the notable to reopen tombs, unearth the remains, and examine the connections between those nineteenth- and twentieth-century individuals who have contributed so definitively to our contemporary perception of the Chilean nation and its social order. Alberto Blest Gana (1830-1920), the first bona fide Chilean novelist, was a required author when I was a schoolgirl and remains so today. There is no other text as iconic as his Martín Rivas: Novela de costumbres politico-sociales [Martin Rivas: A Novel of Socio-Political Manners] (1862). Reading it is something that all Chileans have in common. My turn came during the early years of the dictatorship of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte (1915-2006), who ruled from 1973-1990. Beside the love story of Martín and Leonor, I was mesmerized by the characters’ antagonistic political views. They reminded me of the enmities that had erupted in the period 1970-1973, during the three-year government of Salvador Allende Gossens (1908-1973). Allende, a romantic at heart, would have easily fit in with Rafael San Luis. The times, too, were not unlike the period when Cervantes published the first and second parts of Don Quijote (1605, 1615). Books and print materials were scrutinized and censored during Pinochet, which created an Index of sorts. Bureaucrats from the military junta thought they could read and control people’s minds. My high-school instructor completely de-emphasized the political struggles in Martín Rivas, probably out of necessity. Had the instructor focused on Martín Rivas and Rafael San Luis and their commitment to liberal ideas, she would have been considered subversive. Thanks to a Machiavellian occasione (opportunity), I saw Allende in person in 1970 when he was a presidential candidate for the fourth time. I was with a group of vecinos (neighbors) and other children when he arrived in a dark blue FIAT 125 that was part of a group of four other cars. He looked elegant in a black leather jacket and with a scarf around his neck. He got out of the car and shook people’s hands, speaking almost poetically and with clear diction. I was close to him; he struck me as erudite. As he was getting back in the car and closing the door, on impulse I reached out with my arm and put my hand on his cheek. He stopped and,

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smiling, said to me: “careful, I don’t want to pinch your arm in the car door” [cuidado, que se va a apretar el brazo en la puerta]. I lived in Chile for six years under the Pinochet regime. I never once saw him in person. When the Junta de Gobierno took official command of the nation it was televised in a spectacular manner on cadena nacional (national television). Stern-looking and aware that he was participating in a historic and unprecedented moment, Pinochet relished his role. The four generals first explained why the Armed Forces were now in command of Chile. Then, they were sworn in by a subordinate whose uniform displayed a few stripes. Reading from a prepared text, he declared: “This Junta assumes the supreme command of the nation with the patriotic commitment to restore Chilean identity, justice, and the nation’s broken institutions” [Esta junta asume el mando supremo de la nación con el patriótico compromiso de restaurar la chilenidad, la justicia y la institucionalidad quebrada] (Junta Militar ’73). From early on, then, the dictatorship sought the restoration of chilenidad, which in itself implied the restoration of a social order that the Allende period had attempted to change. Surrounded by his fellow Junta members, Pinochet was an arresting figure. In performance, he instantly transformed himself from an obscure officer into a dictator per excellence, taking the helm away from Gustavo Leigh. The Junta members chose as their headquarters a building constructed by the Allende administration; they renamed it Edificio Diego Portales (Diego Portales Building) and thus intentionally connected their enterprise to the Ministro (Minister) Diego Portales y Palazuelos (17931837). In 2005, Portales’s remains were discovered at the Catedral de Santiago (Santiago Cathedral). This event triggered a deep and distressing collective memory of the Pinochet years. Portales, like Allende and Pinochet, is a divisive historical figure. Through Blest Gana’s El ideal de un calavera [The Ideal of a Rogue/Libertine] (1863), I revisit the Ministro’s legacy and the concept of nation that he pursued. Like Allende, he was not in power very long, but his legacy occupies a vital space in Chile’s national narrative.  From my brief encounter with Allende so many years ago, I have read about him, listened to or viewed his speeches and reflected on his determination and indefatigable hope for the presidency. Against the odds, he showed himself to be resilient and to possess a unique capacity to parry with his adversaries. As a candidate, his cleverness and his skill in the art of political negotiation and social relations were remarkable. Machiavelli has stated, however, that leaders need to change according to the character of the times. What worked once would not necessarily work a second time. As president, Allende continued to rely on the qualities that had made him

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a successful candidate; he did not heed the changes in the times. After his inauguration, he no longer faced an opposition that simply needed more convincing. Rather, he was confronted forcefully by determined and powerful enemies. Conspiracies surrounded him, from the far left and the conservative right, and he was compelled to try to contain them. Like a contemporary don Quijote, he brought an idealistic perspective to his very real political battles. Eventually, his authority and his control of the government dissipated, and his presidential dream went unrealized. Allende had had unwavering faith in the nation and its democratic processes. Like don Quijote, Allende possessed an anachronistic or rather unreal notion of the polis. Its Armed Forces would always fulfill their traditional mission to defend the constitution. In his mind, then, Chile would always be a forward-looking nation that would respect democratic processes. Allende’s behavior recalls the attitudes and behaviors of José Miguel Carrera Verdugo (1785-1821), Chile’s first head of state. The figures of Carrera and Bernardo O’Higgins Riquelme (1778-1842) appear prominently in Blest Gana’s Durante la Reconquista [During the ReConquest] (1897), a text that recounts Spain’s reconquest of Chile following the fall of Napoleon. The text is a tour de force. In it, rich and poor were required to deal with what it meant to defend patria from the godos (Spaniards) and to confront what it meant to be—and to belong to— a new nation. Taken together, Blest Gana’s Martín Rivas, El ideal de un calavera, and Durante la Reconquista all provide a socio-historical backdrop for Chile’s movement toward political independence and thus also contribute fundamentally to its narrative of social order and national identity. Put succinctly, my reading of this narrative finds in it the sociopolitical roots for explicating Allende’s sixties, seventies, and their aftermath. My work is transatlantic: it examines a Latin American subject through the lens of Machiavelli and Cervantes’s Don Quijote. Using literary studies and cultural history, I delve into Chile’s emergence as a nation and concentrate on “the style,” to borrow Benedict Anderson’s term, in which nineteenth-century Chileans imagined their community. Martín Rivas, El Ideal, and Durante la Reconquista each depict the political and social exchanges of the early days of independence, the 1830s and 1850s. They illustrate a set of conflicts among the political parties and the social classes that were already in place at that time. Blest Gana’s three novels show the whys and hows of Chile’s political struggles. They vividly underscore the painfully real and very deep disagreements about the nation’s early direction and sense of identity. This fundamental disunity would be felt

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acutely again in the twentieth century during the interrupted tenure of President Allende, a quixotic individual who fought for equality but was vanquished by the keepers of social order. This book is greatly indebted to J.G.A. Pocock’s The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975). Machiavelli had gone back to the ancients to transport and translate their classical republican notions into his own circumstances. Through similar “moments,” the republican tradition from sixteenthcentury Florence also entered seventeenth-century England and Colonial America. At a precise moment in history, then, a republic will attempt to remain stable as it submits to the vertiginous effects of irrational occurrences. It will face a struggle between fortuna and virtù as Chile did in the nineteenth century and then again toward the end of the twentieth. My study is also indebted to those many Latin American authors who integrated and adapted Don Quijote to their own peculiar socio-political circumstances and who thus turned the image of don Quijote into “a metaphor of Latin American politics” [metáfora de la política latinoamericana] (Schmidt-Welle and Simson). During the time when these nations were asserting their independence, Cervantes’s knight errant was either a direct or a symbolic cipher for the hardships and exigencies they were forced to endure. Benedetto Croce has stated that “all true history is contemporary history” [ogni vera storia è storia contemporanea (4)]. This book is informed, therefore, by a desire to use the early narrative expressions of Chile’s national identity to uncover the contemporary history of the country where I was born. In the emerging nation, political and cultural antagonisms resulted from social hierarchies and were a product of the social order. For some, patria was synonymous with order itself; order needed to be established and maintained no matter how severe the measures. Alberto Blest Gana’s narration of national identity depicted the struggle between an old order and an incipient one. It featured the stresses in a culture under pressure from the oligarchy, a fervent adherence to a nascent market economy, and European tenets of liberty and equality. Although Martín Rivas remains a canonical text for most Chileans, some—especially television producers—have shamefully undervalued it. It cannot and should not be recreated differently as part of an effort to appeal to those who refuse to engage civically. To do so is to dismiss its fundamental richness and to ignore what motivates and drives each of Blest Gana’s characters. I have a small hope, therefore, that my book will also help readers to see Martín Rivas for what it truly is, a foundational text in the larger Chilean narrative.

ABBREVIATIONS

Alberto Blest Gana: Durante la Reconquista (DR) El ideal de un calavera (IC) Martín Rivas (MR) Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quijote de la Mancha (DQ) Niccolò Machiavelli: Art of War (AW) The Discourses of Livy (D) Florentine Histories (FH) The Letters of Machiavelli (LM) The Prince (P)

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS FROM SPANISH AND ITALIAN

Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quijote de la Mancha. Edith Grossman. 2003. New York: Harper Collins. Niccolò Machiavelli: Art of War. Neal Wood. 1965. Cambridge, Ma: Da Capo Press. Clizia. Daniel T. Gallagher. 1996. Prospect Heights, Ill: Waveland Press. The Discourses on Livy. Julia C. Bondanella, and Peter E. Bondanella. 1997. New York: Oxford University Press. Florentine Histories. Allan H. Gilbert. 1989. The Chief Works. Vol. 3. Durham, N.C. and London: Duke University Press. Letters of Machiavelli. Allan H. Gilbert. 1961. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Life of Castruccio Castracani of Lucca. Peter E. Bondanella, and Mark Musa. 1979. In The Portable Machiavelli. Hammondsworth, Eng: Penguin Books. Mandragola. Mera J. Flaumenhaft. 1981. Prospect Heights: Waveland Press. “Preface to Autograph Manuscript.” Julia C. Bondanella, and Peter E. Bondanella. 1997. In The Discourses on Livy. New York: Oxford University Press. The Prince (P). Peter E. Bondanella, and Mark Musa. 1979. In The Portable Machiavelli. Hammondsworth, Eng: Penguin Books.

All other translations from Spanish to English, including works of fiction and criticism, are my own.

INTRODUCTION PASSAGE TO CHILE, 1814

The Old World and The New Order To examine nation building and social order in nineteenth-century Chile might seem a futile attempt to comb through issues from the past that no longer relate to the present. Following Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt, however, and his vast Historia general de Chile [General History of Chile], we know that “getting close to what is distant and eliminating what is close… one is able to extract what is valuable, what is necessary and substantial” [acercando lo distante y eliminando lo próximo… se exprime lo que verdaderamente vale, lo necesario y sustancial (2004, 31)]. Terrell Carver, in his analysis of Karl Marx, has also argued that “any examination of the present is essentially a reexamination of those ideas and events from the past that we take the present to be” (2). Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527) and Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616), were obviously avid readers of history and literature; their own writings recorded a continuous conversation with authors from the past for the purposes of understanding their present. In a similar way, my study aims to engage Chilean Alberto Blest Gana (1830-1920) in a dialogue that includes Machiavelli and Cervantes. On previous occasions, Machiavelli and Cervantes, mainly through his Don Quijote (1605, 1615), have been successfully employed, from multidisciplinary perspectives, as tools of research to narrate cultural history. Here, using the precepts of Machiavelli, and key concepts such as fortuna (fate, fortune), virtù (power, vigor, strength, prowess),1 and occasione (opportunity), as well as quixotic 1

The term virtù held a variety of meanings for Machiavelli. The Florentine Secretary adopted the notion of virtù from classical authors, following the fashion of other contemporaries, such as Giovanni Pontano. Derived from vir, the concept contains masculine characteristics that convey, among other traits, courage, ability for spur-of-the-moment action, and boldness to achieve one’s goals. For Felix Gilbert, virtù could even be equated with a medicinal power that provided strength to a body. Virtù, then, was “the force which gave vitality to a living being”

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Introduction

elements of Don Quijote, I explore the transatlantic connections between Machiavelli, Cervantes and Blest Gana and thus illuminate the cultural intersections, socio-political foundations and literary manifestations of Chile’s narration of national identity. Blest Gana provides the framework and the foundation for this analysis. His works, especially Martín Rivas, are considered to be among Chile’s first national novels, as Doris Sommer has claimed in her seminal Foundational Fictions (1993) (4). The life and hardships of the young Martín Rivas are familiar to a wide national audience, including most, if not all, of the country’s secondary school students. Sommer has explored the questions of romance and heterosexual love from the perspective of national “consolidation” (6). My main purpose is to uncover in Blest Gana’s fiction the strategies that Chileans employed to uphold or undermine traditional social order. Using a narrative analysis of national identity, I propose to explore questions of social class and political hierarchy and thereby to shed light upon the tug-of-war of oppositional views in critical episodes in Chilean history. These include: 1.) The Reconquering of the Capitanía General de Chile (Chilean captaincy) by the Spaniards in 1814; 2.) El Motín de Quillota2 (Quillota’s Mutiny) in 1837 which resulted in the assassination of Diego Portales y Palazuelos (17931837); and 3.) El Motín de Urriola3 (Urriola’s Mutiny) in 1851. Each of these events is reproduced in Durante la Reconquista [During the ReConquest] (1897), El ideal de un calavera [The Ideal of a Rogue/Libertine] (1863), and Martín Rivas: Novela de costumbres politico-sociales [Martín Rivas: Novel of Socio-Political Manners] (1862), respectively. In addition to these three events, there is a fourth that cannot be ignored and which seems to connect closely to the others—the most dramatic chapter in twentieth-century Chile’s national narrative: the 1973 coup d’état against socialist president Salvador Allende Gossens (1908-1973). With Martín Rivas as its main focus, my study ultimately examines cultural practices and social behaviors as expressions of the political and class struggles of Chileans. These conflicts result from essentially different conceptions of social order. Related to this, Álvaro Contreras has indicated that chronotopes of “family order and social order” [el orden familiar y el orden social] are cardinal features of Blest Gana’s novels (84). I contend (“Machiavelli’s Idea of Virtù,” 54). Also see pp. 6-52. For Harvey C. Mansfield, translators of Machiavelli have difficulty with the word virtù, especially as it concerns “amoral qualities.” In this respect, Mansfield asserts that Machiavelli “speaks of virtù transhistorically, as pertaining to the nature of man” (1996, 7). 2 Quillota is a city located in Central Chile, in the Valparaíso region. 3 “Urriola” refers to Colonel Pedro Urriola Balbontín, head of the mutiny.

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that the aforementioned historical episodes in the narration of Chilean national identity were permeated by two fundamental elements that are also integral to Blest Gana’s novels: (i) quests for wealth and individual power (concepts underlined by Machiavelli in his texts) and (ii) quixotic attitudes that defy society’s expectations, a principal feature of Cervantes’s masterpiece. Both Machiavelli and Cervantes revered the mythical idea of the city of Rome. For the Florentine Secretary, Rome represented a glorious republican past, one that for him had taken a turn for the worst with the instauration of empire in the majestic city. At every turn, Machiavelli exulted the virtù of Roman citizens, individuals that he defined as devoid of selfish ambitions and forcefully dedicated to maintaining patria. His Discourses on the First Decade of Titus Livy, known as The Discourses (p. 1531), paid homage to a way of life that he felt was a key socio-political antidote to the materialistic concerns of his present. According to Roberto Ridolfi, when Machiavelli finally had the chance to see Rome, his encounter with the city ought to have felt like a magic moment for him: “In his writings we do not find a word about it, not even an allusion; and yet we cannot do otherwise than think of him dwelling on those ruins as he did on the pages of Livy” (67). For Cervantes, Rome meant a literary rite of passage. According to Frederick De Armas, in La Numancia [The Siege of Numantia] (1582), Cervantes revealed his full and complete admiration for Italy, accomplishing an epic poem that would rival and problematize Virgil, “singer of Rome” (2002, 38). Indeed, in “El licenciado vidriera” [Glass Graduate/Licentiate Vidriera], Cervantes narrated a biographical journey of Tomás Rodaja through various places in the Italian territories, among them Rome, “queen of cities and mistress of the world” [reina de las ciudades y señora del mundo] (Cervantes 1997, 49). Likewise, in Don Quijote, Cervantes depicted the powerful Charles V as an admirer of the ancient Roman Pantheon. That was the building, don Quijote stated “that best preserves the fame of its founders for grandeur and magnificence” (DQ, II, 8; 505) [es el que más conserva la fama de la grandiosidad y magnificencia de sus fundadores (p. 593)]. Similarly, Chile as a national entity could only be conceived by going back to Rome, as Jocelyn-Holt has observed. We see this most clearly in Histórica relación del reyno de Chile [An Historical Account of the Reign of Chile] (1646), written in Rome by the Jesuit criollo4 Alonso de Ovalle (1601/3-1651). Ovalle’s work was quickly translated into Italian, a fact that allowed Ovalle to 4

In the Chilean captaincy, criollos were understood to be Chilean-born children of European parents.

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Introduction

recruit men of the cloth to accompany him to Chile. An essential aspect of Chile’s first historical account can be found in the way in which Ovalle conceived his work in Italian Renaissance terms and perspective; that is, the Jesuit author wrote as if he were recuperating and reviving cultural elements that he recognized, turning his authorial voice into a mixture of the familiar and the remote (Jocelyn-Holt 2004, 37). In nineteenth-century Chile, social order was imposed and maintained by the ruling elite, a social group that, in collaboration with a powerful church, successfully ruled by collective agreement during the nation’s early period. After independence, as in most of Latin America, Chilean society strove to establish community networks through institutions that would establish new traditions as wells as preserve inherited ones from their colonial past. These latter were dedicated most fundamentally to the upholding of a rigid social hierarchy. Relieved from the social imprisonment of the peninsulares (Spaniards), the criollo elite were granted the occasione, in a Machiavellian sense, to become the new most powerful sector of Chile. Through the Catholic church, moreover, the values and morals of the conquistadores were perpetuated through a common faith. The church, an institution characterized as stifling by Machiavelli, facilitated the work of the criollos in the new nation, keeping the people subdued under the banner of Christianity. Individuals in power, like Portales, understood that social order was preserved by keeping people “in place.” In that manner, they assured themselves that maintenance of well-defined conservative institutions and values would not only move the nation forward but also prevent it from falling apart. With time, however, harmony progressively disintegrated and consensus about the nation’s socio-political direction could no longer be reached by the nation’s elite, as Ana María Stuven has found (129). Conservative versus progressive factions emerged. In many respects, each group’s conception of Chile was directly proportionate to the amount of influence they felt from Enlightenment France. On the one side were those who saw the Church as an institution above the State. Those opposed to the impediments of conservative thought were influenced by French revolutionary processes; they questioned the grip of what they considered degenerate Catholic power (133). The pelucones—conservatives whose views represented the nation’s powerful families—, considered the church a deterrent against disorder. They did not wish their sacred institution to be subordinated to the nascent Chilean state. On the other hand, the pipiolos—individuals who, like their opponents, were for the most part from the higher classes—held progressive, liberal ideas, and viewed the Church as a bastion of reactionary power which held the nation back. This

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original fractiousness has never been resolved in Chile. In fact, it outlived the nineteenth century and persisted clearly into the twentieth century, a fact made most evident by the presidency, ousting, and death of Salvador Allende. Allende ended his life in the presidential palace of La Moneda—a place conceptualized as an emblem “as much of colonial as of republican pride” [orgullo tanto de la Colonia como de la República] (Jocelyn-Holt 2004, 367)—an episode that we can view as completing the cycle of the birth of republicanism. In the past, many critics have considered Blest Gana as not truly politically engaged. Against this characterization, we can say that he was in fact fervently concerned with his nation’s development. As a novelist, he wanted an audience that would buy his novels, of course, which made him proceed with caution when dealing with political subjects. His treatment of divisive socio-political ideologies and their deleterious effects on the country, however, was at once wise and self-assured. His writings obviously and systematically set the fragility of Chile’s social order into relief, a subject that Jocelyn-Holt has explored in El peso de la noche: Nuestra frágil fortaleza histórica [The Weight of Night: Our Fragile Historical Fortitude], (1997, 2014). In Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera, Machiavellian as well as quixotic postures were adopted by rebellious, manly characters who were compelled to subvert order in society. Consequently, Martín Rivas and Abelardo Manríquez, the protagonists, radiated defiance and masculinity. They developed heroic masculine identities through their engagement in nation building; that is, they appeared like nineteenth-century manly caballeros in their visions and aspirations for their young nation. Abelardo was beautiful and debonair. He could wear a uniform like no other, which lent a particular brand of manliness to his brave performance as an elegant húsar (hussar) in the Chilean Army. As for Martín, he stood out as timid but manly, not hesitant to flex his Machiavellian muscle of patriotism and intellectual superiority over others (Vilches 2010, “Martín”, 71-72). As a young man from Copiapó, from the provinces, he engaged with the various sectors of Santiago’s society and thereby came into contact with differing views of social order. Durante la Reconquista provides a veritable historical backdrop for Chile’s struggle to recover itself as a nation during the three-year reconquering of Chile by Spain. This was a time when the criollos’ ambitions, desires, and apprehensions towards the new nation became clearly evident. In these times of duress, the criollos’ ambiguous territorial position, halfway between Europe and America, coincided with the image they held of themselves, which was “half American, half European—that

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is, inbetweeners” [americanos y europeos a medias—por eso, mediadores] (Jocelyn-Holt 2004, 29). As Blest Gana’s text opens, we learn that in 1814, after the Spaniards reconquered Chilean territory, the criollos experienced a “desolate patriotism” [patriotismo desconsolado (DR 30)]. As Chile became liberated, fear of anarchy compelled the ruling elite to continue to uphold the Spaniards’ hierarchical social order. They did this because they believed it could help them maintain a kind of political steadiness and preserve their material wealth. In all three novels, then, Blest Gana’s protagonists clashed against the conservative gatekeepers of social order. In Blest Gana’s vision, Manuel Rodríguez Erdoíza (17851818), the members of El Motín de Quillota, and those of El Motín de Urriola fostered disarray in the nation as a means to correct what they perceived to be an unjust socio-political order. Sensing the danger, conservative factions founded the Sociedad del Orden (Society of Order) in 1845 “with the manifest purpose of restoring the value of the notion of order as a value in itself” [con el manifiesto propósito de restituir el valor de la noción de orden como valor en sí mismo] according to Stuven (139). As a reaction, the Sociedad de la Igualdad (Society of Equality) was created in 1850 to promote Enlightenment ideals of social equality and to combat nonessential and rigid social codes which had been implemented during numerous conservative governments. The impulse to preserve or destabilize the social customs and cultural practices of Chile, entrenched since colonial times, was a central feature, therefore, of Blest Gana’s characters who operated within a class-based social order. As noted by Victor Figueroa Clark, Allende grew up in a Chile that had fully absorbed nineteenth-century social changes (8). To an extent, then, Allende erupted onto the political scene towards the middle of the twentieth century to continue the social fights initiated by the Sociedad de la Igualdad. Blest Gana depicted for his readers the intricate world of the so-called siúticos,5 a social group effectively explored by Óscar Contardo in Siútico: Arribismo, abajismo y vida social en Chile (2008) [Social Wannabe: Upward Mobility, Poverty Chic, and Social Life in Chile]. For Contardo, the Chilean elite, past and present, have made a concerted effort to keep themselves separate from others and thus to maintain order in their social imaginary. One way they have done this is by labeling intruders as siúticos. Chile has a plethora of exclusive physical spaces, urban and rural, that display an invisible yet concrete “members only” ambiance. In the words of René Girard, the Chilean upper-class are bona fide mediators of 5

A siútico may be best described as someone who performs the role of a person of a higher social station than he/she truly is. Concurrently, it may also define a person with visibly affected manners, executed to cause an effect on others.

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desire for the siúticos who are anxious to possess the objects of the mediators as “a means of reaching the mediators. The desire is aimed at the mediator’s being” (53). Given these compelling parameters, the mediators are perpetually devising ways of separating themselves. Besides illustrious names and certifiable European roots and looks, the Chilean upper-class differentiate themselves from siúticos by linguistic codes, clothing, and aesthetic tastes in general. Notably, in the nineteenth century, upper-class Chileans more often than not were traders, miners and landowners, according to Simon Collier (15). To be a land owner in Chile, then, was essential and exclusive, a quality of the elite and an object of social desire. To this day, the length of time a piece of land has been held by a family can be viewed almost as a marker of nobility and is certainly a sign of “belonging” for the elite (Contardo 132). Families with enduring links to their land may even have an ancestral, private cemetery on their properties, an unmistakable indicator of aristocratic roots. Nowhere is Machiavelli’s dicta that, in order to succeed, an able ruler would know to keep his hands off people’s property (P, 17; 131) (p. 733) more apt.6 Contardo depicts Chilean aristocrats as having a greyhound’s nose for detecting the scent of new money. With this comes unavoidable affected taste. An egregious modern display of this can be found in Lucía Hiriart de Pinochet and her loud hats, which, in their abundance, became counterpoints to Imelda Marcos’s massive inventory of shoes (224). Chile’s über-siútica, Lucía Hiriart wore them despite her inelegance. As L.J. Jordanova has argued, in visual culture hats narrate an eloquent story; indeed, they are a central focus for “mediating social relationships,” which gives full meaning to why and where people wear them (64). For an ambitious woman like Lucía Hiriart, her hats situated her in a position of power, and, unfortunately for her, of ridicule, too. In this respect, the first lady of the dictatorship embraced her hats like a queen would embrace her crown, believing that through a powerful visual artifact she could earn a much desired place at the top of the social ladder. Despite her social aspirations, as a siútica, she remained socially landless and an outsider, rejected by the members of the tribu (tribe), a term forcefully and bravely given by Contardo to the Chilean aristocracy. Indeed, desiring to belong, 6

In Nation of Enemies, Constable and Valenzuela showed how Chile’s agrarian reform, pushed through by the government of Eduardo Frei Montalva (1911-1982), president of Chile 1964-1970, expropriated lands from the oligarchy to redistribute them among peasant cooperatives. This was a push to combat poverty and modernize the country by promoting industrial efficiency. As expected, the agrarian reform provoked “a visceral upper-class resentment that has never diminished” (23).

8

Introduction

siúticos such as Lucía Hiriart perform flawed or over-the-top tribal rites that are easily detected and dismissed by the elite. Thus they remain nothing more than frustrated projections of the aristocracy. In Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera, the elite maintained order by keeping the siúticos, who were members of the medio pelo class (lower middle class) outside of their social circles. In turn, the more able siúticos devised ways to penetrate the protected social spaces of the tribal elite, mimicking the battle tactics described by Machiavelli. As detailed in El ideal de un calavera, the members of the medio pelo class lived under a constant illusion of attaining a higher social membership by association: The social class that in our country has been designated with the distinctive name of medio pelo, one that naturally exists, as in all classes, within a variety of categories, always lives to cultivate the illusion that friendship can erase the boundary that separates its members from the well-to-do. [La clase social que, en nuestro país, designamos con el distintivo de medio pelo, entre la que naturalmente existe, como en todas, variedad de categorías, vive siempre cultivando la ilusión de que la amistad puede borrar el lindero que de la gente rica la separa (IC, I; 229)].

In the private as well as in the public realm, Blest Gana’s characters behaved in ways that adhered to material aspirations and polarized views about Chile’s order. Ambition made people consider that “anything that is not business is superfluous. Arts, literature, all of this constitute for them a pastime for the idle” [todo lo que no es negocio es superfluo. Artes, literatura, todo para ellos constituye un pasatiempo de ociosos (MR 242)]. From this perspective, Martín and Abelardo confronted a materialistic, hostile environment that did not care for penniless young men. They fought for a niche in society and pursued unsuitable romantic love in a quixotic manner, not understanding that they were tilting at social windmills whose ferocious blades would destroy them. In a nation that had come into contact with foreign markets, as well as revolutionary thoughts from France, a clash had been set up among the elite: conservatives who desired to preserve the precious social order versus progressives who wanted change and to inspire the working classes.

Narrating Chilean National Identity In his seminal Imagined Communities (1983, revised 1991, 2006), Benedict Anderson has argued that fellow-members of nations, or

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members of imagined communities, as he famously and categorically defined nations, possess a specific and tangible “image of their communion” (5). Anderson has stressed that these imagined communities ought not to be distinguished in terms of the falsity or genuineness in which they are perceived, “but by the style in which they are imagined” (5). Due to the increased deterioration and decentralization of both the dynastic realm and the religious community, individuals began to conceptualize the nation, massively aided by print culture (newspapers, novels), a phenomenon that Anderson has characterized as “print-capitalism” (135).7 During the past decades, Latin American scholars have detailed that Anderson basically concentrated on the imagined communities of the cultural and political elites. With that in mind, the boundaries of Latin American nations’ imagined communities have been redefined and reconstructed, as in Beyond Imagined Communities (2003), edited by Sara Castro-Klarén and Charles Chasteen. Raising a few perceived issues not addressed in Anderson’s argument, Castro-Klarén has contended that “in the making of the nation as a cultural artifact” the pre-Hispanic groups in Latin America felt themselves part of a community that claimed “immemorial occupation of the land” (164). These communities, therefore, felt a link that “exceeded the bounds of print media, especially novels” (164). Likewise, Walter Mignolo has notably examined the weight of the yoke that canonical readings from the West imposed on Latin America. There is no doubt that the Americas were greatly influenced by European cultural hegemony, which is evidenced in a work such as Don Quijote. Rejecting a Eurocentric lens, Mignolo has argued that Cervantes’s text contributed to silencing the voices and to squelching the “epistemic breaks” that attempted a “delinking” from Western cultural influence (31). For that reason, while investigating Blest Gana’s narration of national identity in nineteenthcentury Chile, one needs to remain aware that the Chilean author spoke mostly from above, from an elitist perspective on nation building. Shanty towns and marginalized ghettoes could not be considered as components of the socio-political order (Jocelyn-Holt 2014, 242).8 Nonetheless, Blest 7

Print culture triggered an exchange of ideas and it increased individuals’ realization of their own simultaneity in a “horizontal-secular, transverse-time” fashion; hence, through reading about a shared territory, people began to develop national consciousness (Anderson 39). 8 “In fact, we would exaggerate if we said that the peripheral slum dwellings, the tenement houses, and later the shantytowns are constitutive axes of the sociopolitical order. This should not surprise us; they are not only pseudo-urban displaced individuals, but they are also ejected from the land” [En efecto, exageraríamos si dijéramos que las barriadas periféricas, los conventillos, y más

10

Introduction

Gana’s novels were permeated by a fundamental preoccupation with a common language that could reach all social levels. For the author, this task could not be accomplished through the graceful and elevated language of lyric poetry and rhyme. According to Bernardo Subercaseaux, the epistemological advantage of narrative discourse over a poetic one had already been promoted in the nineteenth century by José Victorino Lastarria (1817-1888), a prominent scholar, fiction writer, and instructor at the prestigious Instituto Nacional (National Institute). This type of endorsement of narrative style over poetry contributed, in turn, to Blest Gana’s predilection for a novela de costumbres, novel of manners (147).9 The portrait of customs and everyday life in Chile, with patriotic themes and characters’ awareness of their physical surroundings, reflected a set of ideas that were welcomed by a receptive audience, benefitting Blest Gana in his creation of a burgeoning literary nationalism (149). The animosity among Chileans about the shape of their community, their nation, was patent in political uprisings in the nineteenth century and it continues to be so in the twenty-first century. Early on, Chileans were particularly eager to adopt a local national narrative and identity, having been perceived by former viceroyalties as “bumptious provincials,” as Gertrude Yeager has noted (71). In Europe, Chile was from its beginnings no more than a brief note or “noticia” (notion) from far away (JocelynHolt 2004, 31).10 Despite these inauspicious beginnings, Chile, even as it established its own identity, also became a place of political enmities. As the republic developed, a tug of war began between those Chileans who wanted at all costs to enshrine their social status permanently and those tarde las poblaciones callampas forman parte de los ejes constitutivos del orden politico social. Lo cual no debiera sorprendernos; no sólo se trata de desplazados seudourbanos, sino de expulsados de la tierra] (Jocelyn-Holt 2014; 242). 9 Young members of the intellectual elite, such as Joaquín Blest Gana, (the author’s younger brother), as well as Francisco Bilbao, the Arteaga Alemparte brothers and Lastarria himself, demanded the birth of a national novel. By 1850, in Chile the novel became “the most appropriate way to create a profile of Chilean literature ” [la forma más adecuada para fijar el perfil de la literatura chilena], allowing individuals the possibility to fulfill an aspiration for portraying nationalism from a liberal perspective (Subercaseaux 136). 10 Jocelyn-Holt emphasizes that the enterprise of Chile is a frustrated one: “People begin to think and spread the idea that Chile is something else: a ‘no place place’, a utopia, one that even as it has been so many times seen and declared, nonetheless does not materialize; it remains in limbo, in absolute exile” [Se llega a pensar y difundir la idea de que Chile es otra cosa: un ‘lugar no lugar’, una utopía, que habiendo sido tantas veces vista y anunciada, así y todo, no se materializa, persiste en un limbo, en un exilio absoluto (32-33)].

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influenced by France who wanted forcefully to disrupt the status quo. As the nineteenth century went on, these bifurcated visions of the nation acted upon Chileans in increasing levels of intensity. The presidency of José Manuel Balmaceda, (1840-1891), from 1886-1991, was one demonstration of the severity of these divisions. Before Allende’s failed presidency, such antagonistic views were also vividly enacted during the tenure of president Gabriel González Videla (1898-1980), from 1946-1952. Balmaceda’s tenure ended in the so-called Guerra Civil Chilena de 1891 [Chilean Civil War of 1891], a civic revolution that pitted executive power against legislative power. With the president’s troops defeated by the oxymoronic conservative-revolutionary forces, who were aided by the British, Balmaceda took his life a day after the end of his mandate. González Videla, partly due to the exigencies of the Cold War, radically turned against those who had helped him to gain the presidency in 1946. Having come to power through the aid of the radical and communist parties, González Videla disenfranchised the Communist party a few years later by making it illegal. Thousands of Chileans were forced to flee to avoid being incarcerated; the most famous political exile was Pablo Neruda (1904-1973), one of Chile’s Nobel Laureates (1971). Naturally, these conflicting narrations of national identity contributed to the sociopolitical animosity that was vividly present in twentieth-century Chile, especially during the presidency of Salvador Allende. In a flagrant attack on civility, Allende’s three-year presidency was truncated by a coup d’état on Tuesday, 11th September 1973, emblematized by the figure of Augusto Pinochet Ugarte, (1915-2006).11 Determined to govern in collaboration with the Chilean upper-class, Pinochet and the other leaders of the military coup not only abruptly ended the presidency of Allende, but, in a reactionary mode, they also egregiously reset the clock on the nation’s social order, successfully retaining a vertically stratified social order that resembled the times of the pelucones. In 2000, almost thirty years after the coup d’état by the Chilean Armed Forces, a statue of Allende was brought to the Plaza de la Constitución (Constitution Square). In 2005, the remains of Diego Portales were 11

Ariel Dorfman illustrated the fatal coincidence of the two Tuesdays, 11th September, in Chile and the United States: “I have been through this before… Tuesday, September 11 has been a day of mourning for me and millions of others, ever since that day in 1973 when Chile lost its democracy in a military coup, that day when death entered irrevocably and changed us forever. And now… the malignant gods of random history have wanted to impose upon another country that dreadful day, again a Tuesday, once again an 11th September filled with death (1).

12

Introduction

discovered in La Catedral de Santiago (Santiago Cathedral). Both events were national news, and, as the memory of the still-living Pinochet hovered in the background, Chileans’ reactions evinced incompatible perceptions of authoritarianism and national identity. In the nineteenth century, conservative factions realized that through authoritarianism they could preserve a social arrangement that was prone to permanency and presented very favorable “conditions of governability” [condiciones de gobernabilidad] (Stuven 39). Portales sought to confront the old modes which he believed needed fixing. From this perspective, he acted as J.G.A. Pocock has described in The Machiavellian Moment: Florentine Political Thought and the Atlantic Republican Tradition (1975). Juan Carlos Arellano’s Entre la virtud y la fortuna: Portales en los ojos de Maquiavelo [Between Fortuna and Virtù: Portales in the Eyes of Machiavelli] (2012), has also addressed Portales’s Machiavellian moment in the formation of the Chilean republic: Within the logic of political innovation and its consequences, as underlined by Pocock, we can venture as a hypothesis that Diego Portales’s main virtù is his capacity to handle perilous political contingency and its unpredictable consequences as he seeks to strengthen the government. [Dentro de la lógica de la innovación política y sus consecuencias, subrayada por Pocock, podemos aventurar como hipótesis que la principal virtud de Diego Portales es su capacidad para manejar la azarosa contingencia política y sus imprevisibles consecuencias en su objetivo de fortalecer el gobierno (20)].

Portales was a political virtuoso. He left a strong legacy in a remarkably short time. A strong man, Portales was among the most prominent authoritarian figures of his times, committed to the preservation of order at any cost. The Ministro, as Portales was known, considered this the only way forward for nineteenth-century Chile. In the twentieth century, Allende became the other side of the stern Ministro’s coin. A long-term candidate for the presidency, Allende was an innovator who sought to break with older political modes. As a young politician and student of medicine, he understood that there were too many decayed social systems in the nation and that they were forcibly maintained by an antiquated order. They were collapsing around under-privileged Chileans and needed to be replaced by new, audacious ones that would seek to integrate those that had been left behind since the founding of the republic. This social impulse was a tremendous threat to the elite. Allende, however, felt that his socialist program could be a success because of “Chile’s

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unique political inheritance” (Stern 18). In an intrepid quixotic move, he attempted to exercise change in Chile’ social order through an unheard-of socialist democratic process. In Nation and Narration (1990), Homi Bhabha has analyzed the “conceptual indeterminacy” and ideological ambivalence that inhere in the concept of a nation. As a structure, for Bhabha, the nation has elusive margins and can be best understood as a discourse of “political power and cultural authority” (1990, 2-4). Along with power, of course, comes subjugation. In this connection, Blest Gana’s nineteenth-century narration of national identity expressed the socio-political obsessions of upper-class Chileans as a discourse of power. For these heirs of the criollos, there was a need to keep the nation divided along inflexible social lines. Rigidity and oppression were required to maintain social order. But their efforts did not always succeed. The patricians were sometimes confronted from within their own circle by quixotic individuals who fought for the underprivileged. In Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera, national identities were determined by an intermingling of private concerns with public ones such that, from an economic perspective, Chile’s sense of “nationness” was more contentious than the national discourse emanating from the powerful sectors. Private and public social spaces created by Blest Gana disclosed sentimental as well as materialistic features in the characters’ behaviors and aspirations. As a result, not many of his characters expressed patriotism, or, in a Machiavellian sense, a love for patria. Characters that identified themselves with higher sectors of society found support and cohesiveness principally within their own tribu, to use Contardo’s felicitous term. This caused fragmentation and discord when they encountered members of inferior social sectors. Indeed, from early on, the elite had the tendency to form a group united by common interests [cierta tendencia a “aclanarse”] for instance, via “god-parenting with members of the same family” [compadrazgo con miembros de la misma familia] (Jocelyn-Holt 2011, 136). Notwithstanding such close-knit allegiances, the political fragmentation of the elite can clearly be seen in action in Martín Rivas. The pelucones defined their oligarchic views in stark opposition to those of the French-influenced pipiolos, who perceived the reactionary modes of the pelucones as an impediment to progress and intellectual advancement. In the end, the pelucones prevailed. After the debacle of the Motín of Urriola, the pipiolos realized that the pueblo (the people) had not been with them. In a Machiavellian sense, and following James A. Wood, this was because the people did not perceive a significant positive change in their lives through the actions of the pipiolos. In fact, they did not even think they were worse off with the pelucones. In this regard, the Sociedad

14

Introduction

de la Igualdad never really considered the people. They patronized them without pushing for social reform (225). On the other hand, speaking along lines later followed by Allende in the twentieth century, the Sociedad de la Igualdad decided that the only route to political success was “to attack the sources of poverty everywhere: city, village, and rural estate” (226). From this perspective, using Bhabha’s notion of transactions, national identity emerged as an expression of opposite and conflicting narratives. The ruling elites defined the nation for themselves by opposing the views and desires of the people and thus offered a vision for Chile that, from a socio-political perspective, was essentially inverted. Within the Machiavellian and quixotic context, the civic-minded characters of Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera engaged in reflection and action to undermine a pre-established social order, a struggle that reverberated and found echo during Allende’s presidential mandate. Those individuals from the medio pelo sector, even though frustrated by their social circumstances, realized Bhabha’s concept of mimicry. They were removed from the main social stage by nascent nineteenth-century capital markets and they copied the behaviors and aspirations of those in power. In this way, they expressed Bhabha’s notion of “a double articulation” (1994, 86). They followed the political affiliations of the upper class, even if doing so went against their own selfinterest and sense of class identity. This characteristic is still very much present in Chile’s twenty-first century. Through conspiracies, Blest Gana’s characters intended to penetrate their social superiors’ physical spaces. In Martín Rivas, for instance, Agustín Encina envisioned himself to be a worldly seducer, aggressively approaching Adelaida Molina, a member of the medio pelo class. Contrary to his wishes, he was trapped in a spurious marriage concocted by the unhappy young woman’s family. The narration, on the whole, revealed that the Molinas aspired to ascend through the “marriage,” but noted that their personas completely betrayed them to others, highlighting Bhabha’s insight that “in order to be effective, mimicry must continuously produce its slippage, its excess, its difference” (1994, 86). Within these disputed national spaces, Blest Gana underscored his characters’ perceptions of what the established social order should be. Very firmly, his narration of national identity foreshadowed the hardships of Allende’s three-year presidency in Chile. Just as Balmaceda was during his tenure, Allende was criticized for having siúticos in his cabinet, among them Mireya Baltra, minister of Labor who had previously been a seller of newspapers. Aware of the historic moment—a person with working class roots who would join the traditionally aristocratic Chilean government— Allende solemnly addressed the background of Baltra when inaugurating

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her as a minister of Labor: “From your newspaper stand on Moneda street you arrived at the Palace of La Moneda” [De tu quiosco de la calle Moneda llegaste al Palacio de La Moneda (104)].12 Wrestling for agency, characters in Martín Rivas (with the exception of its hero) made clear that, for better or for worse, monetary concerns mattered the most. Although Alone (né Hernán Díaz Arrieta) has asserted that Blest Gana remained impervious to the Revolution of 1848 (1940, 39), there is little doubt that such a political uprising—imbued as it was with Marx’s studies on the struggles of the social classes—informed the author’s fiction. Especially because of its epicenter in France, the Revolution of 1848 had a strong impact in Chilean progressive circles, a fact that has been analyzed in more depth by Cristián Gazmuri. Along with the Sociedad de la Igualdad, the Revolution of 1848 was responsible for the instauration of institutions and social values whose repercussions last to the present day (Gazmuri 22). Captivated by the Paris episodes, many Chilean intellectuals, among them Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna (18311886), —a progressive and contemporary of Blest Gana—, felt as if the events had been perpetrated on their own soil. He wrote that the uprising made obvious the decay of old monarchical forms of government in Europe which, in turn, made Chileans aware of their own obsolete institutions (2003, 87). In the same vein, Blest Gana took delight in relating how, in Chile, prominent citizens untouched or repelled by revolutionary views aspired to governmental positions to keep the status quo; they were comfortably backed by money and a safety net of equals with conservative views. Through depictions of El Motín de Urriola, therefore, he gave us a pre-Allende attempt to disrupt Chile’s notion of social order. Although short lived, the Sociedad de la Igualdad also put the state of the republic into question in a way that resonated again later during Allende’s long bid for the presidency. Latin American letrados (learned individuals), did not use weapons but intellectual abilities to impose themselves as narrators of nation; within a short span they became empowered as elite bureaucrats and thereby progressively associated themselves with national sources of authority, a topic that Ángel Rama has previously explored. Through their writings, therefore, they became known as “intellectual producers” of ideology in 12

In her memoir, Mireya Baltra: Del quiosco al ministerio del trabajo [From the Newspaper Stand to the Ministry of Labor], (2014), Baltra recounts that an ideal cabinet member for Allende was someone with working class roots. She declared: “Even though they lacked university degrees, the idea was to put workers in charge of ministerial positions” [Aunque carecieran de pergaminos académicos, la idea era poner a los obreros a cargo de los ministerios (103)].

16

Introduction

burgeoning urban areas of colonial Latin America (Rama 22-23). Perceived as essential members of society by the elite, the so-called Latin American pensadores (thinkers) with time not only held high bureaucratic jobs but also diplomatic positions—a practice that it is still observed in Latin America. From these, they were intimately and vigorously engaged with the political direction of their nations, as Yeager has discussed (ix). Education, then, came from the top down, and a capitalist European model was imposed by the letrados on the new cities of America. The official aspect of the letrados’ engagement evoked the revival of Plato’s Republic in the Neo-Platonic Academies of Italian humanists in Early Modern Italy. Machiavelli himself was greatly aided by his father’s reputation as a humanist which helped young Niccolò to land a governmental position in the Florentine republic. Rama has observed similarities in the Latin American letrados and has demonstrated how they constructed a city of letters by using literary texts and the arts as political tools to advance the colonial agenda (2-3, 23). Following Rama’s argument, we can see that strong associations were built between the letter and power. This of course makes us think of The Order of Things where Michel Foucault marveled at the power of don Quijote, whose “whole being is nothing but language, text, printed pages, stories that have already been written down” (1994, 46). Anthony Cascardi, in Cervantes, Literature, and the Discourse of Politics (2012), has also emphasized the mutual and strong relationship that existed between European print culture and don Quijote. Indeed, the printing press was itself critical for the construction and success of Cervantes’s character (2012, 171). During the independence movement, the letrados became conscious of the virtù of their profession and its manifestation in print culture. They swiftly adjusted to the new bureaucracy, writing new laws and drafting constitutions for the new nations, even after the disappearance of the monarchic support that had originally led to their employment. For Rama, this remarkable capacity to act as an “adjustable bridle” demonstrated that the letrados held a “capacity, not only to change, but also to keep that change within certain limits” (41). For Benedict Anderson, the waning of sacred communities and languages, as well as the abolition of monarchism, allowed for emancipated perceptions of the world, which in turn, permitted individuals to start down the path of “thinking the nation” (22). For Chile, the imposing scholarly figure of Andrés Bello (1781-1865) illustrated how intellectual engagement helped shape the contours of the nation. Bello was born in Venezuela and lived there for twenty-nine years; afterwards, he spent nineteen years in London. For thirty-six years until his death, he lived in Chile where he became a prominent letrado. Bello

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was the founder and the first rector of the Universidad de Chile, which opened its doors in 1843. His passion for British intellectual ideas, specifically the Scottish School of Common Sense, along with his own liberal, moderate, and pragmatic views diverted Chile’s educational focus slightly away from French intellectualism, a phenomenon which Gazmuri has analyzed (36). A prolific author, Bello wrote Gramática de la lengua castellana destinada al uso de los americanos [Spanish Grammar for Latin American Speakers] (1847). He held a rather conservative view and advocated for preserving classical linguistic structures and forms but did not oppose adopting Americanisms that were part of everyday life in the new nations. He went against those who wanted radical changes, however, such as Argentinean Domingo Faustino Sarmiento (1811-1888), who was exiled in Chile at the time. Highlighting Anderson’s observation that language is a mark of nation building, Sarmiento and Bello engaged in spirited debates about the direction of the Spanish language. Sarmiento opposed the hegemonic power of the Real Academia Española over the rules of their language. An educator, and president of his nation from 1868-1874, Sarmiento built his reputation through articles in the prominent Chilean newspaper El Mercurio, which was founded in Valparaíso in 1827. A bitter enemy of Spanish models, he became a critical player in the foundation of the Escuela Normal, modeled after the French schools. In the social conflicts of the nineteenth century, access to a good, formal education was indispensable to the liberal elite’s vigorous formulation of national identity. Yeager has asserted that any individual who studied the past in the nineteenth century could be best described as a patrician-historian; that is, a person who was also a “diplomat, statesman, journalist, or educator” (ix). Higher education remained in the hands of the upper and male echelons of society, and thus a national as well as a hegemonic male identity was created in Chile (Kirkendall 99). In that respect, Lastarria, as a professor, fiction writer, and progressive advocate, was the epitome of a patrician intellectual. Following French enlightened philosophical ideas and literary production, he became a tenacious promoter of the essentiality of a proper education. As an instructor, Lastarria indoctrinated young patricians to the idea that it was patriotic to aspire to the highest levels of education, culture and intellect. Such educated men exchanged ideas through Chile’s newspapers, which became, as Anderson has asserted, blueprints for concepts of nation-states, republican institutions, and common citizenships (85). Newspapers were mouthpieces for nationhood. El Mercurio, favored for its intellectual engagement, created a readership, for example, that strongly reflected

18

Introduction

Chilean urban life.13 This readership included Martín Rivas’s Don Dámaso Encina who was an avid follower of the conflicting political opinions found in the daily newspapers, as highlighted by Collier (13). For Lastarria, then, to maintain an active discussion on nation and social order, print culture was as necessary as a formal education. From this perspective, he felt compelled to explain the genesis and the goals of the liberal newspaper El Semanario [The Weekly] which concerned itself solely with the lofty ideal of advancing the Chilean intellect. He accused others of misusing the press to engage in vendettas and displays of rancor that distracted Chileans from building patria (2000, 118). Anticipating, ironically, the purposes of Chile’s contemporary satirical newspaper The Clinic, Lastarria proclaimed that El Semanario pursued higher objectives: We have engaged in stirring the ardor of the authorities to repress certain vices, and in correcting with ridicule our society’s flaws. But since the improvement should be expected rather from the generations that lift themselves up free of preoccupation and hardened customs, our main energy has been directed toward education (2000, 120).

Lastarria encouraged authors to help him to inaugurate an authentic Chilean literature that would not be a mere imitation of European models. Like his followers, among them Blest Gana, Lastarria believed deeply in progress through education because, he declared, “the precious seeds (of knowledge) do not flower in an uncultivated field” [las semillas preciosas no prenden en un campo inculto (1842, 6)]. Lastarria’s push for access to education was continued by Allende. During his short term, not only was there a surge in public school enrollment, but the government initiated the notable Editorial Quimantú. The Editorial published political propaganda (which was unsurprisingly denounced by the government’s detractors) and typically inaccessible, “aristocratic” books, such as classical texts and world literature in translation, making them readily available to all Chilean citizens. In fact, the mythical Editorial issued a new edition of Martín Rivas in 1973. This prompted Alone to comment that Quimantú had taken advantage of a small loophole in the novel to introduce Blest Gana as somebody who had stood up against private property (1973, “Martín Rivas”). Interestingly, 13

The newspaper El Mercurio assumed a high profile during the Allende years. According to Régis Debray, the conservative newspaper, owned by the Edwards family in the seventies, embodied “a national institution in bourgeois eyes” and thus became “a mortal enemy of the popular government” (Debray and Allende, 27).

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Quimantú’s approach to Martín Rivas confirms for us that Blest Gana’s novel was conceived as a national artifact and, as a consequence, a solid choice even for an editorial board with highly notorious left-leaning ideas. After the coup, the military, acting like the inquisition, immediately seized and ransacked the publishing house, destroying millions of school books and thirty thousand copies of Pablo Neruda’s Canción de Gesta, an act of retribution that Juan Cristóbal Peña has illustrated. This widespread destruction demonstrated that Quimantú, for the enemies of the Unidad Popular (Popular Unity), was a core element of the government’s program and, therefore, had to be destroyed at all costs. As J.C. Peña has succinctly stated it: they believed that “the soul of the Unidad Popular inhabited the press” [el alma de la Unidad Popular habitaba en sus talleres (100)]. The annihilation of Quimantú also reinforced, as Jordanova has observed, the fact that individuals involved in the obliteration of so many books were not acting passively but with agency (154), quickly eliminating the visual record that the physical books provided. As experienced by many, annihilation of material and visual artefacts also became a daily endeavor for Allende sympathizers who, by destroying so-called subversive printed materials, sought to protect themselves during the first weeks after the coup. This kind of destruction was motivated by a complete subjugation to the horrors of a war. In the twenty-first century, the push for universal higher education continues and has captured the national spirit. As we know from José Weinstein’s analysis, this grassroots movement is demanding an end to profit-making educational establishments and seeking predominantly free access to education for all. At one point, at least seventy-percent of the population advocated for access to a proper education for all citizens. At this writing, public opinion is divided. With free education, Weinstein maintains, a benefactor state is envisioned as acting as a watchdog on standards and effectiveness within the educational sectors. With universal access, an education on a par with what has been previously the purview of private schools in Chile, and thus the privilege of a dominant sector of society, could be delivered to all Chileans (76-77). This initiative has unsurprisingly pitted Chilean against Chilean, with one sector considering universal free education to be a quixotic adventure while the other proclaims it to be an inalienable right. Patricio Navia, for instance, urges president Michelle Bachelet to recognize that this goal might never be realized.14 Undoubtedly, the new blue print for Chilean youth is digital 14

Navia reinforces the notion that free education for all is like tilting at quixotic windmills, declaring: “The President could acknowledge that her intention is to move in the direction of free education in the same way that we all want to move

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culture. A successful 2011 rally initiated via Facebook to perform Michael Jackson’s “Thriller for Education” at the Plaza de la Constitución in La Moneda illustrates this new reality. Hayden White, in Metahistory: The Historical Imagination in Nineteenth-Century Europe (1973), has declared that history is “a verbal structure in the form of a narrative discourse… of past structures and processes in the interest of explaining what they were by representing them” (2). Blest Gana’s El ideal de un calavera and Martín Rivas present us with a solid expression, an analysis, and a perspective on the Chilean nation during the 1830s and 1850s, a time when Chileans were addressing fundamental constitutional principles that would govern their country. The characters Abelardo and Martín mixed comedy and tragedy (White 7-9) as young men who fought for—and lost—ideals that they perceived would make for a better Chile. Clearly, the author strove to convey how (and why), Chilean citizens turned against each other; in doing so, he provided striking and adversarial dialogue among people who did not understand each other, emphasizing the irreconcilable political ideologies of the nation. In his two novels, thus, Blest Gana narrated the disjointed comprehension and conflicting interpretation of historical events. He did this by using peripheral social spaces such as the tertulia (salon) and the picholeo (salon for the lower middle classes). The cherished order could be found to an extent in the tertulia while the picholeo was a place of undesirable disorder and undisciplined behavior (Contreras 85). Throughout, Blest Gana exposed people’s private and public misbehaviors, such as illicit affairs, dirty business practices, and reactionary political reasoning in the service of selfish pursuits. Even his reprehensible characters, however, sometimes embraced higher ideals and did not hesitate to fulfill their duties as citizens in the best way possible. In other words, Blest Gana invited his readers to uncover, in Machiavellian terms, the good and the bad of the nation. Martín Rivas and Abelardo Manríquez exhibited Machiavellian and quixotic traits as they developed their perceptions of Chile’s social order, toward being a society free of crime and disease. After all, Presidents always set their sights on lofty goals. The roadmaps of governments always point to destinations far off in the distance but which we imagine may someday materialize.” [La Presidenta podría reiterar que su intención es avanzar hacia la gratuidad de la misma forma que queremos avanzar hacia ser una sociedad libre de delincuencia y enfermedades. Después de todo, los Presidentes siempre señalan un norte hacia el que quieren avanzar. Las hojas de ruta de los gobiernos siempre tienen un objetivo final que es demasiado ideal como para imaginar que algún día se puedan materializar] El líbero.

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which for the two young men was contingent upon the political direction of the nation. Especially for Martín, Blest Gana made a point of creating an idealized version of a nineteenth-century young man; that is, a type of knight errant who, like don Quijote, followed a chivalric code provided by his spiritual nobility (Vilches 2010, “Rocín Antes”). Through the lives of Abelardo and Martín, we witness tortuous and painful socio-political conflict. We follow turning points in Chilean history and turn an eye on events that made the novels’ heroes react and caused them to dramatize patriotism. Their actions make us interrogate a convoluted and at times blurry conceptualization of order in Chile, signaling the yin/yang aspect of its instauration in the nineteenth century. Social order did not, therefore, exclude abundant and simultaneous disorder (Jocelyn-Holt 2014, 237). At the same time that Europeans brought with them civic and religious institutions and the seeds of capitalism, they propagated violence, rape, and death in the Latin American colonies (2014, 238). As succinctly stated by Mignolo, the great historical achievements of Europeans occurred contemporaneously with “destruction and disavowal of the achievements of the Aztecs and Incas, as well as with the denial of humanity to Africans transported as slave labor to the New World” (3). Traditional Chilean historiography, therefore, seems to collide with alternative, more critical, interpretations of the Republic’s formation. Jocelyn-Holt has asked the following: “Can there be order when there exists deep mutual distrust at the very heart of society?” [¿Hay orden cuando existen profundas desconfianzas mutuas en el seno mismo de la sociedad? (2014, 242)]. For others, like Rafael Sagredo, Chile’s narration of national identity even in the twenty-first century falls prey to strong, conventional, foundational myths and a triumphalist conceptualization of social order. For Sagredo, these underlying myths are still deployed because they “lend cohesion to the nation” (2015, 306). Following White, Sagredo defines history “as an instrument of nation building,” one that has served the Chilean elite and allowed them to impose their notion of social order “as a mechanism of social control” (2015, 309).

From Rome and Spain to the New World Machiavelli’s precepts endure primarily due to his Prince (p. 1532) and Discourses on Livy. His acute observations on civic consciousness and the political vicissitudes of his native Florence match exceedingly well with later historical episodes. Machiavelli is studied today from multidisciplinary perspectives, and his works are required texts in a multitude of university departments, as Najemy has demonstrated (2010, 5). Academics

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have “furiously fought over” his message, and Machiavelli has been therefore variously described as “idealistic/cynic; republican/monarchist; coolly analytical/passionately patriotic” (2010, 8). In The Machiavellian Moment, Pocock has illuminated Machiavelli’s contention that people’s vivere civile, engaged citizenship, was an integral aspect of a republic that “must struggle to maintain itself” (4). For Machiavelli, people could live in peace only if their “way of life” was maintained and there was “no change in custom” (P, 3; 81) [“mantenendosi loro le condizioni vechie e non vi essendo disformità di costumi” (p. 271)]. Peace, however, would always be a temporary achievement. For Pocock, Machiavelli’s concept of fortuna meant “the occurrence of contingent events of which time was the dimension,” and thus alluded to historical narration (3). In their actions, humans remained unchanged, as Alison Brown has argued in her discussion of Machiavelli and republics, princedoms, and religion. At the same time, flexibility was essential to politics, as we see in Machiavelli’s examples of the actions of men of antiquity as well as in his own sketches of everyday practical experience (157). Machiavelli’s ideas have remained astoundingly fresh throughout the centuries, having been read—or merely appropriated—in high as well as popular culture. The psychological depth of Machiavelli’s work remains particularly remarkable and applicable in our modern times. As Susan Dunn and James MacGregor have asserted: “The Prince is exceptional, as relevant today to nation-states as it was to the city-states of Renaissance Italy” (43). From the moment The Prince started circulating freely in European courts, Machiavelli’s ideas were taken out of context. Singled out for his advice on performing necessary cruelty, Machiavelli quickly became associated with evil and his name gradually turned into an adjective: “Machiavellian.” In truth, he was staunchly patriotic and he felt that contemporary Italians had forgotten or never learned properly how to demonstrate love for patria. For him, therefore, heads of state were fundamentally unpatriotic if they neglected to act effectively to save and protect their realm and their people, even if this required the use of questionable force. In the kingdom of Chile, patriotic feelings began to develop among the criollos. These were reinforced by the subjugating attitudes of the peninsulares, who wanted to remain as part of an exclusive caste. For their part, the criollos desired to overcome the obstacles placed before them by the peninsulares. In fact, these children of Europeans had been neutralized, or rather, dominated, for centuries by the peninsulares. Anderson has observed that the accidental birth of children of Europeans in the colonies made the progeny ipso-facto “subordinate subjects” to peninsulares; this rationalization to exclude revealed “a confluence of a

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time-honoured Machiavellism” on the part of the metropole to come to terms with the millions of “fellow” Europeans born outside of Europe (5960). Following Mary Felstiner’s analysis, we know that the social aspirations and resentment of the criollos placed them increasingly in opposition to their colonial power (1976, 63). Once the criollos became independent of the Spanish yoke, perpetual struggles among Chilean elites stymied all attempts at allegiance to the new Chilean nation. Patriots struck up alliances according to their own interests, proving Machiavelli’s statement that peace can only be achieved for a short while. This knotted, overlapping, social and political conflict became evident when the Spanish monarchy regained its claim over Chile, an event explored in Blest Gana’s monumental Durante La Reconquista. Initiated in 1810 via the occasione of Napoleon’s invasion of Spain, Chilean efforts at independence tested the level of patriotism of the criollo elite. Because “in times of adversity when the state needs its citizens… few are to be found” (P, 9; 110) [ne’ tempi adversi, quando lo stato ha bisogno de’ ciptadini… se ne truova pochi (p. 522)], the criollos found themselves in a state of disarray, confronted with what Pocock has called a Machiavellian moment. They had to become innovators in a governmental system that was characterized by decay. The independence movement, written about in newspapers and legal documents, employed a political language that, toward 1811, contrasted the Spaniards’ “darkness” to the criollos’ “noon daylight” (Felstiner 1983, 157). Once in power, the criollos did not immediately find or express a unifying conception of their nation. In fact, this despairing chapter in Chilean nation building, far from uniting criollos against peninsulares, further dislocated the criollos’ sociopolitical pursuits, turning the incipient Chilean nation into a geographical space that could achieve neither peace nor civility. Criollos could not rid themselves of the repression they had endured, plagued by ambiguities that related to social order. They were conscious of class but powerless against Spain; they refused allegiance to Napoleon but were increasingly against Spanish rule (Felstiner 1983, 158). From this perspective, Durante la Reconquista, El ideal de un calavera, and Martín Rivas materialized the ongoing feuds among Chileans as they attempted to reinterpret and establish social order. Born fifty-five years after Genoese Christopher Columbus set foot in the Indies, Cervantes made an instrumental contribution to nation building in Latin America. The first piece of literature in America was written by Columbus—a quixotic character himself—when he encountered and began to address the marvelous visions of the new lands, as Germán Arciniegas has documented (64). Besides gunpowder and horses, “the

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elemental magic of the books of chivalry” contributed to the astounding success of Spain’s Indies enterprise (76). Columbus was, therefore, very much like a proto-don Quijote—a condition exacerbated by his erroneous perceptions of the land he saw. Like an adventurous knight errant, he lived with a dream of having found the Elysian Fields. For Cervantes, his dream entailed going to the Indies to turn his life around in a place that possessed the same kind of magic as don Quijote’s books of chivalry. The contemporary state of affairs in Spain was poor. From a Machiavellian perspective, it was an empire that had come to ruin because, even though it had acquired dominions, it lacked strength, wasted in too many wars (D, II, 19; 208) (p. 2218). Sorrowful episodes in Cervantes’s own life also triggered in him a desire to leave Spain, reflected in ubiquitous travelers in his fiction. Like many of his contemporaries, the Spanish author hoped to improve his station by starting anew in the Indies. Donald McCrory, one of his biographers, has conjectured that Cervantes must have felt very hopeful when he applied to the Council of the Indies with “his military exploits and his most recent work in administration” (150), two indispensable assets for an application to go overseas. In essence, Cervantes the war veteran felt that he would be unequivocally supported for his years of dutiful service to the Crown as he sought a new life as part of the New World enterprise (150). His application, however, was denied. Describing the humiliating rejection by the Council of the Indies, Diana de Armas Wilson has noted what one civil servant wrote on Cervantes’s refused petition: “let him search around here for some favor” (2002, 207). This is a sentiment that don Quijote himself had expressed—that one had to acquire fame before arriving at an emperor’s or prince’s court: “it is necessary to wander the world as a kind of test, seeking adventures” (I, 21; 158) [es menester andar por el mundo, como en aprobación, buscando las aventuras (pp. 196-197)]. Unlike its author, however, his magnum opus was in fact permitted to acquire fame by travelling to the Indies, where it met a brilliant combination of fortuna and virtù. Chilean bibliographer and historian José Toribio Medina (1852-1930), in “Cervantes en las letras chilenas” [Cervantes in Chilean Letters], has marveled at the extraordinary success of Cervantes’s text in America given that “as early as the sixteenth-century it was prohibited to import into America works of ‘romance’” [estaba prohibida la importación en América de las obras de ‘romance’ nada menos que desde mediados del siglo XVI (568)]. Despite what one would have expected from these restrictions, Don Quijote was felicitously shipped to Latin America, and the exploits of old world don Quijote thereby entered a new and fascinating geographical space. From this

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perspective, then, the arrival of don Quijote and his loyal sidekick Sancho Panza in America helped define and give shape to the new nations. A nation is “both real and fictional,” as Anderson has claimed. We are fully aware that a nation exists, but “the only way we can approach it is through the imagination” (“Benedict Anderson about Nationalism”). The novel’s huge success, therefore, served to ratify the power of print culture and reinforced the spread of Spanish to the new continent. In the former colonies, Don Quijote lent value to the onerous movement of independence. It validated the new nations in Latin America and was widely embraced there. With the success of Don Quijote, Cervantes became an international bestselling author who was read and translated in major European languages. For Manuel Durán, the power of a writer like Cervantes was in his capacity to mesh Platonic idealization with exaggerated and picaresque depictions of reality and thereby to produce a type of social change that gradually transformed itself into political change (2005, 244). In the former Indies, Cervantes was a role model for authors in the emerging nations. Uruguayan Enrique Rodó (1871-1917), a contemporary of Alberto Blest Gana, shared the Chilean author’s desire to embrace Don Quijote as a creation that could help forge a new culture; that is, an authentic Latin American culture that could be achieved by adopting and transforming the old. Emulating the admiration Machiavelli felt for the civic virtues of the Romans, Rodó perceived that Latin American youth could be saved from mediocrity by becoming educated in Western cultural treasures. James D. Fernández has studied Rodó’s deep admiration for Cervantes. The Uruguayan essayist considered Cervantes to be the only truly historical and cultural liaison between Spain and the Americas. In this manner, Rodo’s arresting proposal to raise a statue to Cervantes as a symbol of Hispania signified that the author and his Don Quijote represented for the Uruguayan intellectual a restorative way “to heal the wounds between Spain and Spanish America” (969). The Council’s rejection of Cervantes’s petition to travel to the Indies stung him personally. It stayed with him and permeated his work. If the author could not go to the Indies, however, his characters could nonetheless make that fantastic journey “to the place where chivalry rode again, perhaps for the last time” (Wilson 2002, 209). The author represented the New World in variegated aspects as evinced in his Don Quijote as well as in his other fiction, such as the novella of the “Celoso extremeño” [The Jealous Old Man from Extremadura]. Carrizales, the novella’s protagonist, in spite of having gained much needed material possessions in the Indies—a fact that allowed him to live comfortably in

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Spain—saw his life end in anguish. Hence, in Cervantes’s world, not even success in the Indies could save a person from fortuna’s designs. William Egginton has argued that The Quijote’s universality enabled European Romantic authors to shape their present cultural milieu (1050). In turn, Fernández’ work has illuminated the fact that, in Latin America, Don Quijote provided a kind of cultural, historical, and linguistic basis for cohesion as the new nations were being formed (969). Brought rapidly into the New World and celebrated by many of the viceroyalties, Don Quijote was slow to reach the rather neglected Chilean kingdom. That being said, the future nation of Chile was already present in the infamous “Quema de libros” (Book burning) in Don Quijote. Here, the priest, claiming to be a great friend of Cervantes, said that the author was “better versed in misfortunes than in verses” (I, 6; 52) [más versado en desdichas que en versos (p. 75)], as he saved Cervantes’s unfinished La Galatea from the fire.15 He also notably saved the verses of Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana (1569, 1578, 1589), the first epic poem of the New World. La Araucana celebrated and predicted a great future for the most remote territory in the southern cone, and proclaimed the following: “Chile, fertile and notable province/famous in the Antarctic region/respected from remote regions/because of its power, relevance and strength” [Chile, fértil provincial y señalada/en la región antártica famosa/de remotas naciones respetada/por fuerte, principal y poderosa (16)].16 As a final statement of Cervantes’s approval, the priest stated that La Araucana was equal in stature to the best of Italian verses (I, 6; 52) (p. 75). Cervantes had family ties through his wife with the Quesadas in the New World, a topic which Wilson has explored. Unable to join them in the Americas, he began work securing food staples for the soldiers of Phillip II’s Spanish Armada (2002, 207), a proud imperial emblem destined to be 15 This allusion to the burning of books by the Inquisition directly connects Don Quijote with Machiavelli. Following Peter Godman’s analysis, we know that the Inquisition in Rome was intent on purging nefarious texts: “Among the authors whose works were to be consigned to the flames were Boccaccio, Erasmus, and Machiavelli” (303). 16 Jocelyn-Holt, in “History is Written in Exile” [La historia se hace en el exilio], contemplates the deception felt by Ercilla when completing his Araucana. According to the historian, Ercilla did not anticipate that his subject matter, Chile, would not provide him with a grand finale; that is, there was no epic to refer to and there was no way for the poet to determine what the physical territory of Chile entailed (2004, 32). The concept of Chile as a narration of nation, as portrayed in Ercilla’s text, is a topic that has been fiercely debated in academic circles. Ironically, La Araucana has been eulogized as one of Chile’s defining documents of national legitimacy.

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crushed by the English. As news of the collapse of the Invincible Armada reached Spain, Cervantes perhaps recalled La Numancia, a tragedy in which he portrayed the Spaniards as a conquered but proud people (Lacarta 83). The fall of the Spanish Armada penetrated the psyche of Cervantes from the perspective of a war veteran and a man vanquished by circumstances. He undoubtedly had the humiliating defeat of the Spaniards in mind when he created the final setback of don Quijote where he was outperformed by El Caballero de la Blanca Luna (Knight of the White Moon). In Chile, Medina has articulated a list of numerous authors who wrote prose, poetry, essays, etc., inspired by don Quijote, indicating that the nation felt the pulse of Cervantes and his tragic hero (599-600). Local authors adapted Don Quijote’s themes in their own creations, including the hero’s defiance against humiliating mishaps, his steadfast belief in the face of long odds, and his perennial hope for glory. Following De Armas, these key characteristics endowed the immortal character with “tenacity in the face of constant defeat” and signified a radical departure from Ludovico Ariosto’s Orlando, a character who lived in an aristocratic world (2002, 43). In spite of all his setbacks, the shining knight remained true to himself, to his beloved Dulcinea, and to his mission. He never gave up his dream of fulfilling his duty as a knight errant, a trait that provided the former Alonso Quijano (Quijada, Quejana, Quesada, etc.,) with “heroic stature,” permanently separating him from Orlando and his world of romance tradition (2002, 43). Despite the rapid spread of print culture, Don Quijote was not registered in books in Chile until the end of the eighteenth century, which, according to Medina, was a result of the nation’s preoccupation with its struggle for independence (568). Maurice Sullivan in “La influencia de Cervantes y de su obra en Chile” [The Influence of Cervantes and His Work in Chile], has speculated on the earliest readings of Don Quijote in Chile. He questions Medina’s conclusion that Cervantes’s text had not reached Chile during the seventeenth century simply because the novel did not appear registered in principal colonial indexes, such as those found in ecclesiastical libraries. For Sullivan, that fact did not necessarily mean that the text had not been read by private Chilean citizens before the end of the eighteenth century (290). By the mid nineteenth century, nonetheless, a high number of Chilean libraries held editions of Don Quijote and the text itself was widely studied from various perspectives. Researchers regarded the novel not just as an intellectual and artistic expression but, as cited in Medina, also as “a demonstration of affection and closer proximity of Chile to Spain and as a further recognition of the glorious career of the immortal Cervantes” [una demostración de afecto y de mayor proximidad de Chile a

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España y una gloria más para el inmortal Cervantes (570)]. Sullivan has asserted that the Spanish author was a leading cultural influence in Latin America. Recalling the words of academic Juan Uribe Echevarría, Sullivan has emphasized how, educationally and politically, Cervantes and his text have played foundational roles for the new nations: for more than a century, Cervantes has been part of the curriculum in secondary schools and universities in Latin America. He is also used as a reference in journalism and as part of political, patriotic or simply informal speeches. Additionally, and this is what matters, Cervantes and his Don Quijote have exerted a moral and literary influence on many representatives of Latin American thought. Critics, poets, essayists, playwrights, and social and political reformers, with mixed results but regularity, have sought inspiration in the life and work of the Spanish writer. [desde hace un siglo o más, Cervantes es en América tema escolar de colegios secundarios y universitarios. También es referencia periodística y frase de discursos políticos, patrióticos o simplemente familiares. Pero también, y esto es lo que importa, una influencia moral y literaria de Cervantes y el Quijote se ha ejercitado en gran cantidad de hombres representativos del pensamiento americano. Críticos, poetas, ensayistas, dramaturgos y reformadores sociales y políticos han hurgado con desigual éxito y tesón en la vida y en la obra del escritor complutense (291)].

Honduran historian and poet Medardo Mejía observed early on that don Quijote’s main struggle derived from the fact that he found himself between two modes of production: feudalism and a nascent capitalism (74). Cervantes, then, conceived his character as enmeshed in a fastdisappearing social order, one that the knight errant could sustain by living in a Platonic imaginary world (75). Once on the New Continent, the novel withstood the test of French-influenced philosophies, the vicissitudes of nascent nations, the savageries of caudillos, and the oblivion of outmoded cultural practices—to which don Quijote adhered with tenacity (149). In the city of letters, don Quijote was read and commented on by prominent cultural icons, among them Andrés Bello, Sarmiento, Juan Montalvo, — author of Capítulos que se le olvidaron a Cervantes [Chapters that Cervantes Forgot] —, José Martí, Enrique Rodó, and Rubén Darío. Don Quijote and Sancho Panza allowed each author to establish a conversation between Cervantes’s text and their own socio-political circumstances. They saw don Quijote as a liberator and a committed individual who would stand by those who lacked representation, and they also enjoyed

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commenting on the text’s beautiful imagery and don Quijote’s ideals and determination (148-178). Blest Gana’s long life, half spent in Chile and half in Paris—where he died—contributed to his prolific literary career. In his texts, he made explicit an enduring attachment to French author Honoré de Balzac (17991850) which connected him with Cervantes and Don Quijote. In “Honoré de Balzac lecteur du Quichotte,” [Honoré de Balzac: Reader of don Quijote], Mirelle Labouret has explored the strong link between Balzac and Cervantes. She has elucidated how Balzac adapted Don Quijote to his own creative purposes and used the pathetic hero’s hopes and delusions to reinforce themes in his own work. Balzac understood that don Quijote could never be threatening because he stood by his illusion and provided solace for others. In his behavior, then, don Quijote embodied for Balzac the sublime and the grotesque. He possessed a poetic power to elevate himself to knighthood and to carry within him the strong belief that he could protect the feeble and the helpless (Labouret 41). Those without recourse could at least find reasons for hope in the presence of don Quijote. Furthermore, Cervantes made his readers keenly aware that don Quijote chose to live his seventeenth-century reality according to the standards of an outdated literary genre, which imbued his worldview in ambiguity, a trait that Balzac, in spite of his quest for the real, also transmitted to his own readers (51). From a different angle, Maurice Fraysse has contended that Blest Gana modeled his work against what he perceived to be the exaggerated narratives of Romantic writers. For him, and following the input of Balzac, it was vitally important to recount the realities of everyday life, the good and the bad that was in people (118). It was necessary for the Chilean author to stage his own Chilean human comedy. Blest Gana also read Machiavelli and Cervantes, and their philosophical stances can be perceived in the modus operandi of the Chilean author’s characters. I do not set out to proclaim that Blest Gana had Machiavelli or Cervantes specifically in mind when he wrote his novels but rather that the attitudes and behaviors of Blest Gana’s characters evinced Machiavellian and quixotic practices and qualities. Specific conceptual ideas of theirs also emerged in the novels’ narration of national identity, particularly via the characters’ patriotic sentiments and behaviors. From this perspective, Durante la Reconquista, Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera can be said to recount the actions of quixotic and Machiavellian individuals who were involved in foundational Chilean political uprisings. Blest Gana’s historical novel is set between 1814-1817, the three agonizing years that saw the reconquering of Chile by the Spaniards. After an easy defeat of

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patriot troops in the city of Rancagua, the peninsulares took over Chile, an act which demonstrated that the Chilean criollos had not been able to hold the nation together. Importantly, the novel highlighted that elite families were more intent on helping themselves than their new patria. In El ideal de un calavera, the protagonist participated in the Motín de Quillota, an 1837 military uprising against minister Diego Portales spearheaded by Colonel José Antonio Vidaurre Garretón (1798-1837), commander of the Maipo Regiment. A veteran of the glorious 1818 Batalla de Maipú (Battle of Maipu), Vidaurre attempted to contain the Chilean government’s military campaign against a threatening Peru-Bolivia Confederation, which had been spurred on by the energetic Ministro, without the support that he would have expected. For Vidaurre, an enterprise of that magnitude would have triggered more chaos and uncertainty in an already beleaguered nation. The insurrection culminated in the assassination of the conservative minister. Martín Rivas, Blest Gana’s most famous novel, focused on the 1851 Motín de Urriola, led by Colonel Pedro Urriola Balbontín (1797-1851), also a Batalla de Maipú veteran. As a military leader with liberal ideas, he headed a conspiracy against Manuel Bulnes Prieto (1799-1866), as president Bulnes was nearing the end of his administration. The Motín’s political intention was to prevent the presidency of Bulnes’ anointed successor, conservative Manuel Montt Torres (1809-1880), who headed the nation from 1851-1861. On 20th April 1851, Urriola, with the support of the Valdivia Regiment as well as the members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad, among them Vicuña Mackenna and Francisco Bilbao (1823-1865), attempted to seize the artillery barracks in Santiago. According to Blest Gana, the Motín was above all a colossal political failure because the mutineers failed to convince the people to join them and to engage collectively in their struggles. In this respect, Machiavelli proclaimed that, in order to triumph, individuals in authority were required to gain the support of the people. By not having the people during peaceful times, they would definitely not have hands to fight for patria “in times of adversity” (P, 9; 109) [nelle adversità (p. 520)]. In Durante la Reconquista, El ideal de un calavera, and Martín Rivas, the characters’ quixotic attitudes and their defiance of social expectations were juxtaposed with the attitudes of others who appeared disengaged from the lofty goals for which many Chileans had fought and lost their lives. In Martín Rivas we witness how a revolutionary sector of the military confronted forceful conservative governmental forces with the aid of quixotic Chileans, among them Martín Rivas and Rafael San Luis. The main civilian perpetrators were the liberal members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad. They fought against conservatives as well as those who suffered

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from civic indolence, overcome by selfish and unpatriotic concerns for wealth and individual power, traits denounced by Machiavelli. On this, Blest Gana’s stance was decisively political because, although he concentrated his storyline on people’s affairs of the heart, he masterfully illustrated a colorful yet stark interpretation of Chilean discord and, in this manner, highlighted specific types of individuals who did not serve the nation well. The intersection of Machiavelli and Cervantes with Blest Gana reveals the positives and the negatives of a culture of affluence and social privilege during the stage of nation building in Chile. Through this, we see the societal consequences for those who did not have access to the economic markets. Altogether, the three novels rewarded indefatigable resilience and heroics. These two attributes, central to Machiavelli and Cervantes, helped Blest Gana map out for contemporary readers the metaphorical geography of a faithful nineteenth-century Chilean social order, even if his novels had inconclusive “social” endings. Wood, in his study on the liberally minded Sociedad de la Igualdad, has emphasized that both liberal and conservative groups counted members of the popular classes among their adherents (11). In fact, during Allende’s government, part of the opposition included sectors of the popular classes, reproducing the political scenario of Blest Gana’s novels in the twentieth century. As Wood has said, the progressive members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad, “seeking an alternative, more egalitarian and democratic vision of the republic” (187), fought to destabilize a traditionally conservative society and its promotion of the stagnating religious and moral tenets from Chile’s colonial past. Spearheaded by Bilbao, the members of the Sociedad fiercely fought for a desespañolización, de-Hispanicization, of the Latin American continent. Foretelling Allende’s push in the sixties and seventies, the Sociedad de la Igualdad started out with strong notions of social reform for the working classes, but, as the Motín de Urriola approached, during the second phase of the society, its main aim was directed towards controlling the government (195). Machiavelli, along with his fellow contemporary humanists, upheld the Romans as towering exempla of civic virtù, raising them, in Machiavelli’s case, to unreachable, mythical levels. In his descriptions of Roman civic life, disturbances and disorders did not wreak havoc in the republic since they represented the right type of equilibrium for keeping a free society on its feet. For him, disorder was only dangerous in a society devoid of good and common goals; such a society developed during the Roman Empire, because “in the time of the Tarquins, the Roman people were still uncorrupted, while in those later times they were extremely corrupt” (D, I,

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17; 66) [da non essere ne’ tempi de’ Tarquini il popolo romano ancora corrotto et in questi ultimi tempi essere corrottissimo (p. 1374)]. In Cervantes’s Spain, the landed gentry was competing with the newly rich, causing society to experience a rare condition of social equality among nobles and plebeians. As B.W. Ife has observed, don Quijote did not function well in his society; whereas everybody was busy acquiring land, he was selling it off to buy more books of chivalry (29). In his meanderings through Spain, don Quijote came into close contact with both polite society and the underworld. Correspondingly, Cervantes drew characters that belonged to the margins of society and sent them on a constant geographical pilgrimage to change their lives. In fact, Durán has called Cervantes “the perfect witness” of the interactions among individuals while he travelled through Spain. Keenly aware of people’s ups and downs, Cervantes took “mental notes about their foibles and their moments of happiness” (1974, 26). In this sense, Cervantes wrote of how his peers negotiated their right place in Spain’s social order. He probed their demeanors to indicate how members of the different social classes distinguished themselves through fabrications, doing so to hide the unexpected commonalities between classes (Ife 30). This can be seen especially in the duke and the duchess’ grotesque behavior towards don Quijote and Sancho. Just as some Machiavellian strategies contained features of quixotism, and don Quijote’s idealistic quests evinced Machiavellian elements, my study of Blest Gana’s characters within their socio-political milieu may simultaneously express Machiavellian and quixotic traits. In Durante la Reconquista, El ideal de un calavera, and Martín Rivas, where the stories are focused on acts of military and civil unrest, men fought with the intellect as well as real weapons. As David H.J. Morgan has postulated, individuals confronting each other to formulate their own narration of national identity became for general readers an immediate gendered vision of heroic men at war and on the battlefield (166). For both Machiavelli and Cervantes, it was essential to profile men who defended their own sovereign states, and thus they created a visual representation of a masculine geographical nation-space. For Machiavelli, a performance of masculinity was so critical that in The Art of War (1521), —the only text published during his lifetime, —he stated that idleness was effeminate, declaring that the “Italian” men of his time would have fared better had they learned “to (imitate) the ancients in their hardy and active way of life, than in their ease and luxury” (I; 11) [a somigliare gli antichi nelle cose aspre che nelle delicate (p. 3194)]. He took pains to narrate the manly sacrifices that patriots, especially the Romans, made for their motherland.

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As for don Quijote, from the beginning of his conversion, he thought of himself in manly terms, following his beloved books of chivalry and adopting a militaristic stance, using old weapons that he conceived as new, exhibiting no fear when confronting his male rivals in battle. Performing a knight errant proper, he successfully and resolutely created Dulcinea del Toboso, a lady with whom he could fall in love and to whom he could purposefully dedicate his life as a caballero. Through Machiavelli and Cervantes, I outline how Blest Gana’s novels anticipated turbulent chapters in twentieth-century Chilean history. That is, I connect the historical stresses and socio-political exigencies of Blest Gana’s characters with similar contemporary Chilean preoccupations. In A Nation of Enemies: Chile under Pinochet (1991), authors Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela have taken the pulse of the nation. They have endeavored to evaluate the state of the republic after Pinochet through a socio-political study that encompassed the privileged as well as the neglected sectors of the nation. To do this, they have interviewed a vast array of Chileans, including technocrats, lawyers, military people and the poor about their years under the dictatorship. From this perspective, my study makes a similar assessment from a literary and nineteenthcentury cultural-historical perspective and thus relies and builds upon Constable and Valenzuela’s interrogation of citizens’ perceptions of national identity through twentieth-century collective memory. From the perspective of the nineteenth century, Blest Gana’s novels narrated the nation for us via the coexistence of characters from the privileged classes, the medio pelo, and, in Durante la Reconquista, the pueblo. In essence, in Nation of Enemies, Constable and Valenzuela have validated the contention that the Chilean territory lost its democracy due to its citizens’ long-standing socio-political divisions and ruptured conceptions of social order, which, in turn, triggered enduring oppositional political ideologies that became radicalized during the 1970s (20-21). In my study, through the narration of national identity in Blest Gana, I elaborate how social class contributes to, and at times antagonizes, Chilean political allegiances. Furthermore, Blest Gana’s characters demonstrate that not only social class but also heroic behavior defined the actions and conduct of Machiavellian or quixotic individuals as they rose successfully to power or fell stunningly from their place in society. The intellectual production of Machiavelli and Cervantes influenced nineteenth-century Latin American socio-political thought. Machiavelli’s contribution to Latin American nation building has received attention from scholars but, for the most part, a larger perspective on Machiavelli and Latin America still remains unexamined. Machiavelli’s political

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Introduction

philosophy, however, has been fully integrated into transatlantic analyses of Europe and the United States. Scholars have fruitfully traced his connection to North American cultural history from the period of early nation building to the present; these include, among others, Pocock, Joseph Ellis, John L. Harper, Kevin Phillips, and Benjamin Woolley. Harper, for example, has examined Alexander Hamilton as the “American Machiavelli” in his discussion of Hamilton’s bitter feuds with John Adams and Aaron Burr. Juxtaposing Machiavelli’s ideal prince with the characteristics of Hamilton, Harper has declared: “Thanks to native genius benefaction, and good luck, he overcomes seemingly insuperable odds to success” (3).17 Ambition, political differences, and bitter enmity led to Hamilton and Burr’s illegal duel, a conflict that killed the former but, as Machiavelli would conclude, inevitably destroyed the latter’s political career. In the Americas, there have been a small but significant number of critical studies on the impact of Machiavelli’s ideas on the conquest of Mexico by Hernán Cortés in 1519. A few decades ago, Beatriz Pastor envisioned Cortés as the epitome of a Machiavellian leader, since he had turned a gesture of treason into spectacular social advancement in the New World. In this regard, Pastor has noted that Cortés’ political philosophy, unlike his counterparts, zeroed in on the necessità (necessity) of the times (125). For Glenn Carman, Cortés’ feat relied on a perfect rendition of a Machiavellian posture of apparent control over a historical construct (1997, 113). Projecting a powerful image of himself as fulfilling a Christian destiny to conquer, Cortés made a point to indicate that he was “destroying ‘false’ beliefs and replacing them with ‘true’ ones” (2006, 51). For Jorge Checa, as well, Cortés’ performance of bravado and assuredness in his quest for Tenochtitlan was impeccable. For the researcher, the Spanish conquistador exuded a Machiavellian comportment that displayed “order, harmony, ingenious use of natural resources, (and) a human capacity to organize politically in a civilized environment” [orden, armonía, aprovechamiento ingenioso de las condiciones naturales (y) capacidad humana de organizarse políticamente en un entorno civilizado (187)]. In “Toward a Theory of Spanish American Government,” Richard M. Morse has proclaimed that new Latin American nations mimicked the state of affairs of the Italian city-states of Machiavelli’s time (1954, 79). 17 The fascinating, Machiavellian-like life of Hamilton, founding father of the United States, was turned into a musical, Hamilton (2015), by Putlitzer- and MacArthur Genius- award recipient Lin-Manuel Miranda. Hamilton became the darling of critics and public alike, receiving eleven Tony Awards. It is considered to be among the most successful Broadway musicals of all time.

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Additionally, in New World Soundings: Culture and Ideology in the Americas, Morse has persuasively argued that anarchic conditions in Latin America made the population so inchoate as never to become truly bound by unifying thoughts of patria. Because of “the accident of birth in the Americas” (Anderson 59), the criollos, in spite of their European lineage, were from the start a dominated group, remaining “irremediably” in a condition of social subordination to the peninsulares (Morse 1989, 59-60). After emancipation from Spain, their entire perception of self had to be remade. Referring to the inevitable emergence of caudillos, the historian perceived that Latin America, like Florence in Machiavelli’s time, needed rulers with virtù who could unite a nation. In this respect, Morse has commented that “the Florentine appears to address a future Spanish America” (1989, 87). According to Morse, as the new nations were developing in the former Spanish colonies, caudillos emerged who remarkably resembled the Italian despots who were illustrated in Machiavelli’s philosophy (1954, 79). In the critical period of the 1830s in Chile, historians have detected a strong and profound sense of nation formation, one which is simply not as detectable at any other time. This, of course, was due to the presence of Diego Portales. Sociedad de la Igualdad member Vicuña Mackenna characterized Diego Portales as a man who was “singular, strange, almost eccentric” [singular, raro, casi excéntrico (1863, 285)]. Despite this nature, Portales always remained for Vicuña Mackenna “within the inexorable logic of his purposes” [dentro de la inexorable lójica de sus propósitos (1863, 285)]. That is, Portales had a job to do and, without any hesitation, he did it. Traditionally, the socio-historical processes of the period that preceded Portales have been analyzed by historians as preliminary, dislocated, expressions of nation formation, ones that were followed by a gradual transition to the construction of an orderly nation, around the 1830s. Other historians, such as Jocelyn-Holt, have characterized that order as “highly authoritative” [altamente autoritario] and forced upon citizens. According to the historian, the strong-willed imposition of order upon Chileans “belies how ‘orderly’ we supposedly were” [desmiente lo supuestamente ‘ordenados’ que habríamos sido (2014, 20)]. With the demeanor of a mandón (inflexible boss), the indomitable Ministro imprinted his image on the Chilean nation and shaped it to his will. From a Machiavellian perspective, he and other estanqueros (tobacco traders) enacted democracy almost theatrically while applying stern military force. For Sergio Villalobos, the Chilean patricians, with Portales as their leader, colluded to create a nation state that would restore old colonial privileges. It was the aristocratic class that, “moved to impose an authoritarian order

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that would suit them best and Portales was the caudillo who interpreted and shaped their aspirations” [gravitó para imponer el orden autoritario que le acomodaba y Portales fue el caudillo que la interpretó y que dio forma a sus aspiraciones (1989, 83)]. In my study, I analyze the Machiavellian behaviors of characters who pursued private social advantage while, publicly and hypocritically, they dispensed platitudes professing support for the Chilean nation. I see these behaviors play out in the historical events that Blest Gana selected for Durante la Reconquista, Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera, which took place as Chile was developing as a nation. Cervantes has been studied increasingly in conjunction with the Americas. According to Luis Correa-Díaz, however, canonical Cervantes scholars have resisted the addition of America as legitimate locus of Don Quijote scholarship. But, ever since the book travelled to the New World, it is undeniable that there has been a constant dialogue between that text and the Americas (2008, 128). In 2004, don Quijote even became a speaker of a hybrid language when Ilán Stavans published Don Quixote in Spanglish, a version of the story which was resisted by “purist” quijotistas. Fortunately, through transatlantic studies that firmly connect Don Quijote with the Americas, —which gained in number during the fourhundredth anniversary of the publication of the novel’s first part— energizing scholarship has explored the ramifications of the text’s successful voyage to the New World. For Wilson, Cervantes’s intense preoccupation with the Indies infused don Quijote with attributes of the conquistadores who, in turn, exhibited quixotic attitudes and behaviors (2002, 206). Following this perspective, we can affirm that, in creating don Quijote, Cervantes not only had in mind the New World but also the Chroniclers of the Conquest. Persuasive studies have examined Cervantes’s presence in, and impact on, the cultures, political thought, and artistry of Latin America, starting in the colonial period, as exemplified by Roberto González Echevarría and Mejía, and continuing up to, and including, the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, as seen in the works of Correa-Díaz and Friedhelm Schmidt-Welle. According to González Echevarría, the copies of Don Quijote that did not sink in the ships that transported Cervantes’s work to the New World served to cement a most intricate relationship between text, author and the new continent. In one particularly revealing tableau, Rear admiral Pascual Cervera y Topete, illfitted to defend Cuba from the mighty United States during the SpanishAmerican War (1898), appeared to the military men involved in the battle as a quixotic figure. He earned this distinction not only for losing the Spanish realm to the Americans, but also for the way in which he was

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sadly rescued from the conquered waters in a fishnet (“Cervantes and the Modern Latin American Novel”). According to Mejía, the impact of Don Quijote in Latin America began in earnest with the first shipment of books in 1605, that is, even before the texts reached a sea port on the new continent. Abundant copies were found in the seamen’s cabins, which demonstrated that the crew itself had become captivated by the misadventures of don Quijote and Sancho Panza (126). In the nineteenth century, Simón Bolívar, the great Libertador (Liberator) was loved early on for his audacious and heroic capacity to resist the grip of the Spaniards. Later, he became as hated as he once had been loved. From a Machiavellian perspective, Bolívar did not change his impetuous ways and, after the wars of independence, continued to behave as if he were on the battlefield. Mejía commented how the Libertador’s behavior became more and more imprudent; as he increasingly blundered in his political career, he took to comparing himself to don Quijote: “I have tried to build against the wind” [He pretendido edificar en el viento]. “In the world there are three boorish people: Jesus Christ, Don Quijote, and myself” [En el mundo ha habido tres majaderos: Jesucristo, Don Quijote y yo (148)]. Altogether, Bolívar felt absolutely vanquished by an irremediable change of purposes in the political direction in Latin America, which was explored by Gabriel García Márquez in El general en su laberinto [The General in his Labyrinth] (1989). Related to this, Isaías Lerner has asserted that the reading of Cervantes and his Don Quijote became a critical component for grasping the cultural, historical, and educational development of Latin America (257). In his portrayal of Portales, for instance, Vicuña Mackenna emphasized how the Ministro held Cervantes’s text close to his heart: Assuredly, he never browsed with pleasure or for an extended period any other book than Don Quijote, a text of which he was so extremely fond that, during his lifetime, it became for him his most constant literary companion. [Puede asegurarse que jamás hojeó con detención i placer otro libro que el Quijote, al que era en extremo aficionado i fue durante su vida su más constante entretención literaria (1863, 277)].

Numerous readers of Don Quijote have been influenced by its hero’s unique philosophy, among them Jorge Luis Borges and Carlos Fuentes. In fact, the beliefs of don Quijote have even been applied to twentiethcentury guerrilla warfare, such as in the case of Sub-comandante Marcos, leader of an indigenous uprising against mainstream governments in

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Chiapas. In his speeches, the mysterious and alluring guerrillero captivated people with his discourse, modeling himself after the knight errant who fought “with words as well as with other weapons” (Correa-Díaz 2001, 210-211). In this fashion, a multi-dimensional and, at times, surprising interconnectedness between Cervantes, Don Quijote and the Americas, has contributed, according to Correa-Díaz, to an even greater intellectual and social enrichment of the immortal text. The novel has established itself as a solid two-way egalitarian discursive bridge between the Old World and the New, and thus it has led to Fuentes’s assertion that don Quijote’s place of La Mancha obtained its fullest meaning only after it arrived in the Americas (2004, 10-12).

Blest Gana: His Literary Career Blest Gana came from a distinguished family, connected with Manuel Blanco Encalada, Chile’s first provisional president (Poblete Varas 17). According to Alone, the family exhibited an imbalance between aristocratic roots and a relative lack of wealth (1940, 18). The father followed the political contingencies of the Chilean nation, embracing European ideas that could be transferred to his new patria.18 Motivated by his uncle José Francisco Gana, Blest Gana left the Instituto Nacional to enter the Escuela Militar (Military School) and followed this path until he became involved in politics. While at the Escuela Militar, he had the opportunity to travel to Paris, a city that greatly inspired him and determined his future as a prose fiction writer.19 In Paris he witnessed the February Revolution of 1848, which had a significant impact on his writings and political views. Immersed in French language and culture, 18

According to Silva Castro, Blest Gana’s father was viewed by many as more liberal than he really was. Nonetheless, Dr. Blest, Silva Castro admits, had supported the revolutionary intellectual Bilbao: “At a session of the Council of the University, Egaña proposed to suspend Dr. Blest from his duties because of ‘the active part he took in the ovation to Bilbao on the day the jury’ condemned the author of Chilean Sociability. The Council thus agreed to declare that the professor ‘is suspended from his duties as professor of medicine’” [En sesión del Consejo de la Universidad, Egaña propuso castigar con suspensión a1 doctor Blest por ‘la parte activa que tomó en el vitoreo a Bilbao el día del jurado’ que condenó a1 autor de Sociabilidad Chilena, y el Consejo acordó declarar que el catedrático ‘queda suspenso en sus funciones como profesor de Medicina…’” (22)]. 19 In an 1865 letter, José Victorino Lastarria congratulated Blest Gana for abandoning his military career. Blest Gana wrote back to Lastarria stating that he had not been pushed by his father to enter military school, but that it had been his own decision, following a childish fantasy (Epistolario, 16; 40).

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Blest Gana became an ardent admirer of Balzac’s penetrating, realistic, detailed, and integrative prose. The Chilean author became fascinated by the ways in which Balzac drew characters from different sectors of society and studied the French author’s vivid descriptions of people’s habits and behaviors, especially as they related to and reflected their social classes. He was especially captivated by Balzac’s ability to satirize his characters and French society in general while at the same time entertaining his audience. The Chilean author took it upon himself to narrate realistic accounts of Chileans and their customs. As a good citizen of his own country, however, Blest Gana did not aspire simply to become an imitator of Balzac. He understood that Balzac’s fictional inspirations per force had to be translated to a genuine Chilean context and way of being. As a result, the characters in Durante la Reconquista, El ideal de un calavera, and Martín Rivas, especially those of the popular classes, exuded a so-called chilenidad (Chileanness). Blest Gana did not censor his views of Chilean society; he treated its difficulties and its despicable components. From this perspective, therefore, the characters from the novels symbolized different attitudes and life choices for his readers. Vicuña Mackenna remained a constant presence in the author’s literary life. Demonstrating the high esteem that Blest Gana had for the progressive Chilean intellectual, the usually reserved author once wrote to Vicuña Mackenna about his uncontrollable, manic desire to write. Rejecting a prior path as a poet—which he perhaps had originally pursued to emulate his brother, the poet Guillermo Blest Gana—he addressed how he had come to embrace prose. In his rejection of poetry, he alluded to the actions of the housekeeper, the priest and the barber in Don Quijote’s infamous quema de libros (book burning): ... From that day forward, after reading Balzac, I performed an auto da fe in my fireplace, condemning to the flames the rhyming impressions of my adolescence. I vowed to be a novelist, and leave the literary field if I did not possess the strength to do something that would be more than just trivial and transient compositions. Like you say, since then I have tirelessly pursued this purpose of mine, without being discouraged by indifference, without being irritated by criticism, without feeling pride from the applause with which my audience has greeted my most recent novels. The secret of my constancy is that I write not for the cult of glory, which does not exist, even with tinsel, among us; nor do I write for ambition because my work only recently has begun to bring me some money. I write out of a necessity within my soul, an irresistible taste for that intangible something, whatever it may be, that takes me away from the burdensome cares of life, sending my imagination off to a field where nobody can forbid me the sweet fruits of intellectual satisfaction. Anyway,

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Introduction as I believe I have said to you at some point, I write because I possess a mania for writing. […Desde un día en que, leyendo a Balzac, hice un auto de fe en mi chimenea, condenando a las llamas las impresiones rimadas de mi adolescencia, juré ser novelista y abandonar el campo literario si las fuerzas no me alcanzaban para hacer algo que no fuesen triviales y pasajeras composiciones. Desde entonces he seguido, incansable como tú dices, mi propósito, sin desalentarme por la indiferencia, sin irritarme por la crítica, sin enorgullecerme tampoco por los aplausos con que el público ha saludado mis últimas novelas. El secreto de mi constancia está en que escribo, no por culto a la gloria que no existe, ni aún con oropeles, entre nosotros; no por ambición pecuniaria, porque sólo últimamente mis trabajos empiezan a producirme algún dinero, sino por necesidad del alma, por afición irresistible, por ese algo inmaterial, en fin, que nos lleva a apartarnos de los cuidados enfadosos de la vida, lanzando la imaginación a un campo en que nadie puede vedarnos los dulces frutos de la satisfacción intelectual. En una palabra, escribo, como creo habértelo dicho alguna vez, porque tengo la manía de escribir] (Epistolario,14; 36).

Vicuña Mackenna could have been a model for Blest Gana’s novels. He was one of Chile’s most radical nineteenth-century intellectuals, a sort of revolutionary version of Blest Gana himself. Among the many hats he wore, he was a consummate politician, social agitator, historian, and a volunteer fireman. The epitome of an upper-class progressive intellectual, Vicuña Mackenna attended the Instituto Nacional, was a member of the Sociedad de la Igualdad, and, together with his father and brother, he participated in the Motín de Urriola. Like Martín Rivas and Rafael San Luis from Blest Gana’s text, Vicuña Mackenna had to pay dearly for his quixotic attempt to change the direction of the Chilean nation. He was arrested and, as a result, was condemned to death, a sentence that he was able to change to exile from Chile. That would not be the only occasion when Vicuña Mackenna left Chile. His political trajectory was tumultuous and, as a result, he became a political exile at various times in his life. Exile, in a contradictory manner, had a positive effect on the young warrior because it allowed him to know the world and to come into contact with liberal views from the United States and Europe. Blest Gana lived a very long life and his prolific literary career was interrupted by a more than thirty-year hiatus as a diplomat. He stopped writing after publishing La flor de la higuera [The Flower of the Fig Tree] in 1864 only to publish again in 1897. During his initial period, Una escena social [A Social Scene] (1853) is considered to be his first novel; it was published in the brand-new progressive literary newspaper Museo:

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periódico literario y científico, [Museum: Literary and Scientific Newspaper]. The Museo was founded by Diego Barros Arana (1830-1907). A faculty member at the Universidad de Chile—later its rector—, and at one point head of the Instituto Nacional, Barros Arana is arguably the most prominent nineteenth-century historian in Chile. A Social Scene, which dealt with subjects such as extra marital affairs, rape, and suicide, proved to be disagreeable and too scandalous for Santiago’s conservative society, provoking an unfavorable reaction. Hernán Poblete Varas maintained that, to express their disgust, the editors of Revista Católica [Catholic Magazine] publicly condemned Blest Gana’s text: A Social Scene, an ‘original novel’ written by don Alberto Blest Gana, is infested with fatalism, fraught with lovers’ quarrels, provocative episodes, indecent portrayals whose purpose is to excite the fantasy and awaken the hearts of inexperienced youths… It is truly a pity that El Museo, a newspaper geared toward the cultivation of enjoyable literature and the propagation of good literary taste, has dirtied its pages with such a production. [Una escena social se titula una ‘novela original’ escrita por don Alberto Blest Gana, infestada del fatalismo, preñada de incidentes amorosos, de lances provocativos, de impúdicas pinturas muy a propósito para exaltar la fantasía y despertar en el corazón de la inexperta juventud … Es a la verdad sensible que El Museo, periódico destinado al cultivo de la amena literatura y a propagar el buen gusto literario, ensucie sus páginas con semejantes producciones (43-44)].

From the beginning of his career, therefore, Blest Gana abhorred hypocrisy and was driven in his fiction to “tell it like it is.” He did not spare sarcasm, irony, ridicule or humor when characterizing human nature. These formidable tools left an indelible impression on his literary production, effectively raising him to the level of Machiavelli and Cervantes and their stark descriptions of individuals in society. Vicuña Mackenna enthusiastically endorsed Blest Gana as an author. He remarked: “He is not only our first novelist, but also the creator of the novel of manners among us” [no solo es nuestro primer novelista, sino que es el creador de la novela de costumbres entre nosotros] (Silva Castro 49) (emphasis mine). In the three novels, Durante la Reconquista, El ideal de un calavera, and Martín Rivas, Blest Gana narrated agonizing historical events within a larger and more appealing story of the costumbres, the manners, habits, the mores of individuals from different social sectors of Chile. The three novels integrated an intricate love story that was a critical, but not a complete, component of the protagonists’ development. As a

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means for educating young men on good vs. bad behavior, praise and blame were readily deployed by Blest Gana in the overall critique of his characters. The novels’ three young protagonists were tested by life. According to how they behaved and dealt with their circumstances, they were praised or rebuked until they got what they deserved. Especially for Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera, Blest Gana depicted young protagonists that took exactly opposite paths—like reverse mirrors of each other—as they dealt with formidable obstacles to their love pursuits. Martín, the eponymous protagonist of the novel, in spite of much suffering and humiliation, kept his head high with pride and remained faithful to his principled life. As a reward, the young man attained the love of the beautiful and rich Leonor Encina. Unlike Martín, Abelardo Manríquez, the protagonist of El ideal de un calavera, was weakened by circumstances. He was unable to withstand being rejected by his beloved Inés Arboleda, and this caused Abelardo to devote himself to the life of a libertine. As for the two young ladies, Leonor and Inés, they were initially conceived rather similarly as spoiled young women who were obsessed by, and aware of, their beauty’s power over others. In the long run, Leonor proved herself to possess a brave heart and became transformed by her love for Martín. Inés, however, was fixed in her materialistic ways and remained unmoved by Abelardo’s confessions of love. She felt proud and congratulated herself for the love she inspired in Abelardo. At one point she did disclose her feelings truthfully to Abelardo as a woman in love. But, her love for him was simply not strong enough to make her throw everything away—her comfortable life, her beautiful clothing, her coterie of rich friends, etc. — to follow a handsome yet penniless young man. Unafraid of death and ready to defend their patria, Abelardo and Martín both became involved in political uprisings, namely the Motín de Quillota (Abelardo) and Motín de Urriola (Martín). Both were arrested by government troops once the political rebellions were put down. Martín avoided execution but Abelardo did not. His beautiful face and dead body were put on display and offered as a scapegoat to fellow Chileans and the nation. Rama has stipulated that the creation of national literatures and histories constituted a major triumph for the letrados (66), among them Vicuña Mackenna and Lastarria. According to Poblete Varas, Lastarria exercised a great influence on the young Blest Gana, urging him to deliver for his compatriots a piercing review of the Chilean national sphere (73). Credited as the first Chilean prose fiction writer, Lastarria mimicked sixteenth-century Italian humanists whose prose fulfilled both aesthetic and political purposes. For Subercaseaux, the conceptualized universe of Lastarria’s novels was recreated with an activist’s discourse in mind and

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thus intermingled political notions with fiction (116). Along the lines of Sarmiento, Lastarria was an innovator, and as such, he saw the occasione to sever ties with what he considered a stifling colonial past. Establishing an enduring friendship, in spite of the differences in their formal education (Sacks 491, 495), Lastarria and Sarmiento came to understand that separation from the reactionary “Spanish Spirit” (Lastarria 2000, 214) and the establishment of solid formal education were key to laying the foundation for the emerging nation. Lastarria was a supreme intellectual and an unparalleled star instructor at the Instituto Nacional, where Blest Gana enrolled before his brief stint in the Escuela Militar. As director of the short-lived Sociedad Literaria (Literary Society), founded in 1842 to profile Chile as a nation of letrados, Lastarria believed that conceiving of a liberal society was a major determinant for the young Chilean nation. He addressed the urgent need to educate the nation’s citizens as “our Chilean nation has begun to think about what it is and what it will become” [nuestro Chile empieza a pensar en lo que es y en lo que será (1842, 5)]. Influenced by progressive attitudes from France and the United States, he was committed to the use of reason and the pursuit of knowledge and he believed in the necessity of pursuing progress based on a moral ideal. In his inaugural speech as the first director of Sociedad Literaria in 1842, Lastarria echoed the sentiment of Sarmiento by reiterating that America had been subjugated to a money-thirsty, backwards, colonial power for too long. Using Machiavelli’s concept of fortuna, he claimed that the laws of nature kept human beings in “a perpetual and, at times violent, forward motion” [un perpetuo movimiento expensivo, que a veces violento] that, in its oscillations, dragged even the oldest and most traditional types of governments along with it (1842, 6). He praised the men who had fought for Chilean independence, many of them at the expense of their own lives. Lastarria regretted that their forefathers had not had the time or ability to cultivate and enjoy the art of a true democracy, largely because of the disruption of Spanish claims in America. The Chilean nation now stood idle, “spoiled with ignorance” [carcomida por la ignorancia], ready to collapse and “taking our dearest hopes to ruin with her” [llevando en su ruina nuestras más caras esperanzas (1842, 6)]. Enduring a Machiavellian moment, Chile had now an occasione to rise from the ashes of destruction and decay; the members of the Sociedad Literaria had the virtù to withstand the whims of fortuna and triumph. Using education, they would edify the nation and reinforce the feeble civic foundations that had been established by necessity during the harsh and meandering period of independence. For such a cause, Lastarria urged his

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compatriots to hallow and dignify the many deaths that brought them freedom by setting Chile on the correct path (1842, 6). With age, Lastarria the intellectual won over Lastarria the politician, as was the case with Vicuña Mackenna. In Lastarria’s Literary Memoirs (1878), the political attitude was toned down and the emphasis was placed instead on the nation’s intellectual endeavors and on setting the record straight on the creation of the Sociedad Literaria. Principally, Lastarria justified his own intellectual choices and featured himself as a true pioneer in Chile’s liberal and literary circles. As a critic, he did not adhere so much to the tenets of Romanticism as to a Literary Americanism (americanismo literario) which could be best illustrated by referring to the progressive and anti-Spanish stances, for example, of Sarmiento in his Facundo (1845) (Subercaseaux 145). In the Memoirs, Lastarria dismissed those who, in his estimation, spoke with no knowledge of the Sociedad Literaria’s desired goals. He also defended its main purpose of cementing the basis for a true national literature. As he analyzed the Chilean literary landscape thirty-six years after the creation of the Sociedad Literaria, Lastarria lauded the production of Blest Gana. He praised the Chilean author’s mastery of the art of the novel, specifically his skillful exposition of the customs and manners of Chileans of various social sectors, a feat that “earned him the fame he deserves for his acute perceptiveness and regenerating spirit” (2000, 281). The Sociedad Literaria, Lastarria explained, had fought obstinately against the reactionary colonial impulses of Bulnes, who had dominated Chile for a decade, from 1841-1851. Although wishing to deemphasize the Sociedad’s political agenda, he nonetheless criticized the grip of the Church on all aspects of Chilean society by noting that the Jesuits indoctrinated the young in anti-democratic principles that opposed modern civilization (2000, 287). Lastarria surmised that the clergy’s founding of Revista Católica in 1843 signaled an astute and deliberate attempt by the Catholic Church to use the power of print culture to reverse Chile’s emancipation from its grip (2000, 141). In Europe, the creation of movable type by Johannes Gutenberg in 1439 had led to a cataclysm for the official Catholic Church; by the same token, print culture would prove invaluable in the new nations for promoting progressive as well as reactionary ideals. Allied with conservative sectors of Chilean society, the priests, therefore, deployed the same tools of print culture that the liberals had used, the latter to indoctrinate about liberty, the former to induce people to return to its reactionary fold. Following the likes of Vicuña Mackenna and Lastarria, Blest Gana continuously put his country of birth into question. From this perspective,

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Lastarria was adamant about finding a unifying type of Chilean narrative; he at once proposed a properly Chilean literary form and forcefully criticized the nation’s intellectuals for their inability to overcome foreign influences, a stance that would exasperate his future critics (Poblete Varas 71). Blest Gana was more discreet, but his career followed the same trajectory as his circle of literary acquaintances. His vocation as a writer went hand in hand with a diplomatic and political career that brought him rewards as well as hardships. In 1859, the same year Charles Darwin published his explosive On the Origins of the Species, Blest Gana, encouraged by Lastarria, became a member of the Círculo de Amigos de las Letras (Circle of Friends of Literature), a group that aimed to revive an interest in literature and culture in general. After leaving a military and political career behind, he returned to Europe as a diplomat at the end of the 1860s and settled in Paris, never to return to his native Chile. During a prolonged literary hiatus, which Alone has labeled Blest Gana’s period of catalepsy (1940, 174), the Chilean author immersed himself in the busy and delicate work of diplomacy. Like Machiavelli in sixteenth-century Italy, Blest Gana saw the good and the bad in the business of diplomatic relations. As he had done in his previous engagement as a bureaucrat, Blest Gana dedicated himself fully to the interests of the Chilean government as a diplomat, but his prolonged residency in Paris led him to be suspected of becoming detached. Not long after Balmaceda assumed his presidency, his brother Ezequiel José Balmaceda accused Blest Gana of having become deschilenizado (De-Chileanized); therefore, it was determined that the author was no longer sufficiently Chilean to hold the title of diplomat in Paris. Blest Gana promptly received a letter from President Balmaceda that ended the author’s service as Chile’s diplomat in Paris, with the reason given that, as a result of physical as well as psychological distance, he could not possibly comprehend the nation’s new political direction. This was rightly perceived as a great insult by the author. Blest Gana defended himself with vehemence from President Balmaceda’s charges of having become deschilenizado, declaring that he had impeccably performed his duties as a diplomat. He added that it was indeed useful for him to be away from his nation since Chile’s governmental politics revolved around foreign relations (Poblete Varas 205-206). Rejecting the characterization of being alienated from his land, on 19th November 1886, the Chilean author recounted to president Balmaceda that he had never wavered from serving Chile faithfully and patriotically, always thinking of the advancement of the Chilean nation:

46

Introduction As for a man that is called denationalized because he resides for many years outside of Chile, you will allow me to consider this charge as being unsupported on any solid grounds. Perhaps one could say this of someone who remains many years away from his native land on a sheer whim. But it is not possible to make such an accusation against someone who busies himself solely in the service of his country; someone who follows its development with lively interest; someone who devotes all his moments and contributes with tireless zeal to the common goal of national aggrandizement, a fact which cannot be achieved if the nation has no active or experienced representatives, I repeat, ‘experienced’ representatives abroad. [En cuanto a que un hombre se desnacionalice porque reside muchos años fuera de Chile, Ud. me permitirá que no considere el cargo como apoyado en ningún fundamento sólido. Acaso podría decirse eso del que se mantiene muchos años alejado del suelo natal por puro gusto. Mas, no es posible formular semejante acusación contra el que vive ocupado del servicio de su patria; que sigue con vivísimo interés su desarrollo; que consagra todos sus instantes y que pone su grano de arena con infatigable celo en esa obra común de engrandecimiento nacional, que no puede ser completa si no tiene representantes activos y experimentados; repito ‘experimentados’, en el exterior] (Epistolario, 778; 886).

As Poblete Varas has said, “We can understand his anger: To be accused of becoming De-Chileanized!” [Es de comprender su ira: ¡que se le acuse de deschilenizarse! (206)]. The author was well aware of the tacit association being made with the so-called rastaquouères, social upstarts; that is, immigrants who lived in Paris and who armed themselves with siutiquería to appear more French than the French. In 1904, Blest Glana recounted the ups and downs of Latin American families who had removed themselves from their land of birth in Los Trasplantados [The Transplanted]. According to Raúl Silva Castro, these individuals resembled plants that were devoid of their native soil, prefiguring a hard existence of denial and “obscure tragedies” [obscuras tragedias] (135). Blest Gana intentionally made the decision to omit specifics about the protagonists’ Latin American nationalities. Hence, they could be perceived as prototypes for individuals undergoing the vicissitudes of Latin Americans in Paris. In this way, Blest Gana elaborated general cultural laws for the depiction of Latin Americans abroad. Amusingly, and at times in exasperation, the author depicted individuals who denied their own Latin American roots and reacted to their surroundings as siúticos, with the sole desire to be perceived as French. Any Chilean today waiting for a flight to Chile at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris can appreciate the accuracy of Blest Gana. In his own account, the characters were driven by

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circumstances that can be best explained through Bhabha’s notion of mimicry: “their actions proceed and derive from a human metamorphosis that takes place in the souls of people from our nations when they come into continuous contact with a mortal European climate/ambiance” [los móviles de sus acciones proceden y son propios de la metamorfosis del alma de la gente de nuestros países al contacto continuado del clima mortal europeo] (Epistolario, 811; 948).20 For Poblete Varas, had Balmaceda better occupied his time with the rumors of conspiracy that surrounded each of his mandates instead of using his energy to annul the career of Blest Gana, the troubled president would have perhaps prevented his own tragic death (205). In hindsight, however, Ezequiel José Balmaceda’s urge to replace Blest Gana with a new Chilean representative in Paris resulted in a positive outcome and in a Machiavellian occasione for the author. Incensed by what he considered utterly unjust accusations, the diplomat sent his resignation to president Balmaceda on 24th March 1887, “having served uninterruptedly for more than forty years… from 1843 until now” [teniendo más de cuarenta años de servicios no interrumpidos … desde 1843 hasta la fecha] (Epistolario, 782; 895). As many have argued, Blest Gana felt he had a powerful point to prove after being called deschilenizado by the Chilean authorities. Perhaps, more than anything else, Balmaceda’s brother wished to provoke the Chilean author into quitting his position. Moreover, according to Iván Jaksiü and Juan Durán, Ezequiel José Balmaceda’s purpose was to install one of his relatives in the position that Blest Gana had held for decades (18). Later, perhaps to rectify a wrong, president Balmaceda offered Blest Gana the position of ministro plenipotenciario (plenipotentiary envoy) in London, which the author turned down on 11th June 1891, citing concerns for his family and his health while also taking care to clarify that his choice was not a political rejection (Epistolario, 788; 903). After his retirement from politics, Blest Gana methodically and steadfastly 20

Luigi Patruno explores Blest Gana’s Los trasplantados from the perspective of an organic illness that operates in those individuals who live deprived of their nation. Patruno asserts that “the title itself underscores a cross between a literary discourse and a medical procedure. The body of the nation undergoes a transplant. However, against all expectations, its translation is followed by a gradual corruption within the national organ. This complication is specified by the dangerous symptoms of hybridity” [El título mismo tematiza el cruce entre discurso literario y procedimientos médicos. El cuerpo de la patria sufre un trasplante. Pero, contrariamente a toda expectativa, a la traslación sigue una paulatina corrupción del órgano nacional. Esta complicación es explicitada a través de los peligrosos síntomas de la hibridez (243)].

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continued his literary career, one that benefited from his vast diplomatic experience. He published four more novels, among them Durante la Reconquista, a monumental testament of historical fiction that took him ten years to complete. Here, Blest Gana went back to the roots of Chilean nationhood, to the turbulent period of 1814-1817, to recount the patriots’ fight to liberate Chile from the grip of Spain’s reconquering colonial power.

Art as in Life To make the connection between the old world and the new, part one of my analysis provides an overview of Machiavelli and Cervantes and explores the relationship between key biographical events and the sociopolitical views found in their texts. There is a clear affinity in their works, as Mejía’s 1979 study has revealed, especially when considered within the context of political treatises. Convinced that, despite the different modes of delivery, Machiavelli and Cervantes were pursuing similar goals, Mejía has affirmed the following in his prologue to El genio de Cervantes y el secreto del Quijote en América [The Genius of Cervantes and the Secret of The Quijote in America]: The Quijote was first cousins with The Prince by Niccolò Bernardo Machiavelli because, with its respective Iberian particularities, it supports the same political ideals. [El Quijote era primo hermano de El Príncipe de Nicolás Bernardo Maquiavelo al sustentar el mismo ideal político, solo que con sus respectivas particularidades ibéricas (8)].

When they wrote their masterpieces, Machiavelli and Cervantes were marginalized authors who took enormous gambles to create sui generis works that reinforced their life philosophies. Each author held strong views on life’s vicissitudes—formulated by fortuna—and on the choices they made in response to life’s set-backs, actions which themselves were informed by virtù. They did not necessarily share views or agree on particular issues. With some exceptions, throughout Don Quijote, we get a sense that Cervantes is addressing and responding to Machiavelli’s agitated prose in a calmer, more resigned, and less strident manner. After all, before his disastrous fall from political grace, Machiavelli had seen the good side of fortuna at a very young age. Cervantes, on the other hand, had struggled all along, not finding a spark of fortuna until the last ten years of his life. Machiavelli would have understood don Quijote’s fall

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from power. In fact, don Quijote himself knew very well that his complete lack of prudence had caused his climatic loss against the Caballero de la Blanca Luna. “In short,” he said, “I took a risk, I did what I could, I was toppled, and although I lost my honor, I did not lose, nor can I lose, the virtue of keeping my word” (II, 66; 893) [Atrevíme, en fin; hice lo que pude, derribáronme, y aunque perdí la honra, no perdí, ni puedo perder, la virtud de cumplir mi palabra (p. 1019)]. Machiavelli’s political brilliance reverberated throughout Europe but was darkened early on by a black legend that still persists in twenty-first century Western culture. Ironically, his early detractors, who called themselves anti-Machiavellians, avidly plagiarized his work. Many of them saw their careers enhanced by their publications; hence, they profited from the Florentine Secretary’s acute perceptions of human interaction in society, even as they adopted attacking postures. Keith Howard has studied Machiavelli’s reception in Early Modern Spain, specifically on the Anti-Machiavellians who inserted into their own works quotations and, at times, entire chapters of The Prince. I join the ranks of Machiavelli scholars who strive to rehabilitate and rectify his maligned legacy. Machiavelli was a patriot at heart, and the intention of his thought was directed always to the preservation of patria. Nonetheless, he reckoned that the ills of human nature would cause individuals inevitably to become antagonistic with each other, to think mostly about selfish concerns, and to disregard the betterment of their realm. Machiavelli thought the exercise of virtù in the face of obstacles was essential. In Blest Gana’s three novels, characters constantly called the emerging Chilean nation into question as they struggled to understand the motives of their counterparts. Issues related to social class presented substantial obstacles for people, limiting and defining their actions and behaviors. For the most part, financial preoccupations and affairs of the heart contributed to the frictional relationships among members of different social classes. Characters sought to advance in society by means of entirely selfish pursuits, by promoting the good of the Chilean nation, or by a bit of both. In Don Quijote, the knight errant and Sancho Panza embraced sociopolitical postures that put them at odds while at the same time helping them to interpret each other’s beliefs about society. That is, the more contact they had with each other, the more they realized their differences; the more they understood each other, the more each one transformed himself into a version of the other. Rooted in idealism as well as concrete reality, Cervantes’s approach to life through don Quijote and Sancho Panza can be read in the actions and purposes of some of Blest Gana’s characters. In fact, the protagonists from Durante la Reconquista, El ideal

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de un calavera, and Martín Rivas displayed quixotic attitudes that informed their decisions and deliberations as they pursued their goals on the public as well as the domestic stage. For Abelardo, for instance, love was the constant that guided people’s actions; he never realized, or never cared to notice, that every time he entered the luxurious surroundings of upper-class Chileans he was scrutinized. The narration referred to him in sympathetic terms as a handsome lad that came from “a class that should be called impoverished families” [una clase que debería llamarse familias empobrecidas (IC, I; 16)]. For Abelardo, attaining his highly idealistic goals was hopeless. I also explore how the biographical predicaments of the two authors are reflected in their works, such as The Prince, the Mandragola (c. 1518) and the Clizia (c. 1525) for Machiavelli and Don Quijote for Cervantes. My discussion underlines how the texts meticulously featured the social ills, hard choices, and dissembling that an individual had to face in negotiating life, and thereby exposed remarkable similarities between the lives of Machiavelli and Cervantes. I argue that the two authors, partly because of their status as “outsiders,” obsessively attempted to construct, politicize, and dramatize nationhood. Forced out of political life, Machiavelli spoke with urgency and pessimism of an ideal ruler who could unite the Italian peninsula. When he wrote his most important pieces, while isolated from society in his farm-house, he became a protoQuixote, keeping company with the men of antiquity whose advice he implemented in The Prince and The Discourses. Born in 1547, twenty years after Machiavelli’s death—and the year Henry VIII and Francis I died—Cervantes was a wounded individual who produced magic in the pairing of Don Quijote and Sancho Panza. With varying degrees of attachment to the ideal and material world, the two characters needed to dissemble their true personas to find a niche in society. Their author did not lead a successful life himself; he lacked wealth and did not receive full recognition for his writings, as Durán has shown (1974, 28). Cervantes wrote his text—started, some contend, in prison—while feeling dejected and unappreciated. He spent time in Rome and benefited tremendously from Italian literary production. A much debated nineteenth-century discovery of an arrest warrant for a Miguel de Cervantes has caused many of his biographers to speculate about a forced exit to Rome. Among the naysayers, Jean Canavaggio has stated that “from that laconic document his biographers’ fantasy has let loose” [a partir de ese lacónico documento, la fantasia de los biógrafos ha tenido rienda suelta (105)]. It is unquestionable, however, that Cervantes seemed to latch on to characters who were on the margins of the law. Don Quijote

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went beyond the boundaries of purely literary expression to be a type of political treatise that called out the stagnation of Spanish society and laid bare a clear need for economic and social growth. We can see this early on in Cervantes’s text when Sancho is indoctrinated as a future governor of an Insula. In a discreet manner, then, themes of Machiavellian fortuna and virtù are put on display as the knight errant and squire confront their circumstances, a topic that Walter Ghia has previously examined in España y Maquiavelo [Spain and Machiavelli] (71). Machiavelli and Cervantes enjoyed taking a theatrical perspective on the bitter aspects of forging a national identity. For example, Machiavelli urged the Medici house to rescue Italy from the barbarians, and Cervantes articulated the vicissitudes of the Spanish subjects in an encounter between Don Quijote and the galeotes (chained prisoners ready to depart to do forced labor in the galleys). Early on, Cervantes had to confront life’s tribulations and to endure many misfortunes; in the long run, these challenges helped him to develop a strong character and to infuse a similar strength in his fictional hero don Quijote. A disastrous military enterprise left him a prisoner and a captive in Algiers. Framing predicaments of his own life within episodes of Don Quijote and other texts, Cervantes held out hope and, like Machiavelli, kept a recurrent smile—albeit a bitter one—in the face of his many travails. Demonstrating strong Machiavellian virtù, Cervantes reacted to his lack of fortuna by creating the immortal heroes Don Quijote and Sancho Panza, who were ready for the world in 1605.

Triumph of the Dreamers In part two, I examine the Machiavellian and quixotic attitudes of the characters in Martín Rivas and the ways in which Blest Gana meticulously constructed dreamers who did not neglect materialistic pursuits. To be sure, a dreamer could be reasonably construed as a character under Romantic influence, but this interpretation would run up against the intentions of Blest Gana himself, who refused to be constrained by Romantic stereotypes. In essence, the human relationships developed in the Chilean author’s texts were socio-political renderings of quixotic and materialistic types who fought to maintain their place in society using Machiavellian fortuna and virtù. In a way, characters were both quixotic and Machiavellian but in varying degrees depending on the vulnerability of their circumstances and the actions they took to remedy or worsen their situation in society. Here we see either a type of Machiavellian control

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over one’s emotions or a quixotic and blind rush to trust social codes and undeserving people. Martín Rivas, the most prominent of Blest Gana’s characters, exhibited traits that related to social class, masculinity, and nationhood. He lived the ups and downs of a highly educated man who lacked means but possessed strong principles, which aided him when he struggled to follow the right path and was tempted by an innate desire for wealth. In fact, Martín was very troubled by the negative reception he endured as he entered the beautiful Encina manor in July, 1850. He was furious, humiliated, and ashamed of his background when he saw how rich people lived and how distant they seemed from his own condition. This bitter realization caused him to yearn for what the Encinas had and propelled a violent contact with an aggressive boot maker in the infamous Plaza de Armas (Arms Square) episode, early on in the text. In Martín Rivas, the historical events in Santiago signaled a society in transition and illustrated similarities between Machiavelli’s sixteenthcentury Florence and Blest Gana’s Chile. When looking at Chile through this prism, I draw not only on The Prince or The Discourses, but also on Machiavelli’s famous works of fiction, such as his plays La Mandragola and Clizia, where the Florentine author also articulated and brilliantly staged his political ideas and bitter views of society. In Chile, conservative parties were pitted against the mostly young liberals of the Sociedad de la Igualdad, which followed the enlightened socio-political thought emanating from Europe. In my analysis, I follow the intertwining of ideals and materialistic concerns and attempt to disentangle the links between politics, well-being, material possessions and people’s standing in society. I argue that Machiavelli’s fiction connects in revealing and significant ways to Blest Gana’s political theories as they are expressed in his fiction. The two contain notable areas of overlap and interplay that are evinced in Martín and the rest of the characters. The image of the city is also centrally important for Machiavelli and Blest Gana. As in Machiavelli’s Florence, the most dominant political parties in Chile relied heavily on material transactions that would secure the social status of the country’s “strong” families and their descendants. Martín Rivas, a hero for the future of the nation, was not originally from the city; he was a provincial who triumphed in Santiago. In other words, he overcame a hostile, urban environment, and he did so by relying on his provincial upbringing. He surmounted his poverty because he possessed the right combination of Machiavellian fortuna and virtù, without which his success would have been impossible. The flaws of other characters made them, in one way or another, dependent on Martín. He never

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hesitated to help those who needed a remedy for a wrong. Martín was, in this way, a quixotic rescuer of damsels in distress but also of spoiled, rich, young men and afflicted capitalists. In Machiavelli’s plays “outside” politics were intertwined with “house” or “domestic” politics to provide a perspective on the degrees of dissimulation and political transaction that were evident among members of the same household. Because the characters wished to win at all costs, material possessions were used as tools for effecting a desired outcome. Political struggles permeated Machiavelli’s plays, and similar tensions and conflicts can be seen in Blest Gana’s construction of nationhood in the nineteenth century. Relations between Martín and his family were built on loyalty, strength of character, and sacrifice. Conversely, in the big city of Santiago, Blest Gana constructed an environment of dissimulation, forced transaction among social classes, and a general obsession with ostentation and material goods. Like a new prince Martín utilized the occasione that came his way to construct a spectacular social success. A thoroughly masculine figure, with exemplary behavior, he took the opportunity of political and social turmoil to make himself indispensable for Santiago society. Wishing to present a different, more powerful, profile of noble Martín, I contend that, from the beginning, he understood that his fate was success or success. In this manner, with impeccable credentials, he conquered the heart of the beautiful and wealthy Leonor while at the same time winning over capitalists who believed that money was god. Don Quijote and Martín Rivas intertwine conceptual philosophies that connect the idealistic and materialistic concerns of people’s relationships. The role of proper behavior, dress coding, luxury items and furnishings, and material assets as a measure of cultural identity is essential in both works. Don Quijote thought of himself as a rescuer of the socially mistreated and never neglected to look the part. He slowly started to find himself—in other words, to become the person he perceived himself to be—by gathering the most curious items to wear. Likewise, the provincial Martín’s quest for a better future was not based solely on high ideals but it also possessed a materialistic dimension which came to light through his desire to dress like the wealthy gentlemen he saw in Santiago. Don Quijote, in spite of his idealistic views, lived by social codes that required decorous attire and dictated correct behavior at appropriate times. We see this most obviously, for instance, in the duke’s palace, when the mighty knight scolds his sidekick Sancho for showing his true colors and embarrassing him in front of the duke. An appetite for luxurious display can be seen as a political instrument. For don Quijote, an effective warrior must literally “dress” the part, and

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one of the first things he did when he became a knight was to find the appropriate garments. In Martín Rivas, the Chilean author underlined the differences between “positive” and “quixotic” men through the way they dressed, and emphasized the extent to which dress influenced the way they perceived life. Blest Gana paid particular attention to descriptions of the unconventional attire of Martín’s best friend Rafael San Luis. A penniless young man, who had once enjoyed the life of the pampered and idle rich, Rafael favored dressing in a sui generis manner that separated him from the rest of the Instituto Nacional students. Wardrobe then alerted the reader to concentrate on the character’s behavior. In a society that emphasized dressing well, San Luis had the nerve to flaunt the rules. In fact, when doña Bernarda arrived at Matilde’s house to disclose the truth about Rafael fathering a son with her daughter Adelaida, the description underscored how she had made every attempt to dress like a lady but completely failed at it (MR 319). Once Matilde delivered the final blow to their relationship, San Luis’s attitude toward love mimicked his desire for a more socially equal Chile, which prompted him to add weapons to his wardrobe. As a magnetic guerrillero, he transformed his love for Matilde into a love for patria, which translated into a tragic motif in Martín Rivas. Blest Gana intentionally commented on Martín’s change of attire as he climbed the social ladder and followed his impossible dream. The young man fell for the daughter of one of the richest men in Santiago; in spite of her social status and pride, she also fell head over heels for him. For such an uneven match to take place, the young provincial was required to find the means to dress and act the appropriate part. The last lines of Blest Gana’s novel are from a letter that Martín wrote to his sister Mercedes. As expected, this document was fundamentally different from the one his father had written to don Dámaso to beg for some charitable support for his son’s stay in Santiago. In his last letter, Martín recounted how, the day after his return from exile, he took a stroll arm in arm with the beautiful Leonor down La Alameda, a prominent avenue in Santiago. Smartly dressed, no doubt, Martín found himself accompanying the most sought after young lady in the city; he eagerly communicated to his sister that he had felt overcome by pride in that moment. Indeed, in this walk Rivas expressed how the previously penniless young man from Copiapó, who once had lacked the means to buy even the lowest priced ticket on a ship to Valparaíso, had triumphed completely.

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Heroes and Enemies In part three, my examination of Machiavellian and quixotic attitudes extends to the characters in Durante la Reconquista and El ideal de un calavera as they negotiate the formation of Chile’s new republic and as they experience the infamous animosity between José Miguel Carrera (1785-1821), and Bernardo O’Higgins (1778-1842), the most eminent founding fathers of Chile. In El ideal de un calavera, I explore Abelardo’s involvement with the Motín de Quillota and reflect on the events that prompted his participation. Abelardo’s quixotic attitudes, and the Ministro’s energetic behind-the-scenes rule—which have been described as characteristically Machiavellian—are subjects of my analysis. In general, Durante la Reconquista and El ideal de un calavera, through the filter of Romanticism, present characters whose specific idealistic notions are reminiscent of don Quijote; they also run counter to the materialistic concerns that are described throughout both novels. As a segue, I draw parallels between the characters’ historical circumstances and the presidency of Salvador Allende in the twentieth century. In the prologue to Durante la Reconquista, Jaksiü and Durán have emphasized that Blest Gana did not only revive the heroics of Chileans as they slowly but surely retrieved their nation from the Spaniards. The author also delimited the severe social and political borderlines that characterized the emergence of the Chilean nation (13). In the same vein, Guillermo Gotschlich has asserted that Blest Gana’s task in Durante la Reconquista was to study people’s lives in a transitional period between the end of Colonialism and the beginning of a conceptualization of nationalism (1991, 30). In this sense, Blest Gana’s historical novel constructed episodes of social order in Chile and exposed how a large conservative contingent of the population welcomed the repossession of their land by the Spaniards. Accordingly, Chile as a territory appeared to be physically retaken by the Spaniards during the desperate sunset of their power on the American continent. It was also, as a nation, a locus of ideological dispute with criollos who differed in their views about what Chile was and should become. As underscored by Gotschlich, the novel emphasized the ambiguity and expectancy of the patriots as they came to terms with the reconquest by the peninsulares (1991, 30). Abel Malsira, the protagonist of one of Chile’s most famous historical novels, was appropriately called “unstable” [inestable] by Poblete Varas (218). The young patrician emblematized the criollos’ mixed feelings about patria. He was truly indecisive, not here nor there about his love of nation, and thus failed to possess a nationalistic political compass. Just as he intermittently

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developed a change of heart toward his vanquished nation, he haltingly progressed from a superficial love for Violante de Alarcón, a beautiful Spanish lady, to a profound—and genuinely patriotic—love for Luisa Bustos, a thoroughbred Chilean young woman. Opening in 1836, nineteen years after the Spaniards left the country for good, El ideal de un calavera used history to highlight, among other costumbres, the vast gap between the lives of Chileans of different social classes and their struggle between idealistic and materialistic concerns. In the same manner as Martín Rivas, the author set the story of El ideal de un calavera one year before a socio-political event would shake the nation. In this case, the novel opened during the last year of minister Diego Portales’s life and exposed the country’s divided opinion on the Ministro: The name of Don Diego Portales, still surrounded by the reflections of a systematic admiration and the flames of hatred, resounds from one end of the Republic to another. [El nombre de don Diego Portales, que rodean todavía los reflejos de una admiración sistemática, y los resplandores del odio, resuena de un confín a otro de la República (IC, II; 319)].

In El Ideal de un calavera, claims of friendship with Portales were made by a number of characters. Among them was don Lino Alcunza, a decadent aristocrat-businessman who loudly claimed access to the highest levels of the Chilean government and boasted of his contact with the problem-solver Ministro. On this, Jay Kinsbruner has asserted that Portales’s main mission when he came into power was to solidify an interregnum period after independence from Spain (1967, 8). Jocelyn-Holt has argued as well that three complimentary political strategies were attempted during this period. First were those strategies that dealt with the implementation of authoritarianism. Next was a regulation of the balance between civic and militaristic endeavors. Last was the putting into place of judicial-constitutional trials (2011, 357). Toward the end of this process, Portales was a key figure because he shaped Chile into a nation that would be ruled by businessmen (Kinsbruner 1967, 10). This same social model was imitated in the twentieth century during the rule of Augusto Pinochet when a scheme was put in place to support the graduate studies of the socalled Chilean “Chicago boys” in the Economics Department at the University of Chicago, home of Milton Friedman. Maurizio Viroli has asserted that Machiavelli’s theories and perspectives on life were informed by political treatises that emphasized how a truthful vivere politico among people could never be obtained “without civic

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equality and concord” (1990, 151). In contemporary Chile, Machiavelli’s theories illuminate Allende’s aborted presidency, 1970-1973 and General Pinochet’s seventeen-year dictatorship, 1973-1990. Defined by Contardo as an abajista,21 with an “affected voice” [voz engolada] and a preference for well-cut suits (295), Allende and his ideas stood out and were a thorn in the side of conservative groups for decades, beginning with his multiple candidacies for the presidency and ending with his glorious death at La Moneda. As Allende himself stated, he could not be forgiven for his impeccable taste in clothing: “It is the cut of my suit or the color of my tie that condemns me” [Es el corte de mi traje o el color de mi corbata lo que se me imputa] (“Salvador Allende por Salvador Allende”). Allende was born in privilege and, like the cuicos (well-to-do, upper-class) who were aptly defined by Contardo, his refined voice and cultivated conversation betrayed his abajista tendencies, putting his upper-middle class roots out in the open. Ironically, Portales himself was an abajista. Described by many of his biographers as feeling uncomfortable in the regal spaces of the tertulias, he was nonetheless at ease at the humble picholeos. In those spaces, he would relax and be himself, dancing the colonial zamacueca22 and playing the vihuela, a stringed musical instrument. Pinochet appropriated Portales during his mandate, and thus the two abajistas, Allende and Portales, came to represent two opposite socio-political spheres of the Chilean republic in the twentieth century. Given that Blest Gana had a lot to prove with Durante la Reconquista, we can guess that he would have been gratified by Alone’s comment that, with his historical novel, “it seemed as if don Alberto never left Chile” [parece que don Alberto no hubiera salido de Chile] (1940, 176). As a testament of chilenidad, the novel absorbed every sector of the nation. It illustrated how patriots became either defiant or compliant as Chileans sought to accommodate a life of servitude to Spain. During the worst oppression, quixotic desires for liberty were countered by loyalist reactions, and the faint outlines of an eventual nation of enemies could begin to be seen within the patriotic community. As a matter of fact, beside the incomparable Manuel Rodríguez, and the picaresque figure of

21

A term defined as opposite to arribista. Contardo defines abajistas as individuals born in privilege who become advocates for the underprivileged. Additionally, they favor the values and beliefs of the less fortunate. The epitome of an abajista in the twentieth century was the iconic Che Guevara. 22 This colonial dance was initiated in the viceroyalty of Peru and has traditionally been considered a precursor of Chile’s cueca, the national dance.

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el roto Filiberto Cámara,23 Luisa Bustos stood out as a paragon of patriotism, a young woman hopelessly in love with Abel, a man who did not deserve to be loved by such a formidable woman. As Spanish rule reestablished itself, the new governor, general Mariano Osorio, needed to be on good terms with the upper crust of Chilean society. Many Chilean patricians had quickly retired to their farms on the outskirts of Santiago, anticipating that the Spaniards would seek to punish those who had had an influential role in initiating a total break from empire. As the novel opened, therefore, the city of Santiago was empty of socially prominent males because they had chosen to ostracize themselves in the face of their calamitous political circumstances. Thinking himself to be a suave Machiavellian, Osorio ingratiated himself with the powerful loyalist families who had remained in Santiago. At the same time, he offered an olive branch to those who had left the city. Dissembling his true feelings for them, Osorio simultaneously and discreetly planned to punish them with the full force of the empire through the dark methods of his subordinate Captain Vicente San Bruno. In Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera, nineteenth-century social clashes prolonged themselves as Chileans continued to conceptualize their nation. Later, in the twentieth century, Machiavellian and quixotic themes revealed themselves in the perennial presidential candidacy of Allende, who stood for change and integration of the popular masses. He captured the beliefs of many exuberant and idealistic Chileans who followed his implausible dreams of social justice. Allende’s quixotic candidacy lasted almost twenty years, from 1952 until 1970, and could be said to be a case study in resilience. He never gave up and, against all odds, persisted in the pursuit of his goal to be president of Chile. Allende’s last days were tumultuous, with few options left, and can be characterized by Machiavelli’s quote that “we should fear all enemies because they all intend their own glory and our ruin” (FH, V, 11; 1248) [Ogni nimico debbe essere da voi ragionevolmente temuto, perché tutti vorranno la gloria loro e la rovina vostra (p. 538)]. Allende understood this completely. One such enemy, Augusto Pinochet, had been Allende’s trusted general, brought to power that critical 23rd August 1973, only nineteen days before the coup. In a way, then, Allende caused his own 23

The figure of the roto in Chile evinces a variety of socio-cultural meanings. Victor Figueroa Clark defines the roto in the following terms: “A dark-skinned mestizo, the roto was admired as a symbol of ‘chilenidad’ (chileanness), the ‘ethnic basis of the Chilean nation’. Yet at the same time the roto was scorned for his poverty and ignorance, and for his lack of respect for the law, for his propensity to violence and rebellion, and for drunkenness” (8).

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downfall by failing to be wary of the empowerment of the Armed Forces, illustrating Machiavelli’s assertion about the fall of the Roman republic: “Pompey began to fear Caesar too late. This fear caused them to seek remedies, and the remedies they adopted hastened the downfall of their republic” (D, I, 33; 93) [Pompeio aveva tardi cominciato a temere Cesare. La quale paura fede che pensarono ai rimedii e gli rimedi che feciero accelerarono la rovina della loro republica (p. 1532)]. Vilified by the international community, Pinochet nonetheless continues to receive the staunch support of a significant sector of Chileans, who see in him a sort of Pater Patriae who rescued Chile from the infidels. Since supporters of Pinochet believed themselves to be at war, they were blinded for years to the regime’s human rights abuses. With diametrically opposed views of patria, they considered their “opponents,” fellow Chileans, as enemies to be defeated in battle and by whatever other means, including torture. In the historical episodes treated in Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera, the conservatives withstood the political tests imposed by the insurgents and managed to continue their grip on the country’s direction and to maintain their place in the social order amid a tenuous calm. In the twentieth century, Allende’s brief tenure as president was assailed on all sides, that is by conservatives and members of the ultra-left alike. In an internecine feud, Allende’s dream of socialism through democracy was severely suppressed. In contemporary Chile, in a Foucauldian heterotopic mode, the post Pinochet democratic governments have had to contend with the Allende years. Allende’s audacious and idealistic mandate is now like a museum exhibit which, for Foucault, epitomized “the will to enclose in one place all times, all epochs, all forms, all tastes, the idea of constituting a place of all times that is itself outside of time and inaccessible to its ravages” (1986, 26). Allende’s mandate was a reaction to what he perceived as inaction and injustice on the part of previous presidential administrations. For that reason, his presidency, as a heterotopia, contained, in Foucault’s words, “all times, all epochs” of Chilean political history. Nowadays, even the conservative government of Miguel Piñera Echeñique, 2010-2014, has been required to contend with the accumulated impact of Allende’s ideas over time. Like Portales, with such a brief period in power, Allende and his failed attempt to redraw the geographical boundaries of wealth and to improve the wellbeing of the nation’s citizens still occupies a divisive place in the national narrative, one that must be negotiated by Chile’s leaders as they define their purposes and set the country’s direction. In fact, political divisiveness is articulated concretely in contemporary Chile through Santiago’s Museo de la Memoria (Museum

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of Memory), an intersection of spaces that narrate a nation in pain.24 In a heterotopic mode, the museum provides a detailed account of 11th September 1973, including a continually repeating rendition of Allende’s famous farewell, photos, oral testimonies, cultural artifacts, and print documents in general. With vestiges of Allende’s ambitious yet quixotic political ideology on display, the Museo de la Memoria imposes a reassessment of Chile’s history and social order. More than two decades ago, Constable and Valenzuela, analyzing the country’s socio-political divide, spoke of “being struck by the vast and psychological gap between two Chiles—the winners and losers of the Pinochet years” (10). In 1991, the historians accurately perceived the country as a “nation of enemies” (10) and gave us a piercing assessment that continues to be accurate in the second decade of the twenty-first century.

24 A striking feature of the museum is its main entrance. Visitors first read “We are Five Thousand” [Somos cinco mil], a poem written by Víctor Jara, composed at a time when he was being tortured by the military police. The poem remains an indelible testament to the violence inflicted upon Chilean citizens by the Pinochet regime.

CHAPTER ONE CABALLEROS AND THE NATION

The Politics of Liberty in Machiavelli and Cervantes Machiavelli brought the Romans, whom he perceived as the caballeros of classical antiquity, to a vanquished sixteenth-century Florence. Cervantes brought caballeros from the books of chivalry back into the seventeenthcentury socio-political discourse of Spain. When they wrote their masterpieces, Machiavelli and Cervantes were not leading members of mainstream society. They struggled to be heard by reticent audiences that considered them washouts. They had nothing to lose and much to prove, which is why their texts evince such terse philosophies on life. Machiavelli poured his heart out in treatises like The Discourses on Livy and The Prince, both published after his death in 1531 and 1532, respectively. With his plays La Mandragola and La Clizia, he brought to the stage the disappointments of his life, events that he chose to acknowledge with humor.1 For Cervantes, his Don Quijote (1605, 1615) and his Exemplary Novels (1613) described the mishaps of life, which Cervantes addressed with irony and a smile, albeit a sad one. Machiavelli longed for Florence to be free to become a city-state modeled after the Roman republic, which for his biographer Roberto Ridolfi was “the only Rome he loved” (148). He expected that his writings would help him to regain a position in policy making, a field he cherished and where he once flourished like a political machine. Memorably, Ridolfi asserted that Machiavelli owed his masterpieces to his contemporary’s “malevolence, selfishness, and indifference” (150). Cervantes, for his part, was a faithful soldier and sacrificed himself for his country by participating in momentous episodes of Spain’s history. His conduct recalls Machiavelli’s succinct expression in the Art of War: “But of all the 1

In Foxes and Lions: Machiavelli’s Confidence Men, Wayne Rebhorn analyzes how Machiavelli’s personal life became intertwined with his own personal writings, 3. Also, see Charles D. Tarlton, “Machiavelli’s The Prince as Memoir.” Texas Studies in Literature and Language 46.1 (2004): 1-19.

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methods that can be taken to gain the hearts of the people, none contributes so much as remarkable examples of continence and justice” (VI; 179) [Ma tra tutte le cose con le quali i capitani si guadagnano i popoli, sono gli essempli di castità e di giustizia (p. 3682-3683)]. In no uncertain terms, Cervantes was extremely proud of his role as a soldier. It provided a firm foundation for his socio-political views, which were themselves informed by his numerous and personal ups and downs. As for his fiction, Cervantes never abandoned his dream of becoming a respectable man of letters, freed from tedious work, a fact made especially acute while he toiled in the inhospitable countryside as a civil servant for the monarchy. The warrior and tax collector maintained an ongoing conversation with contemporary and classic literary texts, as we see in Diana de Armas Wilson’s study (2000, 171-172). Cervantes would have felt a kinship toward Machiavelli, and from this perspective their points of connection have received welldeserved scholarly attention.2 Like Cervantes, Machiavelli also dreamt big, shaping his ideas while walking the hallways of the Palazzo Vecchio, completely engaged with classical and contemporary literary figures. He wrote epistles and attempted poetry as eagerly as he committed himself to politics. He rode on horseback to raise a quixotic, dreamt-for militia for the Florentines. Post res perditas, he enjoyed walking about in San Casciano, in an attempt to recover himself by leading the life of a contadino, peasant. Machiavelli feverishly studied historical events from the ancient past. He combined these studies with an analysis of his own present to produce political treatises and works of fiction that brought to light and conformed to a common set of essential concepts: necessità (necessity), occasione, fortuna, and virtù. Despondent that Florence had become increasingly dependent on outside forces in order to maintain its civic liberty, Machiavelli conceptualized and reshaped for his contemporaries the classic rhetoric of gli antichi, the ancients. For him, the writings of gli antichi were the invaluable remains of a glorious past which served as exempla for the present. In his conception, the Roman terra patria, land of the fathers, was sacred soil to be venerated by citizens without selfishness or individualistic pursuits, for the love of country, for liberty and for the 2 Terrence Ball, in “The Picaresque Prince: Reflections on Machiavelli and Moral Change,” uncovers insightful parallels between the Florentine Secretary and Cervantes’s don Quijote. In his words, “Machiavellian virtù shares some crucial affinities with the older Homeric conception of virtue. In attempting to reinstate something like this archaic conception of virtue, Machiavelli’s model prince rather resembles Don Quixote. For both are alike in failing to recognize the mutability of our moral concepts” (522).

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common good, as Maurizio Viroli has claimed (1995, 18-19). Undoubtedly, Machiavelli sought an alternative past, one without the injustices that he perceived in Florence, for instance, in the city’s political trials where magistrates allowed influential citizens to get away with breaking the law. Per John McCormick, the civil officials lacked the courage, the virtù to make those privileged citizens truly pay for their crimes (122-123). In a quixotic stance, the Florentine Secretary believed that trials had to be conducted in a way that included the Florentine populace (124). Machiavelli’s dicta fascinated the Italian states and the rest of Europe. The Art of War was the only text to be published during his lifetime, in 1521, but his entire body of work was widely distributed through manuscripts and was therefore available in European courts and libraries. In fact, Machiavelli’s avid readers included Charles V himself, the first Spanish emperor, which Helena Puigdomènech has documented (1988, 42). In the second half of the sixteenth century, not long after the Council of Trent, his works were prohibited by papal decree. But, as Keith Howard has noted, Spanish authors continued to use Machiavelli’s ideas, most of the time without proper acknowledgment, adopting them for specific political purposes (101-108).3 He had an irresistible formula, one that delivered a poignant message about princedoms and republics in an elegant, acerbic style. For this reason, he was heavily plagiarized by European authors, in particular by opportunistic French and Spanish religious court authors. Profiting from the pragmatic freshness of such a spectacular text as The Prince, these authors utilized Machiavelli’s words out of context. They usurped his brilliancy so that they could advance their own courtly agendas. In point of fact, this form of plagiarism ensured that Machiavelli’s work would continue to be read and cited, even as his political philosophy was increasingly maligned, especially as a result of the Protestant and Catholic conflicts that consumed Europe after his death in 1527. The anti-Machiavellians made a concerted effort to denigrate Machiavelli and his words. Despite this, their advice to princes and leaders set new and multidimensional strategic precedents. In this way, they went even farther into the art of government than had The Prince. For Foucault, whereas the Florentine Secretary’s conception of a ruler was focused on his role in preserving a realm, the anti-Machiavellians translated this to 3

In The Reception of Machiavelli in Early Modern Spain, Keith Howard discusses the motivations for the “anti-Machiavellian” authors to use Machiavelli’s dicta. For instance, Juan de Santa María adopted Machiavelli’s political philosophy to alert Philip III to the dangers inherent in entrusting his government to his valido, his favorite, the Duke of Lerma. See Howard, pp.102-108.

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mean something else, without even realizing it: “Being able to hold on to one’s principality is not the same as possessing the art of governing” (2007, 92). Of course, Machiavelli was dealing with an entirely different reality than his plagiarizers. He foresaw a more contemporary, disorderly world, and the art of governing that he prescribed for his new ruler was focused on a unique brand of political turmoil. For Miguel Vatter, in fact, the sixteenth-century author signaled a revolutionary desire for a free political life that was expressed as “absence of domination” (5). For Vatter, then, Machiavelli, especially in his Discourses, effected a discontinuity in traditional political thought. This brought about a new consciousness which can be best related to modernity’s “sites of conflict between foundationalist and emancipatory claims,” to use Vatter’s words (2). Benedict Anderson, describing the eighteenth century as the dawn of the conception of nation and nationalism in Europe, has defined a nation as a conglomeration of cultural artefacts that acquired historical significance and meaning over time. Because one could not ascribe any genuine physicality to it, the nation for Anderson was best understood as “an imagined political community” (4-5). Umut Özkirimli has challenged Anderson’s time frame by maintaining that nationalism was already apparent in the Reformation (131). Other scholars have argued that individuals’ perception of nation existed in the medieval mind. Machiavelli himself was thinking proto-nationally as he reflected on the mishaps of his republic and the Italian states. All in all, then, Machiavelli and Cervantes conceived of patria as nation as they contemplated remedies for the perceived ailments of their realms. Using masculine caballeros of antiquity, i.e. the Romans and the heroes of chivalric romances, both paved unique and outrageous routes to the recovery of civic liberty. Machiavelli saw in the Romans of the republic a type of “imagined community,” one that represented the glorious past of the Italian peninsula and that united them as a nation. In Don Quijote, Cervantes uncovered analogous behaviors in the heroes of his books of chivalry and the New World conquistadores. As they sought to establish new communities, conquistadores were at times rightly described as quixotic, albeit anachronistically. Related to this, Wilson has noted that “[t]he New World, in short, had been manifestly hospitable to ‘quixotic’ careers long before Don Quixote was born” (2002, 221). Anthony Cascardi has pointed out that, in Don Quijote the conversations involving politics and the polis appear to connect to “no territorial community at all” (2012, 166). In a Spanish monarchy caught between a Pax Hispanica with Northern Europe and the hotly debated

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final expulsion of the moriscos, Muslims (Barton 121), Cervantes’s novel reflected the travails of those caught between an old order that wanted to oppress and a new order that desired to be free. From a political perspective, in his depiction of Spain, Cervantes enacted Machiavelli’s views of the perennial power struggles among the Romans in their republic, which are covered in his Discourses. In Don Quijote, the former Alonso Quijano grappled with his circumstances in seventeenth-century Spain as much as he embraced the stories he read in his library. Following Stacey Triplette, we can see that there appeared to be a strong correlation between the ideal parts of the chivalric novels as well as the real, rather gruesome, references to conquest and slavery, and this was perhaps a means of making an indirect critique of those cultural practices (164). Nonetheless, one aspect of the magic of Cervantes’s hero stems from don Quijote’s “rare heroism in the face of mundane reality,” a characterization made by Alexander Welsh (80). When Alonso Quijano became a selfproclaimed caballero, there was no way that he could change his surroundings. With virtù, he confronted his seventeenth-century avatars all the while living in the mode of a knight of antiquity. Inns and castles were intertwined and the two were turned into one, such that his whole vision of the world became a dazzling venta-castillo, an inn that it is also a castle. In a sense, as a proto-Quijote, Machiavelli had done the same with his admired Romans. He praised them for holding on to a republic for about half a century even as he attempted to fold them into the life of sixteenthcentury proto-capitalist merchants, strong men, and businessmen in general. Cervantes understood that he had broken new ground in the felicitous creation of a unique character, an old man who “was approximately fifty years old; his complexion was weathered, his flesh scrawny, his face gaunt” (I, 1; 19) [Frisaba la edad de nuestro hidalgo con los cincuenta años; era de complexion recia, seco de carnes, enjuto de rostro (p. 36)]. He feasted on books about the glorious paths taken by ridiculed, archaic caballeros, following similarly ridiculed chivalric codes of honor. He was the perennial intellectual who lived to read, so much so that he stopped eating, hunting or taking care of things, preferring to read things like “The reason for the unreason to which my reason turns so weakens my reason that with reason I complain of thy beauty” (I, 1; 20) [La razón de la sinrazón que a mi razón se hace, de tal manera mi razón enflaquece, que con razón me quejo de la vuestra fermosura (p. 37)]. The story goes that the shriveled old man understood chivalry so well that he would have surpassed Aristotle, had the venerable Greek been resurrected for the purpose of disentangling and understanding books of chivalry (I, 1).

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Reading voraciously until “his brains dried up causing him to lose his mind” (I, 1; 21) [se le secó el celebro, de manera que vino a perder el juicio (p. 37)], he became a consummate expert in knight errantry. One day, following feverish reading of the many adventures of the honorable caballeros, he underwent one of the most famous and unique metamorphoses in Western culture: The truth is that when his mind was completely gone, he had the strangest thought any lunatic in the world ever had, which was that it seemed reasonable and necessary to him, both for the sake of his honor and as a service to the nation, to become a knight errant and travel the world with his armor and his horse to seek adventures and engage in everything he had read that knights errant engaged in, righting all manner of wrongs and, by seizing the opportunity and placing himself in danger and ending those wrongs, winning eternal renown and everlasting fame. The poor man imagined himself already wearing the crown, won by the valor of his arm, of the empire of Trebizond at the very least; and so it was that with these exceedingly agreeable thoughts, and carried away by the extraordinary pleasure he took in them, he hastened to put into effect what he so fervently desired (I, 1; 21-22). [En efeto, rematado ya su juicio, vino a dar en el más estraño pensamiento que jamás dio loco en el mundo, y fue que le pareció convenible y necesario, así para el aumento de su honra como para el servicio de su república, hacerse caballero andante y irse por todo el mundo con sus armas y caballo a buscar las aventuras y a ejercitarse en todo aquello que él había leído que los caballeros andantes se ejercitaban, deshaciendo todo género de agravio y poniéndose en ocasiones y peligros donde, acabándolos, cobrase eterno nombre y fama. Imaginábase el pobre ya coronado por el valor de su brazo, por lo menos del imperio de Trapisonda; y así, con estos tan agradables pensamientos, llevado del estraño gusto que en ellos sentía, se dio priesa a poner en efeto lo que deseaba (p. 38)].

Written supposedly to expose the malignant influence of the books of chivalry, this text became arguably the first Western novel, and its hero one of the most appealing characters of all time. It paraphrased the unselfish modes of the caballeros of the books of chivalry and highlighted the degree to which Cervantes was a “voracious consumer… of the chivalric novel,” according to Shannon Polchow (72). As Triplette has discussed, Iberian books of chivalry embraced the mode of materialistic quests where caballeros sought the hand of rich damsels, and thus gained territories and wealth (164). In Don Quijote, therefore, the caballero’s idealism went hand in hand with his sense of being part of a rather materialistic social community. From the beginning of his transformation

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into a knight errant, don Quijote understood that he had to be at the service of his republic—his contemporary republic, that is. The everyday social practices of seventeenth-century Spanish society permeated both his and Sancho’s behavior; don Quijote remained a resident of the material world and was constantly exposed to the harshness of everyday living, as Carroll Johnson’s seminal Cervantes and the Material World has made clear (1). In spite of his chivalric locura, madness, don Quijote was extremely ambitious and thirsty for glory, the kind of knight who would later hastily offer his squire Sancho an island as a reward for following him and his dream. From the beginning of his transformation to knighthood, therefore, he contemplated both the ideal and the real, connecting both to the possibility of attaining an empire. In memorable episodes, don Quijote became a narrator of chivalric stories; that is, a novelist himself. He mesmerized Sancho when he spoke of an ideal knight who exercised such virtù that, without hesitating, he disposed of his heavy armor and, without much thought, literally went for his dream by throwing himself “into the middle of the boiling lake” (I, 50; 429) [en mitad del bullente lago (p. 500)]. He had no idea where he would land, but he had complete faith that he would be successful. In fact, after the knight finally arrived on land, don Quijote was happy to say that the caballero of his story found “himself among flowering meadows even more beautiful than the Elysian Fields” (I, 50; 429) [se halla entre unos floridos campos, con quien los Elíseos no tienen que ver en ninguna cosa (p. 500)]. Don Quijote engaged his readers with literary traditions and used his famous discourse about the Arms vs. Letters dispute to cast a bright light on the hardships of soldiers, which Cervantes had experienced himself. He was not just expounding on leading a good life; he was making a political statement and reflecting on what it means “to govern well,” to quote Cascardi (2012, 89). In a self-referential allusion to his own predicament, Cervantes indicated that in battle soldiers risked death and, if spared that, were required to endure the strenuous conditions of a debilitating wound, which ostracized them from society. With biographical detail, the knight errant described how, after being injured in battle, a soldier would earn the unique sad “degree” offered in a soldier’s profession, “his tasseled academic cap, made of bandages to heal a bullet wound” (I, 38; 331) [le pondrán la borla en la cabeza, hecha de hilas para curarle algún balazo (p. 391)] that had maimed a soldier’s arm or leg. Abandoned by society, soldiers were, for the knight errant, the unrewarded defenders of kingdoms and cities; they kept “cities defended, roads made secure, seas cleared of pirates” (I, 38; 331-332) [se guardan las ciudades, se aseguran los caminos, se despejan los mares de corsarios (p. 392)]. Instead of earning

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favor, they were many times looked down upon. For don Quijote, these individuals always remained poor, with rare exceptions. Their lives were at constant risk and they received no societal rewards for their heroism (I, 38; 332) (p. 392). Conquistadores and the knights errant, both emblems of imperialist Spain, were on the mind of don Quijote as he set off to rescue damsels in distress and to conquer empires, according to Wilson (2002, 209). Wilson has claimed, furthermore, that Cervantes’s own impecunious and itinerant life created the conditions for him to “speculate on, as well as to fictionalize, the New World,” a geographical space that he represented as both a blessing and a curse (2000, 33). Luxury markets, barter, money and commerce were also part of the background of the medieval books that don Quijote absorbed, along with the ideals of the knights errant, as Michael Harney has noted (383). The caballeros of the past, therefore, signaled a type that meshed idealistic pursuits together with materialistic views of the world. Don Quijote infused this combination into his persona, which made him a fascinating character for anybody he encountered. Since Don Quijote conceived of himself in literary terms, he made decisions about his life based on literary texts and the objects of print culture in general. By modelling himself after the knights errant of antiquity, Cervantes’s caballero encompassed all the past stories that Alonso Quijano had read in those books of chivalry. Having heard the words of the old epic, a new language emerged to eclipse and obliterate the discourse of Quijano himself, as Foucault has argued (1994, 46). By deploying canonical texts, Cervantes analyzed the “real” and interrogated the mores of seventeenth-century Spanish society, an effort that revealed a nation in conflict with itself. As we see in the work of Barbara Fuchs, the Spanish state was undergoing a historical creation of its own, reconstructing itself according to the times. Aided by the church, Spain chose to reaffirm a past imbued in Christianity, aiming for a religious and ethnically homogeneous Spanish empire. The state left outside of its collective identity any subjects with Jewish or Moorish ancestry; that is, any subjects whose heritage did not align with Spain’s hegemonic estatutos de pureza de sangre (Blood purity statutes). Fuchs has found a subversive stance in Cervantes and views Don Quijote partly as a voice for the outsiders, the fluid, unreadable subjects who were rejected by the Spanish empire. In episodes that suggest a kind of ethnic “passing,” Cervantes’s characters performed a “deliberate impersonation” of another gender or religion (3-4). The Spanish empire of the seventeenth century was a highly diverse place, as Henry Kamen has pointed out. “Spain” by itself did not signify an entire political unit; court authors

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nonetheless made the effort to define the nation by identifying “who it was that did not belong” (13). For the historiographer, a narration of national identity was created in Spain by nineteenth-century politicians precisely at the time when the Spanish colonies were pledging allegiance to a crown that had been subjugated to Napoleon. Evidently, the ethnic uniformity of Spain’s past did not fit with the melting pot that was Western Europe. As Kamen has observed, in pre-industrial Europe, physical spaces like Germany, Italy, Britain, and Spain were inhabited by diverse people, featuring distinctive “customs, languages, foods, drinks, dress, weights and measures, attitudes, religious practice, soil, plants, animals, climate” (11). Altogether, these physical territories did not exist politically or culturally as a whole, and this forced the intelligentsia of the nineteenth century to idealize nationhood and national identity. In that endeavor, the creation myth of the Spanish nation cast a happy light upon past monarchies, specifically that of Ferdinand and Isabella, whose triumphal reign and cohesiveness, it was understood, became rapidly diminished by consecutive, inept, and demoralizing “foreign dynasties” (8). Machiavelli studied Italy’s ancient past, with a focal point on the methods and styles of its exemplary men so that he could correct—and visualize—the political schemes of contemporary Italian and European cities. In his research, he described the deeds of men of antiquity, admiring their actions but objecting when necessary. He thereby painted an idealistic portrait that never fully abandoned a sense of reality. Eric Cochrane has remarked that the Italian author was not so willing to provide “general laws” from observation, as he was to provide exempla for beliefs which, to an extent, he already held “in petto” (120-121). Like all other Spanish texts, Cervantes’s work was scrutinized by the Index Librorum Prohibitorum and subjected to a censura praevia, a close reading to detect sacrilegious themes, a process which Frederick De Armas has analyzed in his work (2013, 138). Men of virtù, the caballeros of yesteryear provided don Quijote with a safe vantage point from which to examine and confront the political injustices of his time. This observation requires us to consider Cervantes’s novel in some ways as a disguised political treatise, one that adopted the rhetoric of a bygone past in order to appear disengaged from seventeenth-century Spanish reality. Arguably, the obvious humor of the text did not threaten the Index. On the contrary, it appeared to make it possible for a loco-cuerdo, mad-sane person, to be allowed to interrogate and criticize his society. In this manner, all the dusty roads, the anonymous towns, inns, etc., provided spaces for the knight errant, Sancho, and their fellow travelers to discuss contemporary socio-political events safely. The recreation of the Roman

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republic within the context of sixteenth-century Florence—and the other Italian states—served a similar purpose for Machiavelli and, therefore, can be seen as analogous to Cervantes’s own attempt through Don Quijote to comprehend, politicize, and, above all, dramatize, within the context of civic liberty, “early European desire for nationhood” (Oz 117).4 Viroli has emphasized how Machiavelli held the Romans in great admiration precisely because they had maintained a successful republic for more than four hundred years. For the Florentine Secretary, the Romans’ love of country and unwavering commitment to setting aside differences in order to fight for the common good reflected a civic attitude that had found no match in contemporary Italian history (1995, 31). In an analysis of Machiavelli’s sense of civic duty, Genaro Sasso has remarked how the Florentine Secretary was forever at a loss to explain the political decay of his time and the city’s lack of the sort of common goals that would preserve its liberty. Because he was uneasy with the times in which he lived, Machiavelli was portrayed by close associates as a man full of contradictions; he possessed an exuberant, genuine form of enthusiasm— evident in his lively correspondence with others—but would also become overwhelmed by a deep sense of nostalgia (20). He lamented that, unlike France and Spain, his native Florence and the rest of the Italian territories had not attempted to become a cohesive political unit. John Najemy has observed that patrician Francesco Guicciardini, a historian by profession, and a personal friend of Machiavelli, thought that the Florentine author 4 Avraham Oz discusses the idea of nationhood in Shakespeare’s Shylock and how the character’s pragmatic view of a nationalistic community, rooted in a commercial ethos, alludes to the nationalistic pragmatism expressed by Machiavelli. Oz affirms: “Only few nowadays would dispute the viability of the desire for nation for a Renaissance humanist such as Machiavelli; some would argue, with John Langton, that Machiavelli’s nationalism, as reflected in The Prince, overcame his republicanism” (117). Machiavelli and Cervantes, to an extent, refer to territorial powers, what we would now consider a nation. As Benedict Anderson and others argue, nation formation in Western culture finds definition at the end of the eighteenth century (ch. 1 Anderson). Machiavelli, aware of the feeble Italian states and desiring Italian unity, when examining the Spaniards and the French, viewed the two monarchies as distinctive units. In studying the Spanish and French militaristic traditions, Machiavelli, in a way, spoke of imagined communities; in sum, he perceived Spain and France as communities established in territories delimited by frontiers that shared particular features, such as the same language. Likewise, for Cervantes, as Carroll Johnson maintains, don Quijote and Sancho Panza’s ups and down reflect the critical historical context of the first decades of seventeenth-century Spain (See Part I: “Feudalism and Stillborn Capitalism”).

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delighted in going against the grain. Guicciardini called Machiavelli a restless individual, a person of “contraria professione,” different beliefs, not only because Guicciardini assumed his friend possessed nontraditional religious perspectives, but also because he knew that Machiavelli sought and enjoyed “the punch and the counterpunch of intellectual combat” (Najemy 2010, 4). Cervantes, also of “contraria professione,” was pugnacious in his prologues and stories and imbued his most celebrated characters with his own defiant spirit. In the chapters of part one and two, Don Quijote and Sancho Panza’s ceaseless conversation revolved around the world they inhabited together, and was filled with the intention of constructing the ideal world they wished to inhabit. Don Quijote was always ready for combat, physical and rhetorical, especially if someone said something that rubbed him the wrong way. Like Machiavelli’s ideal prince, don Quijote became a formidable and timeless, unattainable and longed for, figure of political power. With extreme virtù, Cervantes created a fearless individual in don Quijote. Loved by the Romantic period, the knight errant never saw an enredo, knotty problem, that he could not fix. In spite and because of his madness, the knight errant amazed his interlocutors with his presence even as he perplexed them with his wisdom. Both authors were consummate playwrights and reacted to life’s hardships through mimetic as well as diegetic literary efforts. Their biographical predicaments became part of their works, appearing through thinly disguised or obvious characters. Whimsical, changeable, transformative episodes in the lives of Machiavelli and Cervantes appear underscored in essential parts of their writing. Naturally, Machiavelli’s interrogation of liberty and citizens’ rights had seeds in dramatic episodes from his own life, which he dissembled in his texts. The close study of ancient playwrights, penetrating commentary on contemporary politics, and innovative theatrical expressions were features of Machiavelli’s dramatic writings, as Ronald Martinez has shown (205). He had frequent opportunities to test his skills as a writer among kindred spirits at Cosimo Rucellai’s Orti Oricellari, a Neo Platonic literary salon that was a stage for intellectual conversation and a place where Machiavelli could test his theories about life. In La Mandragola and La Clizia, which are both permeated by key elements of his political writings, he borrowed from classic motifs but altered them into social commentaries on his own times. In fact, Machiavelli’s Clizia, whose title was taken from Ovid, is a translation of Plautus’ Casina, and was itself transformed and appropriated by the Florentine Secretary, who used the name of the protagonist,

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Nicomaco, to allude to his very own name, and “the foolish love of old Niccolò Machiavelli” (Wiles 71). Cervantes’s conception of civic liberty was rooted in the hardships of his life. In point of fact, he had asked his readers to conceive of Don Quijote as “begotten in a prison, where every discomfort has its place and every mournful sound makes its home” (I, Prologue; 3) [como quien se engendró en una cárcel, donde toda incomodidad tiene su asiento y donde todo triste ruido hace su habitación (p. 19)]. According to María Garcés, this comment went beyond metaphor and alluded directly to Cervantes’s own confinement in prison in Spain and to his years as a captive in Algiers, an experience that was ever present in his fiction (2). In part two of Don Quijote, the knight errant and squire found themselves in Barcelona, the very same city Cervantes was prevented from reaching when he was made captive as he returned to Spain. Following Fernand Braudel, we know that major European sea routes were controlled by the East (282), a fact made clear in this biographical episode. Don Quijote and Sancho were on board to experience the vigor of a life at sea when, together with their host don Antonio Moreno, they visited a galley full of rowing slaves. As expected, the galley commodore treated don Quijote with all the pomp accorded to an illustrious visitor, which delighted the knight errant. The knight’s diminutive squire, however, was seized and roughed up by the galley’s crew, which reminds us of his previous blanket tossing from part one. Naturally, Sancho and don Quijote were uneasy with the thunderous noise of the raised canopy. Covered with Dantesque motifs of miserable half-naked slaves portrayed as dammed souls, the galley petrified Sancho and made him wonder whether he had gone to hell. Don Quijote, the narration specified, “was frightened as well, and he trembled and hunched his shoulders, and color drained from his face” (II, 63; 877) [también se estremeció y encogió de hombros y perdió la color del rostro (p. 1002)]. As if leaping on a stage, a menacing Dantesque boatswain reached the galley’s gangway and energetically struck the crew’s backs with a whip. Sancho wondered despondently: “What have these unfortunate men done to be whipped in this way?” (II, 63; 877) [Qué han hecho estos desdichados, que ansí los azotan? (p. 1002)]. As the admiral general approached to ask about Dulcinea’s enchantment, a pirate Algerian brigantine, hunting for vessels in the Mediterranean, was detected by the galley seamen. Don Quijote and Sancho thus became unwitting witnesses to an episode taken from Cervantes’s own sea capture: “fate, having something else in store, ordained that… two Turks… on board the brigantine, fired their muskets and killed two soldiers” (II, 63; 878) [pero la suerte, que de otra manera lo guiaba, ordenó que… dos

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turcos, borrachos que en el bergantín venían… dispara[ran] dos escopetas, con que dieron muerte a dos soldados (p. 1003)]. For the Florentine secretary, individualistic, selfish pursuits, and conflicts of interest were inexorable human traits that inevitably created discord. Machiavelli contemplated the difficulties of living in a community; he encouraged individuals to be patient and to understand other people’s actions. Because of virtù, which Viroli considers a patriotic concept (1995, 33-35), Machiavelli felt that men were capable of curtailing their personal passions, finding ways to negotiate opposing positions, and resisting insolence and the impulse for personal gain. His concept of virtù, therefore, was of a skill that individuals had to develop on the run, while they learned to cope with life, as they were living. Through the exercise of virtù, individuals would clearly justify themselves to the people: the whys and the hows of their conduct, the reasons for their actions, even the cruel and negative ones would be explained; the citizens of virtù in general would be well understood by the populace. The power of virtù over individuals resulted from the positive outcomes that they obtained from it in good times and bad. Effective leaders were those who, through their own virtù, brought out the best in citizens, even those who felt antagonistic toward what they perceived to be threatening. The main goal was the betterment of the republic and society. Machiavelli was famously pessimistic about human nature, but he trusted that good judgment would arise in a society whose citizens conducted themselves with virtù. Individuals needed to discern between truth and error, and, from there, to negotiate. Doing this entailed suppressing selfish, negative impulses to reach a common goal that would benefit all. Virtù gave people the capacity to reach a consensus to preserve liberty in society. Predictably, the Florentine Secretary added his own contemporary overtones. These included his belief that through freewill— a concept vigorously debated by Erasmus and Luther—people possessed the ability to control fifty percent of their destiny. Adopting a protoMarxist stance that would later inform the work of twentieth-century Italian philosopher Antonio Gramsci (1891-1937), Machiavelli contended that the powerful always desired to oppress the people and the people, in turn, desired to be freed from the oppression of the powerful; hence “from the rift between the two” [dalla disunione loro] laws were passed and liberty was maintained or obtained (D, I, 4; 30) (p. 1158). In his Discourses, Machiavelli sided with Aristotle, who had proclaimed in The Politics that “an error made by those who desire to establish aristocratic constitutions is that they not only give more power to the well-to-do, but they also deceive the people” (IV, 12; 162). In the name of liberty,

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Machiavelli asserted that when good new ordini (orders) were created, people “readily yield when they are told the truth by a trustworthy man” (D, I, 4; 30) [facilmente cedano quando da uomo degno di fede è detto loro il vero (p. 1160)]. Therefore, for him effective leaders were those who sought the betterment of society. They needed always to be alert and in tune with the times; a thing that had worked once might not work a second time. In sum, heads of states or republics needed to seek and to seize the right occasione to display their virtù, their ability to preserve liberty in order “to make themselves and their native city great” (FH, Preface; 1032) [a fare sé a la loro patria grande (pp. 281-282)]. “The ubiquitous but often concealed” role of political power in Spanish society contributed to Cervantes’s own approach in Don Quijote, as we know from Cascardi’s examination of this topic (2012; 133). In the name of liberty, Alonso Quijano mightily recalled the past into the present, becoming don Quijote, a caballero that lived in what was perceived to be a troubled seventeenth-century Spain. For Julián Marías, Spanish historical perceptions idealized the monarchy of Ferdinand and Isabella, turning it into the standard for glorious empire, and thus casting the 1600s as an era of disillusionment, at odds with individuals’ desires (235-236). Our hidalgo was a true intellectual and possessed a dangerous library. He was conversant with all types of books: poetry, prose, theater, philosophy, and political treatises. Alonso Quijano elected to think of himself as a knight and thereby to deal as a caballero from the past with his present limited wealth and isolated social circumstances. As don Quijote, he perceived himself as a hero from his books of chivalry. He was not alone in preferring that choice of genre to start a new chapter in life. Debated by all main characters in Don Quijote, the books of chivalry, however, were preferred only by some. Characters such as the priest, the canon of Toledo, and the prelate considered them nefarious. With all his intellectual capacities and sharp intelligence, Alonso Quijano could have elected to live as a philosopher or even as a poet from antiquity, but he did not. He chose carefully, willfully and consciously to be a caballero. As he proceeded “to serve the state” and to conquer new territories, don Quijote encountered different social types: peasants that he imagined were members of the aristocracy, and, as their complete opposites, actual members of the high echelons of society who, because of their idleness, delighted in playing a role in performance for him. Undoubtedly, all the love stories, digressions, errors, etc., provided a sample of the state of the nation for Cervantes, together with a commentary on empire and its effect in society, as William Clamurro has argued (165). An example of this can be found in his second encounter with Andrés (I, 31), a young lad whom

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he was proud to have rescued from an evil countryman’s whipping (I, 4). The knight errant learned that, later, the young man had been even more cruelly punished because of don Quijote’s intervention. Forbidding don Quijote to intervene on his behalf ever again, Andrés exclaimed that his wish was to have enough money to head to Seville, probably hoping to embark for the New World (I, 31; 265) (p. 319), something that Cervantes himself was never allowed to do. Cervantes shared Machiavelli’s passion for dramatic comedy. He created don Quijote partly to allow for the performance of “a caballero” whose heroic and selfless actions would vividly contrast with a seventeenth-century framework of desengaño, disillusionment, and thus display the ser (to be), and parecer (to seem) elements that are inherent in an individual’s life. Cervantes, however, defined his character in careful and systematic ways, taking care not to depict him as totally mad or in constant conflict with reality, to cite Américo Castro (33). Trying to determine whether don Quixote was indeed a madman, fellow poet Lorenzo declared: “Truly Señor, Don Quixote… I would like to catch your grace in some foolish mistake, and I can’t, because you slip out of my hands like an eel” (II, 18; 572) [Verdaderamente, señor don Quijote… que deseo coger a vuesa merced en un mal latín continuado, y no puedo, porque se me desliza de entre las manos como anguila (p. 666)]. Anybody who met don Quijote could affirm that he was mad for living in the past; they could say simultaneously, however, that he was completely in tune with his times because Cervantes brilliantly rooted don Quijote in the present. Surrounded by a perplexed audience of illiterate goatherds, the knight errant passionately exalted the mythical Golden Age of men, when people lived in community and there was no need for arbitrary laws. The embedded classical literary connotations are obvious. But they appear against the discreet backdrop of a power struggle between a decaying old order and an emerging new one. The feudalism of the humble goatherds and the proto-capitalism of Sancho come clearly into focus for the reader through the eyes of an archaic but highly perceptive knight errant. In don Quijote’s world, there are enchanters and fabled stories which coexist with flesh and blood people and their real seventeenth-century realities. From this duel existence, he produced a palpable yet indefinable political discourse. After being released from his social imprisonment and utter humiliation at the ducal court, don Quijote was elated when he and Sancho could again roam the open spaces of the Spanish countryside at their leisure. The knight errant spoke in a manner that echoed Machiavelli’s conception of civic liberty. For Marcia Colish, this included not only classical tenets, but also freedom from physical captivity,

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freedom from fear, freedom to act as a free agent, and freedom from dependence on others (324-325). An individual like don Quijote would not have hesitated to risk his life for these worthy goals. Naturally, feeling happy, he eulogized a classical representation of Lady Liberty that simultaneously alluded to worldly concerns and to the psychological wounds of Cervantes’s own captivity (Garcés 3): Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts heaven gave to man; the treasures under the earth and beneath the sea cannot compare to it. For freedom, as well as for honor, one can and should risk one’s life, while captivity, on the other hand, is the greatest evil that can befall men (II, 58; 832). [La libertad, Sancho, es uno de los más preciosos dones que a los hombres dieron los cielos; con ella no pueden igualarse los tesoros que encierra la tierra ni el mar encubre; por la libertad, así como por la honra, se puede y debe aventurar la vida, y, por el contrario, el cautiverio es el mayor mal que puede venir a los hombres (p. 952)].

Don Quijote’s reaction put him on a par with Machiavelli’s Romans. His contemplation of liberty and justice was informed by the perspective and code of conduct of a hero from the past. And, through this cipher, it was cleverly translated into a contemporary context. According to Cascardi, don Quijote addressed issues that had already been treated in his discourse on the Golden Age. This time we see a “post political” treatment that attempted to reconcile utopian freedom with the fundamental constraints of a polis (2012, 237-238). The materialistic courtiers appeared strikingly opposed to his lofty goals from a bygone past. He was ridiculed and exposed as outmoded. His ideals, however, were embraced by doña Rodríguez who saw in him a rescuer and a justiciero, keeper of justice. Machiavelli was also maligned by his peers as he developed his political theories: “no prince, republic, or military leader can be found who has recourse to the examples of the ancients” (D, I, Preface; 15-16) [non si truova principe né republica né capitano né cittadino che agli exempli degli antichi ricorra (pp. 1072-1073)]. He persistently defended the value of the Romans from dissenting opinions: “[It] seems clear to me that these thinkers fail to realize that where there is good military organization, there must also be good institutions” (D, I, 4; 30) [mi pare bene che costoro non si aveghino che dove è buona milizia conviene che sia buono ordine (p. 1157)]. Fellow historian Guicciardini felt differently from Machiavelli in his reverence of the Romans, a fact that Najemy has also emphasized. Each moment in history presented an inimitable uniqueness for Guicciardini; hence, the admirable vigor of the Romans would have been

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hard to emulate in contemporary Florentines (2010, 3). The Roman republic, contrary to Machiavelli’s view, was described by Guicciardini as conflictive and disorderly. He did not completely deny the Romans’ militaristic virtù. But, for the aristocratic historian, it was mainly the capriciousness of lady fortuna that allowed the Roman republic to contain its highly disruptive internal conflicts and insurrections for such a long period (Najemy 2014, 1133). Joseph Khoury has stressed that, with his commanding rhetorical style (inherited from the classics), Machiavelli turned civic memory into an assertive political tool (248). The Florentine Secretary was passionate to revive virtù and to recover for his contemporaries the wisdom he found in the men of antiquity, especially their objectives of reaching common social goals, maintaining civic discipline and achieving military glory. For Machiavelli, the Roman republic was a type of collective memory that could instill hope in the increasingly declining Italian states. Heroic italiani, Italians, who had not been overcome by idleness were role models for present-day Florentines (D, I, 1531 preface). From this perspective, Horace’s classical topos of celebrating the past, emulating it while also anticipating the future, appealed especially to the Renaissance mind, to paraphrase Eric MacPhail (640). In a sense, by overestimating the role of a city’s militia, Machiavelli followed a dream to turn poorly trained Florentine citizens and the city itself into what the Roman republic once had been. As a caballero who literally jumped out of the books of chivalry as a fully-fledged character, don Quijote embodied Horace’s topos, living in the past alongside his contemporaries. He also expressed a parallel desire for patria in seventeenth-century Spain. Like a Roman soldier, Don Quijote performed with virtù. He emulated the old caballeros and thus functioned as an exemplum for the Spanish nation. Khoury has framed Machiavelli’s political discourse from the perspective of a thinker who wanted to break from ideas from the recent past in order to bring an older past into his new ideas (248). As much as Machiavelli insisted on adhering to the legacy of the Roman republic, there was an inevitable quixotic desire in him to find the virtù of the Romans among his contemporary Florentines. In fact, he wanted his contemporaries to be the Romans that he venerated (and, as Cochrane has emphasized, at times re-created). Like a proto-Quijote, Machiavelli was bound to make idealistic, wishful, correlations and subtle erasures so that his proclamations would fit with his exempla from the past. He juxtaposed the politically sad present of Florence with a glorious past from a rather contradictory viewpoint. He argued that the constancy of human nature made it such that effective actions would inevitably be repeated, while at

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the same time denouncing the decline of Florence, a city that he felt needed to change and to return to being like the Roman republic. According to MacPhail, had Machiavelli perceived constancy in the Florentines, he would not have urged them to emulate the ancients; the citizens of Florence would have simply and already behaved like the ancients (645). As for Cervantes, he did not believe that his contemporaries had it in them to behave like the ancients and he depicted this through sarcasm in his plays and through the various displays of emotion found in his other fiction. Don Quijote broke with his past as a mere hidalgo and immersed himself in a much more appealing way of life that included beautiful damsels, handsome knights, enchanted lakes, and idyllic love stories such as the one he created with the intangible and incomparable Dulcinea del Toboso. At the same time, Cervantes wished to examine the human condition through the actions of his heroic knight, which caused him to emulate philosophy and to produce a political discourse of sorts. Don Quijote did not just make vacuous proclamations using the ornate discourse of the caballeros from his books. He was also a man of action in the polis and he brought his ideas to fruition, a phenomenon that Guillermo Fernández Rodríguez’s study brings into greater relief (144). According to Castro, the caballero’s inflexible code of chivalry threatened to end the life of Sansón Carrasco (27). If only discreetly, the Spanish author identified with his whimsical protagonist, affirming that he could not have begotten a different character: “I have not been able to contravene the natural order; in it, like begets like” (I, prologue; 3) [no he podido yo contravenir el orden de naturaleza; que en ella cada cosa engendra su semejante (p. 19)]. In that respect, a certain Alonso Quijano, Quesada, etc., took it upon himself to alter his circumstances, changing his name and his wardrobe so that he would be in-sync with his new persona. Emulating Machiavelli’s proclamations, Cervantes knew of his originality. He would narrate, after all, “the history of a child who is dry, withered, capricious, and filled with inconstant thoughts never imagined by anyone else” (I, prologue; 3) [la historia de un hijo seco, avellanado, antojadizo y lleno de pensamientos varios y nunca imaginados de otro alguno (p. 19)].

The Theatre of the Insula Barataria In La Mandragola, Machiavelli depicted individuals in a chaotic state who needed each other in order to achieve their goals. Among them was Ligurio, a social parasite and “the darling of malice” (Prologue; 10) [di malizia il cucco (p. 70)]. More than any other character, Ligurio was

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perennially testing his virtù against the effects of fortuna. Penniless and dependent on others, he was looking for a permanent income. Luckily, Callimaco’s desperate love for Madonna Lucrezia, old Messer Nicia’s young wife, provided the right occasione for him to validate his skills as a manipulative former matchmaker. Callimaco was despondent. Sent by his guardians to study in France, he became a political exile when Charles VIII invaded Florence “with a piece of chalk” (P, 12; 116) [col gesso (p. 606)]. Resigned to remain in France, the young man felt that he had reached a perfect state of tranquility. Yet, “since it seemed to fortune that I was having too good a time” (I, 1; 13) [ma parendo alla Fortuna che io avessi troppo bel tempo (p. 73)], he fell head over heels in love with Lucrezia after hearing of her beauty. In the name of love or lust, he returned to his native city. Unfortunately for him, the young lady was deeply religious and extremely devoted to Messer Nicia, an aging Florentine in search of an heir. Callimaco became desperate for Lucrezia’s sexual favors and struck a deal with Ligurio, only demonstrating constancy “when someone’s got something going for him, you can believe that when you inform him of it, he’ll serve you faithfully” (I, 1; 15) [quando una cosa fa per uno, si ha a credere, quando tu gliene communichi che ti serva con fede (p. 75)]. Exercising extreme virtù, the astute social parasite seized the occasione presented to him by Callimaco. He concocted a magnificent tale, a play within the play in which everybody performed a part, including stupid Messer Nicia and Fra Timoteo, a corrupted priest. It was a fully orchestrated conspiracy that saw lucky young Callimaco realize his goal of becoming Lucrezia’s lover. Peter Godman has illustrated how Machiavelli inserted a recurrent medical metaphor into La Mandragola which opposed and compared disease or malady of the self to disease or malady of the state (292). Callimaco entered as the supposed leader but, because of his “illness,” he became unraveled, which led him to depend on others for his much desired riscontro, understanding, with Lucrezia, to cite Giulio Ferroni (95). With Ligurio as a stage director and Fra Timoteo as one of the main protagonists, a delicious mandragola root potion plot unfolded as the perfect antidote for everyone’s ailments. Taken by Lucrezia (the Florentine version of heroic Roman Lucretia), the mandragola symbolically liberated Florentines from their perceived ailments, “recalling the liberties (real or imagined) of the past” (Godman 292). The mandragola root, then, turned out to be the necessary medical metaphor that would cure all the characters of their “depressing present” (293). Since the potion guaranteed that Lucrezia would become pregnant, she no longer felt vulnerable in her household and did not fear that her stupid husband would discard her for a new wife.

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Her mother Sostrata, who had convinced her daughter to lie in bed with a stranger (Callimaco in disguise), also benefited from the conspiracy. A grandchild meant that her daughter could remain as Messer Nicia’s wife, and that she (the grandmother) would not lose the roof over her head. The most fortunate, of course, was Callimaco, who sealed Messer Nicia’s fate as a cuckolded husband when the old man provided him with “the key of the ground floor room in the loggia” (V, 6; 54) [la chiave della camera terrena d’in su la loggia (p. 123)]. Machiavelli wished to cover a wide expanse of territory in La Mandragola, saying “this is your Florence; another time it will be Rome or Pisa” (Prologue; 9) [quest’è Firenze vostra; un’altra volta sarà Roma o Pisa (p. 69)]. Florentines would have recognized themselves in the play. In his city, the playwright made it clear that nobody was trusted; people only mattered for their social status. Citizens like old Messer Nicia, not from an ottimati family (patrician family), and married to a much younger woman, had many obstacles to maintaining their place in society. As Messer Nicia himself ruefully stated “in this city someone like us who doesn’t have status doesn’t find a dog to bark at him” (Mandragola, II, 3; 23) [in questa terra, de’ nostri pari, non truova can che gli abbai (p. 85)]. For Ligurio, though, a man with no social advantage who was required to sing for his supper, Messer Nicia’s position in life appeared desirable, and it was difficult for him to understand how the old man had gotten there: “I don’t believe there’s a stupider man in the world than this fellow, yet how fortune has favored him” (I, 3; 17) [io non credo che sia nel mondo el più sciocco uomo di costui; è quanto la Fortuna lo ha favorito (p. 77)]. Ligurio later recognized, however, that Messer Nicia’s ignorance presented a fortunate occasione for conspiracy: “from the madness of this fellow, this good can be gotten, that Callimaco has something to hope for” (I, 3; 17) [dalla pazzia di costui se ne cava questo bene, che Callimaco ha che sperare (p 78)]. Perhaps the old man, an object of ridicule for the rest of the characters, was not acting so obtusely after all. An heir, for Messer Nicia, was critically important, and he willingly sacrificed his wife to attain that goal. Under these circumstances, a child symbolized not only social respectability but also a measure of happiness, one that could be obtained by adapting to the variability of nature, “to meet and confront it,” to withstand the changes of fortuna, as Ferroni’s analysis has proven (83). As much as Cervantes’s prose was inherently theatrical, his theater was inspired by prose. Cervantes refused to adhere to the highly popular standards of what would become Spain’s national drama, especially to Lope de Vega’s abandonment of classical prototypes on the stage. Malveena McKendrick has examined how Cervantes was a playwright out

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of tune with the times who sought to stage classical tenets in his plays, with the result that actors did not feel compelled to perform in them (131). To Cervantes’s chagrin, his entremeses—short-length, comedic, theatrical pieces—would have been considered scarcely performable by seventeenthcentury Spanish theatrical standards. We see this reflected in the pedantic canon and priest’s literary conversation in part one of Don Quijote. Corey Reed has examined the strong correlation between Cervantes’s prose and theater, a feature which preceded the works of twentieth-century playwrights and which elevated the quality of his entremeses (70-71, 73); unequivocally, he redefined the value of the entremeses by infusing them with his masterful prose (71). Fearlessly, Cervantes the playwright forged ahead and went against the grain to create highly idiosyncratic theater. For him, dramatic expression was an inherent aspect of people’s motivations and attitudes and corresponded to his prose writing; that is, he wrote theatre not only for his theatrical pieces but also for his prose writing. In Don Quijote, for instance, Jesús Maestro has examined the theatrical aspects of Cervantes’s prose, including an illusionism that was nonetheless rooted in reality. Cervantes presented glimpses of reality while at the same time contemplating idealization—a characteristic that reflected on the mimetic genre itself—making him a precursor for Pirandello and Brecht (42-43).5 McKendrick has argued that Cervantes’s perceived deficiencies in playwriting in the seventeenth century would happily accommodate twentieth-century drama (132). Ample examples from Don Quijote corroborate the fact that his fiction is inseparable from its intrinsic theatrical aspect. Sancho’s governorship of the Insula Barataria can be explored from multiple perspectives—as a morality tale, an ethics conundrum, a parody, and a proto-Marxist manifesto. In all of them, it described a simple man who was confronting the world of the polis using the strong social values he had acquired in his own rustic world. Eduardo Olid has explored the role of justice, war and peace in Machiavelli, Francisco Vitoria and Cervantes and discussed the ramifications of the Insula Barataria episode. For Olid, what separated Sancho from the duke’s Machiavellian tactics were the faithful squire’s moral tenets and human rights considerations (2015, 361). Sancho’s own ideal moral convictions were tested by pitting what was possible (the conception of the world) against what was desirable (the conventionality of social life), according to Fernández Rodríguez (143). From these perspectives, the Insula Barataria, created by 5

Also, see Américo Castro, An Idea of History: Selected Essay of Américo Castro. Part 1 “Cervantes and Pirandello,” pp. 15-22.

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the duke, was a locus for contending with and confronting the harsh world of politics and governance. Sancho’s governorship was brought about through the machinery of the duke. Subverting the economic space of the beffa (joke or trick), Cervantes exposed the corrupt mores of the wealthy and the privileged; concurrently he was allowed to put into question the idea that virtue went hand in hand with social status (Cascardi 2012, 217). The theatrical performance in the Insula, therefore, was not just a symptom, but rather “a lucid analysis” of the crisis of society’s value system (Fernández Rodríguez 145). Unable to realize his intentions, don Quijote narrated politics (Cascardi 2012, 14). Cascardi has cautioned us to separate Cervantes from the political philosophies of Machiavelli and Hobbes. In this fashion, whatever remedy Machiavelli devised for the political ills of the time, “quixotism would certainly not be it” (2012, 16). Ultimately, for Cascardi, Cervantes did not accept Machiavelli’s approach to “the problem of politics” (2012, 17). Nonetheless, Cervantes, Machiavelli, and Hobbes coincided in their use of humanist rhetorical weapons in articulating their discourse on the polis. In one sense, therefore, Machiavelli did approach a level of quixotism, especially as he sought to express verità effettuale, or the real truth of the matter (P, 15), from an a priori, “avant la lettre” perspective, to cite Cascardi (2012, 17). As his friend Guicciardini identified, Machiavelli’s rendition of the Romans was the product of the Florentine Secretary’s feverish love for a constructed past via Livy. In the same guise, don Quijote accessed the caballeros of antiquity via Amadis and Orlando. Throughout the Quijote, a conversation between Cervantes and Machiavelli on the subject of the health of polis can be clearly discerned. In a characteristically Cervantesque manner, however, the text pointed only obliquely to the caballero’s search for a territory to rule. By highlighting don Quijote’s failure to lead the life of a conquering knight errant, Cervantes touched upon a fundamental issue in Machiavelli: that a new prince was always vulnerable to failure. Using this as a frame of reference, then, we can see that Cervantes also exemplified a verità effettuale through his diminutive squire. As the new prince of Barataria, Sancho never had a chance to succeed because, from day one, he was the subject of a fierce conspiracy—the type endured by Allende in twentiethcentury Chile. Despite his phenomenally “virtuous” behavior, lady fortuna was against him; she did not allow Sancho to be or to behave in a way that granted him liberty. After many humiliations, he felt compelled to abdicate. And, through this action, the social order required by the duke and the duchess was restored.

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The duke went out of his way to prove to don Quijote that his crazy adventures were factual and not a product of his imagination; as we know, doña Rodríguez also found the duke convincing. As Cascardi has asserted, although it occupied an indeterminate geographical space, the Insula Barataria was “in some respects more real as a polis than ‘Spain’ itself” (2012, 166). Like a true character, don Quijote was given the royal treatment, the kind given to the knights he had read about in his books of chivalry (II, 31; 658) (p. 762). There was a bitter price to pay, however, as the duke and duchess were vicious and cruel. In spite of seeing himself as a knight errant “and not a fantastic one” (II, 31; 658) [y no fantástico (p. 762)], don Quijote often appeared insecure, not sure how to confront his surroundings. He was afflicted by so much wealth and was increasingly agitated by his squire’s rustic behavior. As a consequence, don Quijote felt inadequate. Needing to justify his own legitimacy, the embattled knight scolded his sidekick for embarrassing him in front of the duke and the duchess: “For the love of God, Sancho, restrain yourself, and do not reveal your true colors lest they realize that the cloth you are made of is coarse and rustic” (II, 31; 660) [Por quien Dios es, Sancho, que te reportes, y que no descubras la hilaza de manera que caigan en la cuenta de que eres de villana y grosera tela tejido (p. 764)].6 Like the sin par, without equal, Dulcinea, harsh politics in the Insula Barataria could not be easily discerned. But, they were palpably existent somewhere in there. Engineered by the odious duke and duchess, Sancho’s tenure at the Insula was preceded by a cruel prank played against the knight errant by the entire court. Don Quijote’s physical injury, then, was a prelude to Sancho’s governorship, where he suffered injustices and humiliations. The duos’ mistreatment foreshadowed Sancho’s inevitable fate to become an isolated, carefully monitored ruler, as Olid has indicated (2015, 369). Don Quijote had a very strong negative reaction to his squire as governor, even though the appointment fulfilled a promise he had made at the beginning of their business relationship. He dissembled his dismay, but there is no doubt that he was already traumatized by the costly realization of his own dreams of knight errantry. Accepting that he had no say in what fortuna had decided for his squire’s fate, don Quijote sheepishly consented to the duke, the usurper of his dreams, and granted Sancho’s wish. From a social standpoint, the knight errant was aghast that Sancho, who was illiterate, could possibly be made the governor of the Insula Barataria. For him, such a poorly educated man was a highly unwise choice. His terrible 6

In Spanish, don Quijote compares Sancho’s essence to the “hilaza” (the threads) of poor, rustic fabric.

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lack of schooling could only mean that the diminutive squire was “the child of parents who were too poor and lowborn” (II, 43; 735) [hijo de padres demasiado humildes y bajos (p. 845)]. In spite of his intellectual attitude, as a knight errant he nonetheless displayed virtù by providing the future governor Sancho with a wealth of expertise on the art of governing. For don Quijote, ultimately, the worst outcome of Sancho’s governorship was their personal separation. The company of his faithful squire had become an essential aspect of his own conception of self. Pretending to be strong, don Quijote unraveled once Sancho departed for the Insula Barataria, having suffered many cruel pranks at court. Once alone, the despondent knight eventually conceded that, although unprepared for governmental affairs, Sancho deserved his appointment because he had attained it without pestering or bribing others. By sheer luck, Sancho had found himself in a powerful position for which he had never fought (II, 62; 729) (p. 839). From a Machiavellian perspective, Sancho was a ruler who, with the aid of fortuna, had acquired a realm “without knowing how or why” (II, 62; 729) [sin saber cómo ni cómo no (p. 839)]; because of his precarious circumstances, the new governor had to take pains to maintain it (P, 7; 95) (p. 414). Such fortunate individuals, Machiavelli believed, were usually granted a territory by the powerful not so much out of generosity but to secure the granter’s own “security and glory” (P, 7; 96) [per sua sicurtà e gloria (p. 414)]. The duke had done the same with Sancho, perhaps not so much for security but rather for his own amusement and that of the subjects of his court. This, in a way, filled him with a sense of glory as a ruler. In his address to Sancho on the difficulty of becoming a ruler, don Quijote turned to Italian authors. Looking past ancient knight errantry, he asked Sancho to reckon with Dante’s journey in Purgatory, and specifically to be advised by Roman Cato of Utica, Marcus Porcius Cato Uticensis (95-46 B.C.E.), as interpreted in Canto I of Purgatory in the Divine Comedy:7 Now, with your heart disposed to believe what I have told you, pay, heed, my son, to your Cato, who wishes to advise you and be a polestar and

7

When addressing Sancho Panza, don Quijote mostly referred to Dionysius Cato, the author of the Disticha Catonis, Distichs of Cato, a school book. The Disticha Catonis was a popular school book in the Middle Ages and the Renaissance. For further information, see p. 840 of Martín de Riquer’s edition of Don Quijote. From a dantesque perspective, don Quijote’s demeanor toward Sancho contains allusions to Cato of Utica’s address to Virgil and Dante at the shore of Purgatory.

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guide that sets your course and leads you to a safe port on the tempestuous sea where you are about to set sail (II, 42; 730). [Dispuesto, pues, el corazón a creer lo que te he dicho, está, ¡oh hijo!, atento a este tu Catón, que quiere aconsejarte y ser norte y guía que te encamine y saque a seguro puerto de este mar proceloso donde vas a engolfarte (p. 840)].

Many Cervantes scholars have made the connection between this discourse and the text Disticha Catonis [Distichs of Cato]. But, a more prominent link can be found between this address and Cato of Utica himself. Cato was admired by Dante for his refusal to live in captivity and for his choice to commit suicide so that he would at least die a free man. As a sign of his admiration, Dante positioned Cato as a guard of Purgatory, making him one of the great “virtuous pagans,” like Cicero and his guide Virgil, who were placed in Limbo in the Divine Comedy (1321). Mark Musa has detailed how Dante modeled his representation of Cato after that of Cicero, celebrating the Roman soldier’s decision to end his life out of a refusal to compromise his political beliefs (7-8). On the shore of Purgatory, having been eulogized as a hero by Virgil, Cato dismissed the Roman poet’s flattery. He allowed their journey to continue because he was convinced that the pilgrim and his guide were being helped by higher celestial authorities. He proceeded thus to tell Virgil how to prepare Dante for his climb up the mountain of Purgatory: Go with this man, see that you gird his waist with some smooth reed; take care to bathe his face till every trace of filth has disappeared (Canto I, 94-96; 9).

Following the venerable ancient warrior, Dante was ordered to change his appearance. Along the coast of the uninhabited island, he sought for a reed to put around his girdle, a vestment that symbolized humility. He was asked to clean his face, as well, to remove the filth of hell in order to properly commence his incredible journey and prepare for his encounter with repenting, purging souls. With don Quijote’s advice, Sancho was preparing to leave for his own island, ready to abandon the hellish place of court. Emulating Cato’s advice to Dante the pilgrim, don Quijote advised Sancho to wear a symbolical reed of humility around his girdle and to remain humble by fearing God and, very importantly, by knowing himself “which is the most difficult knowledge one can imagine” (II, 42; 730) [que es el más difícil conocimiento que puede imaginarse (p. 840)]. He warned Sancho not to be like the frog that had puffed itself up in its desire to become as big as an ox.

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By being himself, Sancho was told, he could successfully navigate the dangerous sea of governing and remain prudent and free from slander. Raising pigs for a living would never become an uncomfortable reminder for him; by not being pretentious or erasing who he once was, Sancho would avoid displaying the ugly feet of a puffed up peacock (II, 42; 730) (p. 840). Here we sense a background conversation on the art of government. In fact, a confrontation with The Prince by the so-called anti-Machiavellians can be discerned in don Quijote’s advice, especially in its references to the prince ruling his subjects and to other parts of society that needed governing, including the superior in a monastic realm, the teacher in charge of disciples, and the father in relationship with his family, as Foucault has stipulated (2007, 93). As we see in the work of De Armas, Cervantes maintained a “continuous desire for Italy.” Even through the thick moral curtain of the Counter-Reformation, he was eager to latch onto the humanistic endeavors of the Italian territories (2002, 33). Don Quijote made extensive use of his knowledge of Italian courtly literature but the stern voice of Machiavelli in exile would not have been Cervantes’s own preferred rhetorical means for protesting the censorship of cultural production during the CounterReformation.8 In writing The Prince, Machiavelli understood that the stakes were high and that he did not have the leisure of half measures. Significantly, though, don Quijote became more political and “down to earth” as the novel progressed, a fact that we can see exemplified in the advice don Quijote gave Sancho before the latter departed for the Insula Barataria. Showing himself to be a learned individual, the caballero deployed his courtly knowledge from Baldassare Castiglione’s Book of the Courtier (1528). To be sure, the undeniable bond between Castiglione and Machiavelli—the first imparting concealed advice to the prince in his Courtier, and the second, counseling the prince directly and without any qualms in The Prince—was built on common civic goals. Both texts related to each other in uncanny ways. Each used the same metaphor of an archer to depict how people should aim high to reach at least the “odor” of victory. On another occasion, the courtiers referred to Catholic queen Isabella as a monarch whom her subjects venerated, with a mixture of “love and fear” (3, 35; 238) [d’amore e timore (p. 51)], a lapidary phrase that acknowledges the closeness of the two texts. Machiavelli presented the Romans as examples for a Florence whose political power was increasingly waning. In constructing an ideal courtier, Castiglione 8

In other words, Cervantes, like Castiglione, was a reader of Machiavelli. And, he addressed the issues raised by Machiavelli in his own terms.

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highlighted the political frustrations of the idle men at court, who had scant possibilities to participate in constructing patria, as Frank Lovett has noted (591). Castiglione’s challenge, which Cervantes understood, was how to write in a prudent manner about a difficult socio-political subject and how to give teeth to the courtier so that he would not remain completely subservient to the capriciousness of a signore, a ruler. In the same manner, don Quijote also needed to reassert his values. The duke had gone to great lengths to make don Quijote and his ideals completely irrelevant to his contemporaries. He forcibly turned the knight errant into a mere court jester. Pairing Italian Renaissance tenets almost violently with Counter-Reformation doctrines (De Armas 2002, 33), don Quijote constructed fantastic advice for his rather puzzled squire. With the aid of Castiglione’s Neo-Platonic (and political) construction of a courtier, don Quijote rescued himself from ducal oppression. His vast knowledge of Italian literature allowed him to relate to the predicaments of the courtiers, individuals who could exercise their intellectual powers even as they were dependent on others. Advising Sancho before his departure to rule the Insula Barataria, don Quijote managed to refashion himself as an individual with socio-political relevance. Castiglione’s The Courtier has increasingly been studied as a political text which was required to dissemble its nature and delivery. JoAnn Cavallo has described how, beneath the laughter and the jokes, the text reflected “the political tensions among the peninsula’s various regions” (403). Perhaps fearful of a rebuke (but also defiant), Castiglione sifted politics through his book in artful ways, evading and dissembling, using a method deployed enthusiastically by Cervantes during the court episodes. In The Courtier, behind a façade of noblesse and politesse, using misdirection to disguise his focus (the prince and not the courtier), Castiglione described the errors of the court and of rulers. Cervantes was attracted to Castiglione’s concealed manner of announcing how loss of civic liberty derived from political tensions at court. Polite laughter and good manners were like a soothing balm, healing and hiding raw political sores. In choosing The Courtier and not a chivalric text, don Quijote directed his advice toward a courtier-ruler and not a squire. This fact supports the notion that his true object was the duke, sitting happily at court, anticipating and expecting the failure of Sancho’s governorship. In Book IV of Castiglione’s text, princes were depicted as mostly conceited, out of touch with their courts, unwilling to take advice, and prone to seeking fraudulent advice and adulation from flatterers. The ideal courtier,

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by contrast, was a veritable rescuer of both his ruler and society.9 No longer a mere adornment of the court, the courtier was transformed into a political being, a knight errant of sorts on a quest for the unattainable Neo Platonic ideal, an impossible manifestation of a courtly man. In a characteristic mode, Cervantes expressed what others had observed. But, he turned that knowledge around to remain completely original. Joseph Fucilla has remarked that the art of being an ideal governorcourtier was re-fashioned freely by Cervantes (294). In this sense, with don Quijote’s speech, the Spanish author reckoned with the manners of a courtier without adhering entirely to Castiglione’s tenets. As a matter of fact, don Quijote also appeared to deploy rhetoric from other texts on manners, such as Giovanni della Casa’s Galateo (1558).10 Cervantes underscored the decay of the Spanish aristocracy and found an affinity in Castiglione’s finesse and artful manner. Mimicking the tone of The Courtier, don Quijote’s elegant speech assumed the tone of a contemporary courtier-counselor, one conversant with the rules on governance of his time (Fucilla 294). Through beffe/burlas, jokes or tricks, the Italian author illustrated a definitively gallant portrait of the Urbino court and the Italian principalities in general. Like Castiglione, don Quijote commented on the care of the mind and the body, a feature expected in the repertoire of treatises on princedom from his time. In his advice, the knight errant never once uttered a word against Machiavelli, implying that in silence there is 9

In The Courtier, Messer Ottaviano Fregoso appears pessimistic about the rulers of his time: “I say, then, since the princes of today are so corrupted by evil customs and by ignorance and a false esteem of themselves, and since it is so difficult to show them the truth and lead them to virtue, and since men seek to gain their favor by means of lies and flatteries and such vicious ways… the Courtier through those fair qualities … must seek to gain the good will and captivate the mind of his prince that he may have free and sure access to speak to him of anything whatever without giving annoyance” (4, 9; 293) [Dico adunque che, poi che oggidì i Principi son tanto corrotti dalle male consuetudini, e dalla ignoranza, e falsa persuasione di sè stessi; e che tanto è difficile il dar loro notizia della verità, ed indurgli alla virtù; e che gli uomini con le bugie, e adulazioni, e con così viziosi modi cercano d’ entrar loro in grazia… il Cortegiano per mezzo di quelle gentil qualità… deve procurar d’acquistarsi la benivolenza, e adescar tanto l’animo del suo Principe, che sì faccia adito libero, e sicuro di parlargli d’ogni cosa senza esser molesto (pp. 122123)]. Also, see Albury’s Veiled Policy in The Book of the Courtier (1528). In addition to his other duties, a courtier must stay abreast of the art of ruling so that he will be capable of replacing his signore in the event the ruler proves himself to be excessively wicked or unjust (230). 10 In 1582, Lucas Gracían Dantisco published Galateo español [Spanish Galateo], an adaptation of Della Casa’s Galateo.

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consensus. One might have expected the easy use of anti-Machiavellian rhetoric (which was much in vogue at the time), whose purpose would have been to separate himself powerfully from any unorthodox political practices. But there was absolutely none to be found. The galley slaves episode from part one portrayed don Quijote as a hero and liberator. In a dramatic representation of loss of liberty, the petty criminals gave Sancho an early lesson in punishment. On that momentous occasion, don Quijote overruled the laws and judgment of his society and decided the prisoners’ fate on his own. As he and Sancho approached the men in chains, Sancho informed the knight errant that the prisoners were being sent to the galleys “forced by the king” (I, 22; 163) [gente forzada del rey (p 203)]. In his reaction, don Quijote not only expressed dismay that a king would force men to become slaves, but he also decided to listen to what each galley slave had to say. Unmistakably, the narration slowly turned the episode into a comedic farce filled with tour de force linguistic innuendoes. The prisoners spoke of their crimes in a disguised manner, entertaining us with each attempt to write an innocent version of what they had done. After listening to these pitiful accounts, don Quijote had no choice but to rescue the prisoners since they were “taken by force and not of their own free will” (I, 22; 163) [van de fuerza, y no de su voluntad (p. 203)]. Following his chivalric codes, don Quijote asserted that “it seems harsh to make slaves of those whom God and nature made free” (I, 22; 170) [porque me parece duro caso hacer esclavos a los que Dios y naturaleza hizo libres (p. 210)]. The criminals and don Quijote alike found brief success. The criminals concealed their crimes and provoked pity in the knight errant. By liberating the men in chains through an act of chivalric prowess, don Quijote made a strong statement about civic duty. The Insula Barataria episode provided a useful stage for Cervantes to explore his views of justice in society, a topic also explored by Plato in his Republic. As we see in the work of Luis Correa-Díaz, Sancho’s message as a ruler has been well received by Latin American revolutionaries, such as Che Guevara and Sub Comandante Marcos, who fought with letters as well as with weapons (2001, 211). Instructed by don Quijote to rule with justice and compassion, Sancho left for the Insula with a great entourage, dressed up “in the style of a lettered man, and over that wearing a very wide coat of tawny camel’s hair and a cap of the same material” (II, 44; 739) [vestido a lo letrado y encima un gabán muy ancho de chamelote de aguas leonado, con una montera de lo mesmo (p. 850)].11 Having risen on 11

In The Lettered City, Angel Rama explores the empowerment of the letrados in the New World and in the emerging urban cities of Latin America. According to Rama, the conquistadores worked in the New World from a blank slate where they

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the social scale, Sancho the rustic became Sancho the letrado and the actor, ready to interpret the role of his life. The non-existent Insula not only provided an invisible stage but also a space for reflection about the place of punishment in society. By refusing to renounce his rustic status, Sancho attempted as governor to enact unexpected political changes and to denote how conventionality suffocates action (Fernández Rodríguez 144). In the Insula Barataria, Sancho confronted and rewrote the duke’s scripted fictitious events in earnest. He followed high ideals, and his judgments and actions made his great ability manifest.

Performances of Masculinity in Machiavelli and Cervantes Machiavelli’s classical notion of virtù denoted courage, risk-taking, and manliness; it was infused in an attitude that the Florentine Secretary viewed as necessary for confronting and containing the strife of life, as Michelle Zerba has noted (184). Fortuna, originally the goddess of plenty, eventually transformed into a capricious Wheel of Fortune until, with the advent of Christianity, it became equated with divine Providence. Following the tenets of civic humanism, Machiavelli’s own concept of fortuna retained its classical roots and can be understood as the reverse side of virtù’s coin. For Hanna F. Pitkin, fortuna provoked a man to test his masculinity. Vanquishing her (fortuna), a man would recover his “manly autonomy” (26). Fortuna was a feminine trait that favored the young. It was a twisted yin, a dark force capable of derailing the best laid plans. Following Gerry Milligan’s analysis, although Machiavelli never established a true definition of masculinity for himself (163), numerous examples in his work expressed how masculinity or its absence were fundamental to a ruler’s ability to withstand the ravages of fortuna. The masculinity inherent in virtù, therefore, was the antithesis of “a soft and delicate way of life” (AW I; 10) [il vivere molle (3194)]. Machiavelli was a great defender of the militaristic practices of the Romans. He wished to establish a militia in Florence and thought of himself as a loyal soldier. He declared: “for who ought to be more faithful than a man entrusted with the safety of his country and sworn to defend it with the last drop of his blood?” (AW, Preface; 3) [in quale uomo debbe ricercare la patria maggiore fede, che in colui che le ha a promettere di transported knowledge from Europe to the New Continent, creating the basis for “the advent of world capitalism” (2). In this sense, Sancho’s journey to Isla Barataria gains a perspective of a letrado’s voyage to the New World.

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morire per lei? (pp. 3174-3175)]. Machiavelli cautioned that, in the public sphere, a prince who did not display a masculine public persona would never survive conflict and conspiracies. He was critical of the weak contemporary military practices and felt that the Romans’ practices “would be more suitable to the present times (AW, I; 10) [hanno con la vita d’oggi maggiore conformità (p. 3195-3196)]. As he commented on Florentine or other Italian condottieri, he found no role models in contemporary figures. For him, not one of them truly emulated the ancients, whose resolve, obstinacy, and demonstration of virtù made victories possible (D, II, 16). Machiavelli endorsed the performance of masculinity as much in his philosophical theories as in his own attitude toward adversity. In this regard, his reaction to his own reversal of fortuna was to erase weakness (effeminacy) from any outsider’s perception; he displayed courage under distress and forged ahead (Pitkin 36). Mocking himself, he depicted his time of exile from Florence in manly terms, “snaring thrushes with my own hands” (LM, 137; 140) [Ho infino a qui uccellato a’ tordi di mia mano (p. 882)], and parading himself with “a bundle of cages on my back” (LM, 137; 140) [con un fascio di gabbie addosso (p. 882)]. From this perspective, his theoretical work and fiction were in part a consequence of his own struggles. He wrote about the qualities of the ruler, but he also wrote to explain who he was. His purpose was to return to where he belonged in the politics and government of Florence. Against all odds, his writing in exile identified Machiavelli as a man of virtù, of valor, and of endurance. He refused to be vanquished. Contemporary religion had made the Italian states vulnerable; they stood in stark contrast with the masculine, warrior-like status of the Romans, as Machiavelli boldly affirmed (D, Preface to autograph manuscript). He emphasized that rulers in his times had become subservient to ecclesiastical dictates and, as a consequence, they had turned away from the “recourse to the examples of the ancients” (D, Preface). Machiavelli also knew, however, that the Romans had brilliantly amassed an empire in the name of religion. As we see in the work of Nathan Tarcov, Machiavelli perceived “both the violation and the appearance of religion to be politically necessary” (193). In a general sense, the Italian author observed that a ruler’s success frequently depended on a dazzling performance of “soft” Christian tenets. A stern critic of the Roman papal court, he predicted the earthquake of the Reformation. He spoke out against a Catholic Church that, in the name of religion, had constructed an empire and which had thereby assured that the Italian states would remain divided. For that reason, when warrior popes flexed their muscles to

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exercise their virtù on the battlefield, he was hesitant to extend his admiration. By way of example, he told of impetuous and bold Julius II who, unarmed and with just one bodyguard, decided to confront the strongman Giovampagolo. Giovampagolo could have easily exterminated Julius but, in Machiavelli’s account, he was overwhelmed by the pope’s presence. In fact, Julius II intimidated Giovampagolo by the sheer magnificence of his position and did not come into any harm. This earned him little praise from Machiavelli who laid the entire blame on Giovampagolo, calling him a coward and stating that strongmen like him at times “do not know how to be honourably bad” (D, I, 27; 82) [non sanno essere onorevolmente cattivi (p. 1475)]. For Machiavelli, the way politics was organized became a model for how society was structured. In La Mandragola, Fra Timoteo, delightfully corrupt, quickly realized that he had become deeply involved in a conspiracy that he could not escape. He kept calm, however, and said to himself: “I comfort myself that when a thing matters to many, many have to be careful about it” (IV, 6; 45) [mi conforto che, quando una cosa importa a molti, molti ne hanno aver cura (p. 111)]. According to Harvey C. Mansfield, Messer Nicia’s fundamental goal was not to keep his honor, which he might have assured through his wife’s fidelity, but to produce an heir and thereby gain a niche in society; hence, he sacrificed “morality for the sake of respectability,” (2000, 6). Despite a dull intellect, Messer Nicia understood that having a son would not only secure him an heir and a legacy. It would also put his family’s differences to rest and cause his household group to cohere. To insure tranquility, they all had to convince Messer Nicia’s younger wife to drink from the mandragola potion and then lie in bed with a virtual stranger. The poisonous ingredients of the fertility medicine, it was thought, would cause him eventually to die from bedding young Lucrezia. In a letter to his ottimati friend Guicciardini, Machiavelli called himself tragico, tragic. Outside of politics, he had lost the nucleus of his existence. For Machiavelli, the intellectual activity of politics was intrinsically related to his identity, as Fabio Frosini has studied (166-167). For Charles Tarlton, Machiavelli’s struggles after his removal from Florence were reproduced in his works as a memoir of sorts that “appeared as cracks in the edifice” (2004, 3). This event definitely contributed to his deep conviction that humans were on an inevitable, meandering, chaotic, journey that tested their virtù against the ravaging effects of fortuna. In his private correspondence, he expressed how he felt lost and in need of a sense of direction. In letters to friends, Machiavelli exposed his doubts, dilemmas, and vulnerabilities, all things Najemy has discussed (1993, 8).

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On the list of his illustrious correspondents was Francesco Vettori, a political figure who became for a disillusioned Machiavelli “an interlocutor in order to hear himself” (1993, 9). Vettori was the Florentine ambassador in Rome and, to judge from Machiavelli’s side of the correspondence, he was not always prompt in his replies. All the same, the Florentine Secretary used his epistles to document his experience and figuratively share his curriculum vitae. The letters, therefore, were clearly part of his attempt to regain favor so that he might return to politics. As perceptive and intuitive as Machiavelli was, he still needed to come to terms with the fact that he had failed, as Tarlton has intimated. Along with that, the Florentine Secretary needed to accept that, in his writings, he had perhaps overestimated the strength of the link between knowledge and experience (2007, 48). Cervantes was a master storyteller whose Novelas ejemplares [Exemplary Novels] (1613) alone would have earned him a place in the Western literary canon. With his Don Quijote, he exceeded all expectations, superbly absorbing a compendium of world literature, transforming literary themes and, in many instances, turning them into original devices. For Foucault, as a representation, and analogue, of the stories told in the books of chivalry, don Quijote was challenged to provide the signs that “furnish proof” of the truth told in the stories: “It is incumbent upon him to fulfil the promise of the stories” (1994, 47). Because of the novel’s impact in Western society, Cascardi has asserted that it appeared “as if Don Quixote always existed or as if Don Quixote somehow had to exist” (2002, 58). Nonetheless, Cervantes thought that he had created his best work in Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, which was published posthumously in 1617. In fact, the Spanish author wrote in his Don Quijote that he hoped The Persiles would attain “the extremes of possible goodness” (II, dedication; 454) [al estremo de bondad posible (p. 534)]. In the prologue to his Novelas Ejemplares, he disclosed great pride in authorship, announcing that he was the first to write original “novelas” in the Spanish language without copying or robbing from others. He also stated that, if life did not abandon him, he would finish his Persiles and Sigismunda, a text that would dare rival the work of Heliodorus (2004, 53). However, he had already displayed virtù in creating one of the most compelling and unmatched duos in literature. From the very first, it was don Quijote and Sancho’s incongruous yet solid friendship that attracted readers and kept them interested over time. Cervantes was fifty-eight years old—the same age Machiavelli was at the time of his death—when the first part of Don Quijote saw the light. For his times, he was considered a man of advanced age. The road to success

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had not been easy for him; for most of his adult life Cervantes felt dejected as he witnessed authors with much less talent be celebrated, knowing that he had it within himself to succeed. Like Machiavelli, he refused to feel vanquished and gathered strength during his lowest moments, such as his imprisonment in Spain while working for the government. In the prologue to the first part of the novel, he called himself Don Quijote’s “step-father”. Shunning the prevalent custom, he refused to embellish his prologue and delivered to his readers a dramatization of a writer’s anxiety in trying to write a preface (I, prologue, 4) (p. 20). Being a person of “contraria professione,” and of a devilish nature—two traits that Machiavelli also shared—Cervantes defiantly ridiculed Lope de Vega, a contemporary author and rival. Lope was a prolific playwright and had won the admiration of many in the Spanish court. In all his printed comedies, Lope was never restrained. His prefaces were excessively complimentary, his sonnets grandiosely baroque, and he enjoyed sharing ostentatious letters from individuals in high places. Fernando de Avellaneda, a pseudonym for an anonymous writer whose identity has remained a puzzle for scholars up to the present day, took advantage of Cervantes’s slow pace in completing the much awaited part two of Don Quijote by publishing an infamous and apocryphal part two of his own. Doing this, Avellaneda asserted himself as an astute reader of part one. Not only did he read the text in its entirety, but he also took Cervantes to task. Emulating Ariosto, Cervantes, at the end of part one, had proposed that somebody else might continue his story. Avellaneda was envious, and his main purpose in writing the second part was to humiliate and belittle Cervantes and his creations. In his prologue, Avellaneda seemed keen to highlight Cervantes’s old age and he defended Lope de Vega from the sardonic commentaries that Cervantes had included in the prologue of part one. In a Machiavellian sense, Avellaneda challenged Cervantes and provided him with the occasione to summon the necessary virtù to enrich even further an already superb book. When he realized that somebody had taken up his challenge from part one, Cervantes utilized his own second part to punish the spurious publication. From the moment he became aware of the apocryphal text, Cervantes continuously and decisively established differences between the “real” (his) and the “fake” (Avellaneda’s). He made don Quijote, Sancho, and other characters from the novel comment on how much Avellaneda had erred in his description and in his conception of the overall nature of knight and squire. An ebullient character, Altisidora, in recounting her journey to the gates of hell, said that she had witnessed devils playing tennis using Avellaneda’s book as a ball. “[T]hrow it into the pit of hell so

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that my eyes never see it again,” had ordered a devil (II, 70; 916) [metedle en los abismos del infierno: no le vean más mis ojos (p. 1043)].12 Cervantes even incorporated don Álvaro Tarfe, a character from the apocryphal don Quijote into his own “real” don Quijote. In the text, Tarfe was asked by the “real” don Quijote for the sake of what you owe to your being a gentleman, to please make a statement to the magistrate of this village, saying that your grace has not seen me in all the days of your life until now, and that I am not the Don Quixote published in the second part, nor is this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one known by your grace” (II, 72; 926-927). [A vuestra merced suplico, por lo que debe a ser caballero, sea servido de hacer una declaración ante el alcalde deste lugar, de que vuestra merced no me ha visto en todos los días de su vida hasta agora, y de que yo no soy el don Quijote impreso en la segunda parte, ni este Sancho Panza mi escudero es aquel que vuestra merced conoció (p. 1055)].

In his prologue to part two, Cervantes wrote that only the devil would have set out to convince an individual that he could actually earn a living and acquire fame through the writing of books (II, prologue; 456) (p. 536). Addressing Avellaneda’s brutal charges, he admitted that he was old, but also claimed that he had no power over the ravaging effects of time. On the contrary, he felt proud of his intellectual accomplishment at his advanced age: “it should be noted that one writes not with gray hairs but with the understanding, which generally improves with the years” (II, prologue; 455) [hase de advertir que no se escribe con las canas, sino con el entendimiento, el cual suele mejorarse con los años (p. 536)]. He also denied Avellaneda’s accusations that he had offended Lope, stating with his usual humor that, on the contrary, he adored Lope’s genius and admired his plays, praising him for possessing a “continuous and virtuous diligence” (II, prologue; 456) [ocupación continua y virtuosa (p. 536)].13 12

Cervantes emulated the tone of Dante’s Canto 21 in the Inferno. According to H.A. Mason, Dante wished to play with the idea of the devilish devils, wanting to dismiss the accusation of barratry with which he had been charged in Florence. On the other hand, he wanted to treat the matter seriously; in other words, Dante allowed himself “to oscillate between the solemn and the joking without ever coming down finally in favour of one attitude” (121). 13 In writing those lines, Cervantes exorcized the ghost of Lope from his life. Having attained success with Don Quijote, he was now the one with “unceasing industry.” Lope had always struck a raw nerve in Cervantes because of his frustration as a playwright. Lope had the virtù of conceiving a Nueva Comedia (New Comedy) for the Spanish stage, which allowed him to modify stifling

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Now, he was old, and had known success with the first part of Don Quijote, so perhaps he could have forgiven Avellaneda. Undoubtedly, he had put all his life experiences, his knowledge and his intellect into his Don Quijote. Acknowledged as the first European novel, Don Quijote proved to the dispirited Spanish author and to his literary rivals that he had had it in him all along; he just needed to find an anchor for his brilliancy, and he found it in his marvelous don Quijote and Sancho Panza.14 Considered by his biographers to have been a religious man, Cervantes for the most part conceptualized fortuna within classical tenets, following in the mode of Machiavelli. As Machiavelli had in his dedication in The Prince, Cervantes lamented in his own text the role that fortuna had played in his life. Injured by his travails, the Spanish author described himself as “better versed in misfortunes than in verses” (I, 6; 52) [más versado en desdichas que en versos (p. 75)]. Even though he declared that he was unaffected by the envious voices of those who wished to see him fail as an author, he betrayed nonetheless a sense of bitterness. He also felt grateful to his protector, the Duke of Lemos, who had helped him when the author was struck by a constant string of bad fortuna (II, prologue; 457) (p. 538). In fact, he took care to address in verse the fickleness of lady fortuna in people’s affairs: At last, since all things pass, the good that Fortune gave me passed too, though once o’erflowing, and never to me returned, neither scant nor in abundance (II, 18; 572). [Al fin, como todo pasa, se pasó el bien que me dio

Aristotelian rules, which invigorated theatrical plots, and the theater in general. As a consequence, Lope drew huge crowds to the theater; instead, with his plays, Cervantes understood that his audience would consist of “a handful of discerning persons” (I, 48; 415) [cuatro discretos (p. 485)]. That is, the plays would be well liked as art forms but they would lack public appeal; in fact, “the authors who compose them, and the actors who perform them say they must be like this because that is just how the mob wants them, and no other way” (I, 48; 415) [los autores que las componen y los actores que las representan dicen que así han de ser, porque así las quiere el vulgo, y no de otra manera (p. 484)]. 14 Reflecting on the magic pairing of don Quijote and Sancho Panza, Harold Bloom states that “we remember the Don and Sancho, always, because they give us a difficult pleasure, in which much pain is mixed, and we love them always, because Cervantes puts our love for them to the test” (2005, 2).

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Fortuna, un tiempo no escasa, y nunca me le volvió, ni abundante ni por tasa] (p. 667).

Toward the end of part two of Don Quijote, the text considered the prominence of fortuna in don Quijote’s resounding loss to the Caballero de la Blanca Luna. On this, the faithful squire called lady fortuna a “drunken and fickle” woman (II, 66; 893) [mujer borracha y antojadiza (p. 1019)]. Don Quijote attested that there was no fortuna involved in events. On the contrary, providence gave people the ability to become architects of their fortune (II, 66; 893) (p. 1019). The religious features of this statement seem to negate fortuna’s classical roots. But, the indirect allusion to Machiavelli’s belief in people’s strengths makes this negation somewhat less forceful by linking the concept to both authors. Desengaño and decline permeated the political outlook of seventeenthcentury Spanish society, as expressed in the arts and literature.15 Picaresque prose fiction portrayed masculine, marginalized, rogue subjects that symbolized a society in crisis. David Castillo and Nicholas Spadaccini have emphasized that the pícaro, a social destitute, revealed the tension between morality and political thinking in Spanish society; as a consequence, the pícaro’s travails still resonate in contemporary conflicts in Western society (129). In the picaresque world, benevolence towards the downtrodden was not an option. In a sense, individuals’ war-like approach to their circumstances found echo in Machiavelli’s urge to rise up from adversity, which we see reflected in Ball’s approach to the new prince. To cope with his harsh reality, the pícaro tended to use dissembling as a tool for problem solving and for rationalizing one’s conduct with others (and even with themselves). In the Lazarillo de Tormes [Lazarillo of Tormes] (1554), the protagonist Lazarillo chose to survive by ignoring the evil tongues of his society. Published anonymously because it contained heretical and explicit content, the text became an instant classic and was emulated by various authors. Following the work of Manuel Durán, we know that Cervantes rearranged and adapted the social themes and anxieties that had exploded in Spain during 15 Henry Kamen adamantly opposes and challenges the view of seventeenthcentury Spain as a nation in decline, to be viewed in opposition to a flowering sixteenth-century Spain: “For those who are accustomed to hear praises heaped on the sixteenth century as the great and successful age of power and culture, in contrast to the seventeenth, which was regarded as an age of problems, it comes as a shock to be confronted with the view that the sixteenth was also an age of disaster,” p. 174.

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the “picaresque Revolution” (2005, 244). In Don Quijote, this was personified by picaresque author and thief Ginés de Pasamonte. In Lazarillo de Tormes, Lazarillo eagerly accepted being a cuckolded husband by marrying the mistress of the Archpriest of St. Salvador, and he did so in order to assure himself of comfortable surroundings. Reacting like Messer Nicia in the Mandragola, Lazarillo accepted his reality and focused on the benefits that inhered in his wife’s status as the mistress of such an important prelate. Shedding his old self, Lazarillo became Lázaro —who rationalized the fact that he had been emasculated by his wife and the priest, and thus found peace from his previous hardship.16 The Spanish crisis, perspicaciously illustrated in Don Quijote, propelled the arbitristas, analytical reform writers, to investigate its causes and to find appropriate remedies. They wrote treatises and proposals for addressing the Spanish monarchy’s decline. Elizabeth Lehfeldt has argued that the arbitristas’ terse response to the nation’s crisis was articulated in censorious observations that included a perceived lack of masculinity on the part of fellow Spaniards (463-464). In Don Quijote, the raison d’être of the caballeros of antiquity became don Quijote’s own quest of self: [A]s times passed and wickedness spread, the order of knights errant was instituted: to defend maidens, protect widows, and come to the aid of orphans and those in need (I, 11; 77). [andando más los tiempos y creciendo más la malicia, se instituyó la orden de los caballeros andantes, para defender las doncellas, amparar las viudas y socorrer a los huérfanos y a los menesterosos (p. 106)].

From this perspective, don Quijote turned himself into “the book in flesh and blood,” to use Foucault’s words (1994, 48). Alonso Quijano thus recreated himself into a masculine prototype who, in order to roam the world, needed weaponry appropriate to a warrior-knight. To act the part, he also needed to transform his old and decrepit horse into an equally masculine Rocinante. Finally, because no caballero could call himself a 16

Lázaro declares: “evil tongues, that are never in short supply, and do not let us live in peace, saying I don’t know what and I do know what, and which see my wife, when she goes to make the bed, and make something to eat” [malas lenguas, que nunca faltaron, no nos dejan vivir, diciendo no sé qué, y si sé que veen a mi mujer irle a hacer la cama, y guisalle de comer (105)]. For further reading, see José Ignacio Barrio Olano. La novela picaresca y el método maquiavélico (Madrid: Editorial Pliegos, 1998). Barrio Olano studies the vicissitudes of the picaresque heroes through an historical and ideological perspective in which the old oligarchy is in conflict with a proto-bourgeois power.

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caballero without a lady, he created the most ethereal of all feminine characters, the illustrious Dulcinea del Toboso, to whom he dedicated his heroic deeds. Don Quijote was not only a knight but he was also a soldier. Cervantes created don Quijote as an ideal literary representation of a figure from chivalry who nonetheless favored arms over letters. Alonso Quijano displayed both a reckless approach to life and a strong sense of loyalty to the disadvantaged precisely because of what he had read in books of chivalry. No risk was too large for the knight errant. He was courteous and archaic in his speech, and he elevated humble members of society to the highest levels. At the same time, he gave offence to those he perceived had avoided their civic duties, thinking of himself as a virtuous role model. At the duke’s court, don Quijote inspired incessant theatrical performances that delighted everyone involved. He was, however, called a madman by a bitter ecclesiastic who served as advisor to the princely home. Agitated by the staged reception of the knight errant and squire, the stern man refused to play along. He told don Quijote to go home and forget the business of chivalry, and abruptly departed himself (II, 31). Addressing the religious man’s charges against him, the knight errant emphasized his own selfless vocation against that of the irate prelate, stating that some of his kind entered the homes of the privileged just for adulation and to be servile, seeking principally their own selfish ends, and in the long run transforming themselves into veritable courtiers. In contrast, as a defender of the laws of chivalry, he concluded that his mission was to travel under the star of knight errantry seeking not wealth but honor (II, 32). The virtù that Machiavelli saw in the Romans permeated the deeds of don Quijote even in the worst of circumstances. An indefatigable strength of purpose caused him to hold on to idealistic pursuits, and these he perceived as essential to the deeds of the caballeros of antiquity. Machiavelli exalted the bravery of the Romans and the love of liberty of military men. He hoped that his caballeros of antiquity would not be perceived by Florentines as disconnected from contemporary civic pursuits but as men of virtù who followed rules for the “common benefit of mankind” (AW, Preface; 2-3) [per cagione del bene comune degli uomini (3174)]. As if describing don Quijote, Machiavelli contended that soldiers were trained to assure that society’s rules would be defended and maintained by all. Without military power, Machiavelli added, rules would be like a roofless palace that would expose precious jewelry and costly furnishings that would “moulder into ruin since it has nothing but its splendor and riches to defend it from the ravages of the weather” (AW, Preface; 3) [i buoni ordini, sanza il militare aiuto, non altrimenti si

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disordinano che l’abitazioni d’uno superbo e regale palazzo, ancora che ornate di gemme e d’oro, quando sanza essere coperte non avessono cosa che dalla pioggia le difendesse] (p. 3174)]. In his own quixotic quest for a sturdy, durable civitas, Machiavelli expected too much from human beings; to do this, he even had to set aside his own immense distrust in the altruism of people. Cervantes chronicled the human geography of a chastened CounterReformation Catholic church and the rigid display of religious ceremony and pomp that was evident in a society that was changing with the times. In their travels, don Quijote and Sancho encountered the recently outcast, such as Sancho’s neighbor Ricote, who considered himself to be a Spaniard but, because he was a morisco [of Muslim descent], had been forced to leave the only patria he knew. During his stay at court, the cruel duke represented the “soft” men of the aristocracy, the complete opposite of chivalric ideals. In the eyes of David Quint, the egotistical duke delighted in his powerful role and did not display charity to those who could not “strike back” (132). He modeled his wife, the household, and the whole court into a purposeless unit whose sole undertaking was games. They perceived don Quijote and Sancho as a great antidote against their slothful existence and so transformed the two characters into puppets, veritable buffoons of the court. Don Quijote and Sancho also became unwitting spectators of performances by not-so-delicate bearded ladies. The Dueña Adolorida, from the Trifaldi episode, alluded in part to practices of gender policing and apprised the novel’s readers of how depictions of masculinity varied in Spain. According to Sherry Velasco, the members of the court were the opposite of don Quijote since they portrayed “the urban gentleman more concerned with hair, clothing, and grooming than with traditional manly activities” (128). That is, the Trifaldi and the bearded ladies, reflecting the tastes of Golden Age theatre, projected for their audience an “interest in male cross-dressing” (229). Indeed, the Trifaldi, and the group of ladies, represented the “soft” men who had been condemned by the Spanish arbitristas, who in turn blamed them for Spanish decay. From a political standpoint, their courtly performances presented Cervantes with an occasione to create a critical discourse on the idleness, indolence, and unjust ways of a courtier class, [one] so distant from the chivalric past (Quint 131).

Fortuna and Virtù in the Pursuit of Liberty Najemy has affirmed that Machiavelli is “unconceivable without the culture of the Renaissance of the preceding two centuries” (2010, 4). The

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ancient past was an essential compass for understanding actions in the present. One of the fascinating aspects of The Prince is that it contains some of the sharpest sentences ever written in Italian (Tuscan language), notably its descriptions of disruptive fortuna and admirable virtù. Machiavelli exercised virtù in his own life and thereby controlled the effects of fortuna for many auspicious years. In his younger years, he scaled a pyramid of success; it seemed as if he accomplished everything he attempted. Rodolfi has emphasized that Niccolò was not born in an ottimati family; yet, because of his father Bernardo’s inheritance from Totto Machiavelli (an uncle), the family was able “to maintain a standard of living” (2). Sebastian De Grazia has described Machiavelli’s tireless energy, precociousness and inquisitiveness, as traits that characterized the Florentine Secretary from early childhood (20). Bernardo worked extremely hard to accumulate a library full of classics, acquiring for young Niccolò “saddlebags stuffed with books” (6). Emulating his father, who had compiled an index for a book by Livy (Ridolfi 2), Niccolò copied by hand the entire poem of Lucretius’ De rerum natura (Atkinson 16). The politics of the city of Florence were tough and masculine. After the ill-fated governance of Frate Girolamo Savonarola—remembered in chapter six of The Prince as a prophet without arms—Machiavelli’s political career rapidly took off. As Ridolfi so forcefully asserted, Machiavelli’s career started with a gesture of graphic violence, “while the Arno was still carrying away the remains of the pyre which had consumed the body of Savonarola” (1). Young Niccolò was raised in a political setting of ruthlessness, and it was against this background that he would later develop his political theories. In Florence, he learned early on that “a people which has become completely corrupted cannot live free even for a brief time, not even a moment” (D, I; 16, 62) [uno popolo dove in tutto è entrata la corruttione non può, non che piccol tempo, ma punto vivere libero (p. 1349)]. The city’s political fabric was maintained by personal allegiances, and its stability depended on negotiations among political factions. In his Florentine Histories, Machiavelli remarked that the road to political leadership was full of obstacles. As soon as individuals came to power, they had to fight tooth and nail to stay there. Since peace was only obtained during intervals, he constantly reminded Florentines to find exempla in the virtù of the Romans, who kept their realm stable through leaders that understood how to take care of their dominions and their troops, a fact which brought home how unprepared his contemporaries

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were to withstand an invasion from abroad.17 Because of his steadfast allegiance to the Romans, Machiavelli felt that he could not tread the same paths as others as he wrote a book on principalities: “I shall be thought of as presumptuous, since in discussing this material I depart radically from the procedures of others” (P, 15; 126) [non essere tenuto prosumptuoso, partendomi maxime nel disputare questa materia dalli ordini delli altri (p. 692)]. Above all, the Florentine Secretary wanted “this little gift” (P, dedication; 78) [questo piccolo dono (p. 236)] to be effective. For that reason, the best advice he could provide was to contemplate “the knowledge of the deeds of great men, which I learned from a long experience in modern affairs and a continuous study of antiquity” (P, dedication; 78) [delle actioni degli omini grandi, inparata da me con una lunga experienzia delle cose moderne et una continua lectione delle antiche (pp. 234-235)]. At twenty-nine, Machiavelli was made chancellor (secretary) of the Second Chancery in the Florentine republic. Shortly after that, he became Secretary to the Ten of Liberty and Peace. For fourteen glorious years, Machiavelli was a de facto ambassador for Florence. He traveled to many areas, such as the French and German courts, and became acquainted with the likes of Cesare Borgia, whom he applauded in The Prince (perhaps more than he would have liked, but he found himself without any other “Italian” role models). De Grazia has highlighted the fact that “in the heyday of navigators and explorers” (21), Machiavelli behaved like many of the seafarers of his time, venturing into uncharted territory across rough waters. Indeed, in the process of composing his political treatises, old encountered new; observation, experience, bravery, and intuition were essential to success. When it came to writing, Machiavelli distinguished himself by his knack for telling-it-like-it-is. He based his analytical theories partly on Greek historian Polybius’ cyclical political theory, anacyclosis, an historical conceit that permeated Livy’s own concept of historical events. In this theory, a monarchy, for instance, would inevitably turn into a malignant tyranny; an aristocratic regime would become an oligarchy; and a democracy would convert into our contemporary idea of anarchy; and then, it would revert to a monarchy. Machiavelli conceded that this cycle could be disrupted if a badly ruled state were to be 17

Machiavelli relishes describing how the Romans managed victory after victory during their heyday: “To lodge your men in security, your camp ought to be strong and well governed; the former depends either upon art or upon the nature of its location, the latter upon the commander’s care and good discipline” (AW VI; 150151) [a volere che lo alloggiamento sia sicuro, conviene che sia forte et ordinato. Ordinato lo fa la industria del capitano; forte lo fa o il sito o l’arte (p. 3635)].

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vanquished by a stronger neighbor. (D, I, 2). He was well aware that fortuna could cause sudden, unexpected changes. In a beautiful yet chilling passage, the Florentine Secretary reflected on his own personal predicaments in a way that highlighted the fragile control people have over their own lives: “time brings with it all things, and it can bring with it the good as well as the bad and the bad as well as the good” (P, 3; 85) [il tempo si caccia innanzi ogni cosa, e può condurre seco bene come male e male come bene (p. 278)]. Prudent individuals needed to recognize that bad times were bound to come. Their duty was to act with virtù, to withstand the turbulent waves as they tried to drag them under, from the top of the crest to the very bottom. Machiavelli believed that bad times were inevitable. For that reason, he stated, “the man who sets his course of action out of tune with the times will come to grief” (P, 25; 159) [sia infelice quello che con il procedere suo si discordano e tempi (p. 974)]. Time does not stand still, and nothing can resist it. Rulers had to know the precise moment to act if they wanted to preserve their realm. Ultimately, the Florentine author cautioned that there was no guarantee that even a careful person would prevail in the end. Machiavelli knew from numerous examples that what worked for one might not work for another. Success could be attained by different means. An element of surprise could enhance one’s chances of success or contribute to one’s failure. Machiavelli understood that “Nature does not allow worldly things to remain fixed” and noted that from “rising, they must go down” (FH, V, 1; 1233) [non essendo dalla natura conceduto alle mondane cose il fermarsi… non avendo più da salire, conviene che scendino (p. 518)]. As ambassador for Florence, he witnessed the rise and fall of many and foresaw his own reversal by fortuna. Like other inevitable evils, lady fortuna did eventually turn on him and in a catastrophic way. In 1512, aided by seasoned Spanish troops who were themselves supported by Pope Julius II, the Medici reentered Florence and, to ensure that their government would be without opposition, they carried out swift and wellused cruelty (P, 8). Machiavelli was implicated and falsely accused of a conspiracy against the newly installed Medici government. Stephen Milner, searching through archives, has discovered the original arrest warrant issued against Machiavelli. The document provided evidence that a town crier had gone through the streets of Florence asking for Messer Niccolò Machiavelli with the kind of urgency reserved for a “most wanted” man. With harsh terms, the warrant issued threats for withholding information about Machiavelli’s whereabouts. He had no option left other than to turn himself in (“BBC Imagine”). The former Florentine ambassador was incarcerated and tortured in the method of the strappado,

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the rack, at the Bargello prison. With his fortuna spiraling down at a precipitous rate, he lost everything he held dear, but, he refused to be defeated. Viroli has stated that at the lowest point of his life, Machiavelli still managed a smile (2000, 131). As De Grazia has also noted, he tried to make light of his harrowing ordeal and even wrote that he bore the punishment so “straightforwardly that… I love myself for it” (38). He remained imprisoned until the Medici family, his jailers, granted amnesty to most of the accused Florentine conspirators. By an ironic stroke of fortuna, the Medici did this as they were rejoicing over Giovanni di Lorenzo de’ Medici’s ascent to the papacy as Leo X. Machiavelli could never forget this horrible experience. Forever after he related his terrifying physical torture with the bitterest of disappointments (38).18 Post res perditas, disgraced and dispirited, Machiavelli nonetheless fought his way back and rose from the shambles of his shattered political ambitions. He “voiced” his despair through feverish writing, always hoping to recover his reputation after his dramatic political fall in 1512. He once wrote, “bitter things disturb the taste and sweet ones cloy it” (LM, 116; 100) [le cose amare perturbano el gusto e le dolci lo stucano (p. 493)]. Isolated from society, he remained in his farmhouse in San Casciano where he claimed that fortuna had made it so that he only knew how to discuss affairs of the state: “I don’t know how to talk about the silk business or the wool business” (LM, 120; 104) [non sapendo ragionare né dell’arte della seta e dell’arte della lana (p. 765)]. In his daily walks in the countryside, Machiavelli always carried “a book in my pocket, either Dante or Petrarch” (LM, 137; 141) [Ho un libro sotto, o Dante o Petrarca (p. 884)], adding with his typical ironic humor, “or one of the lesser poets, such as Tibullus, Ovid, and the like” (LM, 137; 141) [o un di questi poeti minori, come Tibullo, Ovvidio e simili (p. 884)]. Once night came, he returned home. In a momentous occurrence, Machiavelli said that he exchanged his dirty clothes for regal robes to join in discussion with ancient men: 18

Mauricio Viroli describes Machiavelli’s bitter disappointment in a beautiful intertwining of the Florentine Secretary’s words with Viroli’s own: “Tremendous grief is like a wind that sweeps away small things, leaving the soul capable of perceiving only the great, unless that wind withers up completely the very roots of life. Afterward, some still manage to smile, even though they have lost everything they held dear. This is a smile of determination and challenge; it dies on the lips without warming the soul, without loosening the grief that clamps tight to the heart. Such was the smile of Machiavelli after that sad 7th November 1512 when the Signoria informed him, in a laconic memo, that he was no longer secretary of the Second Chancery or of the Ten of Liberty and Peace” (2000, 131).

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In the coming of evening, I return to my house and enter my study; and at the door I take off the day’s clothing, covered with mud and dust, and put on garments regal and courtly; and reclothed appropriately, I enter the ancient courts of ancient men, where, received by them with affection, I feed on that food which only is mine and which I was born for, where I am not ashamed to speak with them and to ask them the reason for their actions; and they in their kindness answer me; and for hours of time I do not feel boredom, I forget every trouble, I do not dread poverty, I am not frightened by death; entirely I give myself over to them (LM, 132;142). [Venuta la sera, mi ritorno in casa, et entro nel mio scrittoio; et in su l’uscio mi spoglio quella veste cotidiana, piena di fango e di loto, e mi metto panni reali e curiali; e rivestito condecentemente entro nelle antique corti degli antiqui uomini, dove, da loro ricevuto amorevolmente, mi pasco di quel cibo, che solum è mio, e che io nacqui per lui; dove io non mi vergogno parlare con loro, e domandarli della ragione delle loro azioni; e quelli per loro umanità mi rispondono; e non sento per 4 ore di tempo alcuna noia, sdimentico ogni affanno, non temo la povertà, non mi sbigottisce la morte: tutto mi trasferisco in loro (p. 912)].

Like a proto don Quijote, Machiavelli “dined” and “conversed” in his library with the caballeros of antiquity. For E.C. Riley, don Quijote, at the Cueva de Montesinos, was “foredestined to release from bondage all the inhabitants of the Cave” (71). In the same manner, Machiavelli released his caballeros of antiquity from suspended reality and made them contemporary through his writings. At the Cueva de Montesinos, don Quijote joined the mythical world of Montesinos, Durandarte, and many others, all caballeros suspended between legend, reality, past and present, like don Quijote himself (II, 23). Because “Dante says knowledge is not made when we hear but do not remember” (LM, 137; 142) [Dante dice che non fa scienza sanza lo ritenere lo avere inteso (p. 912)], Machiavelli translated his conversations into a compendium of advice from the men of antiquity in “a little work” he called On Princedoms (LM, 137; 142). The Prince helped Machiavelli to get back on his feet, and, although not fully restored to his former status, he was commissioned in 1520 by Cardinal Giulio de’ Medici—who later would become Clement VII—to write a history of Florence. There was no clear consensus among Italian humanists on the task of history writing. So, as expected, the Florentine Secretary distanced himself from his contemporaries and exercised his own convictions (Najemy 2014, 1131-1132). Always the overachiever and creative genius, Machiavelli composed The Life of Castruccio Castracani partly to test how to write a history and, chiefly, to be read and commented on by his friends. Castruccio became an ingenious

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mishmash of historical and invented facts that prepared Machiavelli for the writing of his book on Florence. A remarkable aspect of this creation was that he developed a strong man, Castruccio (not a Florentine) into a superbly artistic, and mostly fictionalized, masculine prince. Castruccio became, thereby, an exemplum of virtù for the mediocre, real-life, condottieri of his time. The Prince included an impressive number of historical figures but not one of the Medici is referenced, as Najemy has remarked (1982, 556). In the Florentine Histories, however, Machiavelli was obliged to confront the Medici legacy and the family responsible for his ousting from politics. Following Najemy, we know that Machiavelli’s fortuna was irremediably interwoven with the powerful Florentine family. They were “both friends and foes, simultaneously the cause of his downfall and his imagined rescuers” (1982, 553). With Giuliano’s commission, the Medici had opened a door for Machiavelli’s return to Florentine affairs, not as a political emissary, like in the old times but, unexpectedly, as a historian. Addressing the Medici legacy was a politically charged act for Machiavelli. More than ever, because of his political ambitions, he heeded his own advice and toiled with caution. Nonetheless, he did not contain his rebellious nature when it came time to relate the payoffs Cosimo would make to gain people’s loyalty or when telling about his inept son Piero, who wasted Florence’s resources on elaborate tournaments of chivalry. Quentin Skinner has concluded that, in spite of his caution and desire to come back to the world he loved, Machiavelli remained true to himself in his Florentine Histories. In his false praise for the very powerful family he betrayed a “tone of aversion… for the Medicean governments” (97). Following the operating procedure of classical historians, Machiavelli explored the past for its strong role models and moral lessons and adopted the effective and elegant rhetorical style of the men of antiquity. At times, his approach was panegyric. And yet, Machiavelli, with his “contraria professione,” remained intent on debunking previously held ideas. He admitted that i nobili [Nobles] were naturals for power and that perhaps they possessed greater intellectual capabilities. But, la Plebe [the people] were better suited for office. For him, rulers that did not heed established laws behaved in a manner that underscored imprudence and ungraciousness toward their realm, behaviors that were not worthy of their high station (D, I, 58). In fact, Machiavelli praised those who shunned the spoils of war: “how much better are the fruits of poverty than of wealth” (D, III, 25; 318) [quanti migliori frutti produca la povertà che la richeza (p. 2890)], a sentiment that could almost be a prelude to Don Quijote. The Florentine author pulled the rug out from under the aristocracy by enumerating how

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the people would be proven to be wiser, in McCormick’s words, “than either the few or even a prince” (26), especially if they were armed with civic tools, such as effective and incorruptible laws, and if they possessed weapons and were trained to defend their realm. The people, for Machiavelli, were the only hope for a city; they would fight on behalf of the common good, for the liberty of their republic. Emphatically “contrario” (Najemy 2010, 2), Machiavelli announced in his Florentine Histories that he was not impressed by the history told by his Italian counterparts, such as Lionardo d’Arezzo and Poggio Bracciolini, whose son was implicated in the dramatic Pazzi conspiracy of 1475. These revered historians had not proven themselves brave enough to address conflict, Machiavelli felt. They hurriedly brushed off “civil strife and internal hostilities, and the effects these have produced,” fearful of causing offense (FH, Preface; 1031) [delle civile discordie e delle intrinseche inimicizie (p. 280)]. For Machiavelli, d’Arezzo and Bracciolini’s positions also demonstrated that they were more concerned with expressing their subordination to power than with pursuing a republican ideal, as Godman has argued (294). A neutral approach to the lives of prominent individuals had few redeeming qualities. No display of a leader’s virtù, for example, could be discerned from a matter-of-fact narration of events. Worse, no lessons could be derived if people were not first cognizant of an individuals’ past sufferings. For Machiavelli, a city-state could remain united and free only if it learned from past mistakes. He underscored that his intent, as a “contrario”, was to uncover the moments where individuals showed their true colors. This required him to delve into “the hatreds and factional struggles” (FH, Preface; 1031) [degli odi e delle divisioni della città (p. 281)] of Florence’s history. Using the imagery of “ruinous rivers that, when they become enraged, flood the plains” (P, 25; 159) [questi fiumi rovinosi che quando si adirano allagano e piani (p. 973)], Machiavelli described how fate or unforeseen circumstances could derail the best laid plans. Having established that prudent rulers were required to imitate the great deeds of their ancient counterparts (P, 6), he analyzed new leaders who had acquired territories through virtù or fortuna. Here, he notably observed that those who operated solely under the star of fortuna, such as Duca Valentino—who rose and fell dramatically—, lacked the capacity to retain their territories with a firm grip (P, 6). With words that would later be echoed by don Quijote, Machiavelli claimed that powerful leaders could avoid the pitfalls of power by exercising prudence or by not becoming accustomed to the perks of being on top. Effective leaders had to be cautious and seek to remove the numerous temptations that came their way; they needed to live

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principally by the good reputation they would acquire on the battlefield (AW, II). Discerning leaders, especially new ones, had to remain always alert for any changes in the times. They also needed to be conscious of the fact that they would be scrutinized more closely than their hereditary counterparts (P, 24). Finally, Machiavelli turned on its head the common conception that human beings were not in control of their lives’ vicissitudes. Resignation and passivity before life events, he said, arose from the perception that people had no remedy against the blows of fortuna. Because they felt there was nothing they could do about what came their way, they reconciled themselves to let things “be governed by fate” (P, 25; 158) [lasciarsi governare alla sorte (p. 972)]. He argued that fortuna occupied a preponderant role in individuals’ lives, but, he granted some agency and accountability to humans, adding that, with free will, humans had at least a fifty percent chance of controlling their circumstances. For that reason, when things were going well, it was vitally important to think ahead and to take precautions against the damage of the tidal wave of misfortune’s inevitable return (P, 25; 159) (p. 973). Once the Florentine republic succumbed to the Medici, Machiavelli was like a vanquished don Quijote. In this guise, he reverted back to plain Niccolò. He fought to return to form, all the same. He remained nostalgic and, in his desire for a glorious past, he could never quite adapt to his new circumstances. Post res perditas, the label of “former secretary” was a stigma that “clung like a second skin” (Viroli 2000, 141). To the amazement of his cohorts, don Quijote recovered his wits before dying. He slept profoundly and awakened as plain Alonso Quijano. As his old self, he refused to entertain the idea that he could go back to his former chivalrous self. The knight errant calmed the people around him and accepted his fate, the story emphasized, because, like everyone else, he felt that life and death had to take a natural course (II, 74). With death imminent, and with palpable yearning, Alonso Quijano the Good declared: “[T]here are no birds today in yesterday’s nests” (II, 74; 937) [ya en los nidos de antaño no hay pájaros hogaño (p. 1066], a turn of phrase that Cervantes would also utilize in the prologues of his entremeses. Time, and the changes it wrought upon individuals, were highly critical elements in Machiavelli and Cervantes’s philosophical core. Like don Quijote, who returned to being Alonso Quijano and could never again transform himself into the glorious knight errant, Machiavelli would never return to find new birds in his old political nests in the Florentine government. Recounting her examination of a 1520 manuscript of The Prince that had been in the hands of Biagio Buonaccorsi, Machiavelli’s great friend from the Palazzo Vecchio years, Nicoletta Marcelli has remarked that the

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treatise had no proper title. Perhaps this absence signaled that the political fantasia (fantasy) of the Florentine Secretary was intended to remain within the exclusive readership of wise politicians, which he hoped it would please (“BBC Imagine”). Would they do with it what he wished? A month before Machiavelli’s death, the Sack of Rome occurred. His fears of foreign invasion were realized, and the Italian states were humiliated. The debilitating feebleness of the Florentine government proved that Machiavelli had been correct in his passionate claim that Italy required strong leadership, like it had had in the times of the Roman republic. Fortuna thus immortalized him, for better or worse, by illuminating Machiavelli’s virtù as a writer and a thinker who once offered his advice to the Medici in the shape of “a little book” (P, dedication; 78) [uno piccolo volume (p. 235)].

A Frustrated Voyage to the New World It has been said that Cervantes is “an author whose thinking frequently runs far ahead of our own” (Cascardi 2002, 3). Born in Alcalá de Henares, a city with historic multicultural roots, he lived to see Spain’s gradual expulsion of religious “undesirables” during the reign of Philip II and witnessed the full enforcement of this policy during the reign of Philip III, a topic that John Lynch has explored in great detail (42-51). It is interesting to note that Cervantes was born twenty years after Machiavelli’s death, and, conspicuously, in the same year as the deaths of Francis I and Henry VIII, two of the great European powers of the times. Mary Tudor, the English monarch’s daughter, briefly united the destinies of England and Spain as Catholic monarchies by marrying a not-so-willing Philip II, eleven years her junior, in 1554. As we know, the marriage between the two powerful dynasties was a dead end. Succinctly, then, Cervantes’s birth coincided with a time of significant changes. In the prologues to his Novelas ejemplares, Cervantes proclaimed his allegiance to Charles V and offered a detailed self-portrait, affirming that adversity had taught him to remain patient in the face of life’s ups and downs (2004, 51). The Spanish author’s strength to carry on when assailed perniciously by fortuna made him a kindred spirit of Machiavelli. Both shared hardships and dislocated lives, and each was a victim of the ruinous rivers of chance. Durán’s analysis has focused on the many nebulous episodes where Cervantes succumbed to fortuna. Even after finally becoming famous with the extraordinary success of his Don Quijote, for example, Cervantes found himself in conflict with the law over the investigation of a death that embroiled not only him but also his family. Although the family

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was eventually exonerated, the investigation—perhaps inadvertently— made it publicly known that Cervantes’s sister and his daughter did not lead what were considered decorous lives, to put it mildly (1974, 27). Another commentator, Donald McCrory, admires Cervantes for his humor in confronting adversity and for his capacity and willingness to adapt to the rapid changes in his life (55). As we know from McCrory’s research, Cervantes became extremely well acquainted with a world of “contrasting social orders,” from big cities to small villages, especially in Andalusia (129). Biographers in general have used the puzzle pieces of Cervantes’s life to sketch a portrait of stoicism and shrewdness, one that projects a masculine heroism—and one that mirrors in many ways Machiavelli’s depiction of the Romans, whom he praised for their determination to carry on. There is a serendipitous connection between the extant material of the author’s life, all of his ups and downs, and the inspiration for his masterpiece, Don Quijote. Miguel was the second son of Rodrigo de Cervantes, a humble médico cirujano [medical surgeon]. Because they were not economically fortunate, the family became accustomed to an itinerant life, a way of living that characterized most of Cervantes’s life. The author’s family is thought to have been from converso (converted Jewish) roots. In over-zealous Spain, the cristianos nuevos (new Christians) were scrutinized persistently and often accused of not being sufficiently assimilated to their new religion. In Ways of Lying, Zagorin Perez has described how this cultural discrimination against those who looked or acted differently created per force an “underground existence” for the new religious converts (2). Fundamentally, then, social minorities like the Spanish conversos employed “flexibility, adaptability, and role playing” in public so that they might better endure daily life (8).19 In his entremés “Retablo de las maravillas” [The Stage of Wonders], Cervantes ridiculed seventeenthcentury Spain’s obsession with limpieza de sangre [purity of blood]. As we see in the work of José Cartagena-Calderón, Cervantes depicted here a laughable society of castrated, non-virile men (29) who were incapacitated simply by the fear of appearing to diverge from the standards of Christian 19

See “The Marranos and Crypto-Judaism.” Zagorin analyzes how religious communities justified dissembling in Biblical sources and came to terms with their practices by professing the Catholic faith on the surface and preserving their own faith clandestinely. The phenomena of Crypto-Judaism, as in the case of the conversos in Early Modern Spain, indicates that people lived a double life. Categorically, Zagorin states that “the practice of dissimulation has been rationalized and justified by theologians, casuist, philosophers, and political theorists” (60).

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culture. Everyone aimed to be perceived as a cristiano viejo [old Christian]. The “Retablo de las maravillas,” then, exposed the sleights of hand that were commonly used in the effort to remain within socially traditional religious and cultural circles. In 1569, exactly one-hundred years after Machiavelli’s birth, Cervantes became a page to Cardinal Acquaviva at the papal court. Describing Cervantes’s journey to Rome, Lacarta has stated that the trip “was not something he chose to do freely” [no era la suya una elección libre], in other words, it was a kind of exile (43). The future author of Don Quijote was fortunate to find refuge in Rome. Perilous circumstances had forced him to leave Spain, and he had done so in order to avoid imprisonment and probably extreme punishment.20 Thrown into the cultural mecca of the Roman court, Cervantes took advantage of a unique occasione to participate in high levels of intellectual activity and to familiarize himself with the intrigues of a court that was still reeling from the earthquake of the Reformation. For Fernando Cervantes, the Spanish author’s stay in Italy made him particularly aware of the strength of his country’s imperialist standing in the peninsula (329). This he would have verified by reading Machiavelli’s admiring account of Ferdinand of Aragon who conquered territories by dominating them through religion, and, importantly, by his effective use of the human and the beast, as prescribed by the Florentine author (P, 18). Naturally, Cervantes’s humanistic leanings would have harmonized well with Italians and thus assured him access to local literary archives. In this context, the budding author became acutely aware of how an oppressive Counter-Reformation was acting upon the remnants of a civic humanism and its most important symbols, such as the visual artistic expressions of the Italian Renaissance. De Armas has speculated that, in the Sistine Chapel, for instance, the young Cervantes would have seen Michelangelo’s Last Judgment with people’s genitals and backsides sadly covered up by the painter Daniele da Volterra, commonly known as il Braghettone (2002, 32). Italy made a military man out of Cervantes. He accumulated physical as well as experiential miles as he gathered themes that would find a place in his writings. He became weathered and seasoned; he understood the perils and the ups and downs of life. In particular, his participation in the epic Battle of Lepanto (1571) stands out. In Machiavellian terms, it was a 20 According to Canavaggio, Cervantes could not have been escaping from the law. Had that been the case, Canavaggio argues, he would have never entered the entourage of Cardinal Acquaviva or received recommendations from the Duke of Sessa or Juan of Austria. See “una misteriosa partida” [A Mysterious Departure (103-107)].

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glorious and necessary triumph for Spain. In the prologue to part two of Don Quijote, Cervantes reflected on the duty of a solider using words that find an echo in Machiavelli’s Art of War. Referring to his role in a famous battle for Spain, the former soldier made it clear that he was proud to have fought at Lepanto. In the battle, he was seriously wounded in the chest and left arm. No longer able to use his left hand, he became known as El Manco de Lepanto [The One-Handed Man of Lepanto]. Containing his internal fury against Avellaneda, Cervantes wrote with assuredness and serenity that he sought no retaliation for his injury. He vehemently defended himself, however, against Avellaneda, who had ridiculed his old age and crippled left hand, “as if I had been wounded in some tavern and not at the greatest event ever seen in past or present times, or that future times can ever hope to see” (II, prologue; 455) [si mi manquedad hubiera nacido en alguna taberna, sino en la más alta ocasión que vieron los siglos pasados, los presentes, ni esperan ver los venideros (p. 535)]. The battle was, he foresaw, the last momentous occasion for the Hapsburg monarchy. He was proud to have fought in the Battle of Lepanto and considered his wounds like a badge of honor which demonstrated his virtù. Indeed, they were a visible emblem to others of a soldier’s bravery and love for patria: “The wounds on a soldier’s face and bosom are stars that guide others to the heaven of honor and the desire to win glory” (II, prologue; 455) [Las que el soldado muestra en el rostro y en los pechos, estrellas son que guían a los demás al cielo de la honra, y al de desear la justa alabanza (pp. 535536)]. Four years after the Battle of Lepanto, Cervantes found himself in Naples, where he had gone to recover from his wounds. From the ancient port of the city, accompanied by his brother Rodrigo, he set sail in El Sol for Barcelona. He carried with him letters from high-caliber recommenders, sought out to support his intention of settling once and for all in his native Spain. He felt a sense of urgency to return home. He needed to intervene in delicate family matters concerning one of his sisters. Above all, he wanted a chance to reenter Spanish society. Machiavelli, in his fictionalized account of Lucca condottiere Castruccio Castracani, told of how, after being born in obscurity, Castruccio rose to the highest echelons in his military career because he confronted life with virtù, with an intuitive humility in his victories. A manly man, with muscular boldness, he took all the steps a prudent man needed to take to achieve his goals, yet, “Fortune, hostile to his glory, took life away from him instead of giving it to him” (539) [la fortuna, inimica alla sua gloria, quando era tempo di dargli vita gliene tolse (p. 266)]. In a sense, Cervantes was like Castruccio; he had effected a tremendous rise in his life. Having left Spain a fugitive,

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he now returned home from Italy with the glory of a war hero. Because, as Machiavelli says, fortune delights in variability and fickleness (FH, IV, 33), Cervantes’s high hopes of settling in Spain were dashed by an accidental event. As we know from Canavaggio’s account, strong winds and violent storms caused his ship to be separated from the Spanish galleys that were its escort (172). This proved to be a calamitous event for Cervantes and his companions. El Sol became an easy target for the Algerian pirates that swarmed along the coasts. The Spanish vessel resisted but was overcome with ease by the shrewd Ottoman pirates who were, conclusively, experts in their craft. After witnessing the death of El Sol’s captain and of many other Spanish soldiers, Cervantes and his brother were captured and taken prisoner (McCrory 65). Rodrigo de Cervantes was released before his brother. Presumably because Miguel de Cervantes was carrying letters from the likes of don Juan of Austria and the Duke of Sessa, he was kept as an español de pro [Spaniard of importance] (Lacarta 63). These letters of recommendation, which had once brought him joy and hope for a triumphant return, now sealed his fate as a captive. He endured for five years in a place known to Cervantes and his contemporaries as Barbary, the “kingdom of Algiers” (McCrory 67). The kingdom had a permeable and multicultural border, where Christians, Jews, and Muslins lived in proximity. The population also included the renegados [renegades], individuals who mostly by necessity had converted to a different religion and migrated away from their roots and their status of living “on the edge” (Garcés 74, 75). The area spoke a hybrid, border language that would later be portrayed in Cervantes’s fiction. During his years in the bagnio [jail], Cervantes was not passive. According to Canavaggio, the Spanish author became intimately aware of his surroundings during captivity because he was allowed to move more freely than most due to his war injury. As a result, the contours of his prison life, especially its political struggles, would later appear vividly in his fiction (182). Enacting Machiavelli’s philosophy that “ability is greater where choice has less authority” (D, I, 1; 20) [essere maggior virtù dove la elettione ha meno autorità (p. 1087)], Cervantes tried to escape at least four times. From these bold attempts, he learned “that men are a sorry lot” (P, 18; 133) [sono tristi (p. 757)]. Having become respected as a leader, Cervantes was nonetheless thwarted in his efforts by fellow prisoners. In a singularly spectacular attempt, he was betrayed by one of his own. Following Garcés, we know that Cervantes had prepared audacious plans for a large-scale escape which were denounced by Juan Blanco de Paz, himself a captive and a defrocked Dominican friar who pretended to be a commissary of the Holy Office

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(82). As a reward for his cooperation with authorities, one mere gold escudo and an insipid jar of lard were granted to the traitorous Dominican prelate, as Lacarta has observed (67). It is generally acknowledged that, as a child, Miguel spent time in Seville with his father and siblings. In that burgeoning and tireless city, the young Cervantes would have had easy access to the ports, which were crowded with galleons returning from and leaving for the New World (McCrory 38-39).21 Working as a purveyor of the Armada and later on as a tax enforcer for the Spanish monarchy, he longed for a new life in that far away land and twice applied to journey to the Indies. Due to his converso roots, it is assumed, he was denied twice. Wilson has emphasized how one bureaucrat, to add insult to injury, felt compelled to write on Cervantes’s second failed petition: “Let him search around here for some favor” (2002, 207). Indeed, we know from Wilson’s analysis that Spain’s imperialist expansion “informed Cervantes’s personal history as well as his imaginative writing” (2002, 208). America for Cervantes, thus, metamorphosed into a specific entity similar to those who would later inhabit it, a place described by Jocelyn-Holt as “an elastic, fluid and mobile projection in relation to its transatlantic origins” [una proyección elástica, fluida y móvil respecto a su matriz transatlántica] (2004, 27). Indeed, Cervantes possessed a concrete but imagined notion of the territorial and geographical space of the Indies. According to Wilson, when Sansón Carrasco paraphrased Ercilla’s La Araucana in his duel against don Quijote, he aestheticized Spanish colonial rule in Chile (2000, 173). Thus America, the continent of opportunity, appeared in a discrete literary form in Cervantes’s text. José Toribio Medina has meticulously noted that the word “America” can be found only once in Don Quijote: exactly at that point where the fastidious priest derided contemporary playwrights for failing to follow proper rules by having their plays take place in every sphere of the globe, including America (I, 48; 416) [la cuarta acababa en América (p. 486)]. Despite this unique linguistic appearance, America was never far from Cervantes’s thoughts, as Medina has also established (508). The administration’s denial of Cervantes’s petition to emigrate to America, which he considered a stroke of bad luck, proved in the end to be fortuitous for the author’s career. Durán has claimed that, in Cervantes’s trajectory as the author of Don Quijote, the refusal of his travel to the Indies was of major significance. Had he been granted permission, many have wondered, would Cervantes have managed to write his Don Quijote 21 Canavaggio considers Cervantes’s early stay in Seville as purely conjectural, pp. 75-76.

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at all (1974, 26-27). If so, there is no doubt that it would have been a different text. From a Machiavellian perspective, the unfortunate result of his request provided Cervantes with the right occasione to further flex the muscle of his creativity. Like Machiavelli with his Prince, the Spanish author drew upon the transformational episodes in his life to compose the Quijote. Documented in books and articles, notions of the old were intertwined with the new, as Cervantes, like Machiavelli, keenly adapted and discovered new themes through “the transformation of the old ones” (Cascardi 2002; 59). He exhibited virtù in his sharp and innovative reading of genres (epic, theatre, poetry, etc.) and left his own distinctive mark on literature. As well, his writing never neglected the Indies. In this respect, the repeated denial of his dreamt-of voyage informed the meandering travels of don Quijote and Sancho Panza as they passed through inns, manors, castles, etc., in an ambiguous Spanish landscape. In part one, for instance, along with other biographical details, Cervantes’s frustrated desire to travel to America was enacted via Rui Pérez de Viedma, the captive. The captive’s father, like Cervantes’s own, was not good at administering the family’s assets. He would have been rich “if he had been as skilled in preserving his wealth as he was in spending it” (I, 39; 334) [si así se diera maña a conservar su hacienda como se la daba en gastalla (p. 395)]. With the loss of the family fortune, the father was compelled to send his three sons away. Rui Pérez’ siblings preferred America, but he chose to fight wars for the king. As it happened, the captive crossed paths at the inn with Juan Pérez, one of his two brothers. Rui Pérez had just returned from his sad adventure in the Barbary and Juan Pérez was traveling to Seville to embark for the New World. The captive rejoiced at meeting his long lost brother. He learned, however, that, unlike him, his two brothers had been favored by fortuna and enjoyed successful lives. The youngest of the three had struck it rich in Peru. Juan Pérez, himself, had used the money sent by his rich “American” brother to pay for his studies. As conceived by Cervantes and his contemporaries, the American continent was both a refuge and a locus of regeneration for the dispossessed (Wilson 2002, 207-208). Rui Pérez had a different personal hope: “although war does not provide many riches, it tends to bring great merit and fame” (I, 39; 335) [ya que la guerra no dé muchas riquezas, suele dar mucho valor y mucha fama (p. 396)]. Like Cervantes, Rui Pérez had fought in the Battle of Lepanto, which was described by the captive as the most glorious event of his life. Regrettably, his display of virtù on such a momentous occasion was not rewarded by fortuna. On the contrary, while everyone rejoiced, he lamented,

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Chapter One I alone was unfortunate; for, contrary to what I might have expected in Roman times, instead of a naval crown I found myself on the night following so famous a day with chains on my feet and shackles on my hands (I, 39; 337). [yo solo fui el desdichado; pues, en cambio que pudiera esperar, si fuera en los romanos siglos, alguna naval corona, me vi aquella noche que siguió a tan famoso día con cadenas a los pies y esposas a las manos (pp. 398399)].

Having been made a captive, Rui Pérez lamented that he did not live in the times of the Romans; he could not return to his homeland to rejoice in Spain’s victory. His captivity in Algiers ensured, too, that, like his own father, he would not prosper. After an elaborate escape, he and his formerly rich lady, Zoraida (who could have chosen a better suitor) were free but completely penniless. By contrast, Juan Pérez had been granted the prestigious position of oidor (judge) in Mexico, because letrados did not suffer the hardships of military men, and, instead, were rewarded with distinguished appointments in Spain or abroad (I, 38). With two brothers who had “made it in America,” there was nonetheless something finally in place to help Rui Pérez stay out of the vertiginous river of bad luck. As events in the captive’s life evolved, Cervantes left us with a hint of optimism that perhaps Rui Pérez would one day accompany one of his siblings to America. There is every reason to believe that, penniless and with a new wife to support, he would have departed for Seville without hesitation and, from there, sailed away in one of those galleons that Cervantes himself had watched leave without him for the longed-for Indies.

Cervantes: Reader of Italian The strong presence of Italy in Cervantes’s writings confirms that, in spite of his hardships, the time spent in Rome, Naples, Genoa, and other areas of the Italian peninsula was beneficial to his literary and military career. Toward the end of his life he longed to return to Italy, a wish he was denied. Like America, Italy became a muse and “found a place in his works” (De Armas 2002, 34). Fluent in Italian, he would have read Machiavelli in the original Tuscan language. Cervantes disliked reading Italian in translation, for example Boiardo and Ariosto—a fact he used the priest in Don Quijote to infer—and he would not have read Machiavelli in Castilian translation. As the priest said: if an author communicates “in his own language, I bow down to him” (I, 6; 48) [pero si habla en su idioma,

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le pondré sobre mi cabeza (p. 70)]. In fact, Cervantes incorporated Italian literary themes and language in his work to such an extent that he gave don Quijote, in the Sierra Morena episode, the ability to express his despair for his lady either in the furious Italian mode of Orlando or the melancholic, Spanish one of Amadís (I, 26). Cervantes possessed a solid command of the Italian language and literature. He made sure his don Quijote was not only fluent but also a great Italian teacher. Having just arrived in Barcelona as a guest of don Antonio Moreno, don Quijote went out on horseback and was insulted by a crazy Castilian roaming the streets. To forget that incident, to give Barcelona a second chance, and to escape feeling confined as he had been at the duke’s court, he later took a stroll and arrived serendipitously at a printing-house, “which made him very happy because he had never visited a print shop and he wished to know what it was like” (II, 62; 872) [ de lo que se contentó mucho, porque hasta entonces no había visto emprenta alguna, y deseaba saber cómo fuese (p. 997)]. As always, literature and his enjoyment of books were the right remedy for his suffering. Seeing how books were made had a soothing effect on don Quijote. The presence of don Quijote at the printing press, in Foucault’s eyes, makes language acquire a new relevance: “Cervantes’s text turns back upon itself, thrusts itself back into its own density, and becomes the object of its own narrative” (1994, 48). In fact, don Quijote witnessed the printing of his own apocryphal book, which he thought had already been destroyed (II, 62). Mesmerized by all that took place before the sheets of paper were bound into a book, don Quijote inquired about the volume that was being assembled at that very moment. He was told that it was a translation of an Italian work, Le bagatelle. He indicated that he was familiar with the Tuscan language and Italian literature. To prove his fluency, he said: “I take pride in singing some stanzas by Ariosto” (II, 62; 873) [me precio de cantar algunas estancias del Ariosto (p. 998)]. He continued: where the Tuscan says piace, your grace says please in Castilian, and where it says piu, you say more, and su you render as above, and giu as below (II, 62; 873). [adonde diga en el toscano piace, dice vuesa merced en el castellano place; y adonde diga più, dice más, y el su declara con arriba, y el giù con abajo (p. 998)].

The translator of Le bagatelle, curiously characterized as “a rather serious man of fine appearance and figure” (II, 62; 872) [un hombre de muy buen talle y parecer y de alguna gravedad (p. 997)], was undoubtedly

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irritated by the caballero’s questioning of his command of Italian. Don Quijote only made it worse for himself when he told the translator that he disliked translations: “[it] is like looking at Flemish tapestries from the wrong side (II, 62; 873) [es como quien mira los tapices flamencos por el revés (p. 998)]. The final blow was don Quijote’s disdain for translating from “easy languages,” [lenguas fáciles] such as from Italian to Spanish, because doing so “demonstrates neither talent nor eloquence” (II, 62; 873) [ni arguye ingenio ni elocución (p. 998)]. Cervantes, no doubt, would have avoided any Spanish translation of Machiavelli.

Spain: Everywhere and Nowhere Cascardi has wondered whether a political community was ever possible for Cervantes (2012, 166). Don Quijote belonged to a certain place in La Mancha which the story did not wish to identify. Knight errant and squire crossed a disjointed, serpentine topography that did not yield the same material rewards which don Quijote had read about in his beloved books. No matter what misfortunes they suffered, however, they always held out hope that great adventures would at some point occur. The knight errant became increasingly familiar with poverty, and, when discussing the value of the Arms vs. Letters debate from an intellectual perspective, he gave a glimpse of his former self by attesting that poverty is one of the harshest obstacles for humanists and students, declaring that “the man who is poor has nothing that is good” (I, 37; 330) [quien es pobre no tiene cosa buena (p. 390)]. Besides his altruistic purposes, his pathetic circumstances framed his approach to chivalry, as he told Sancho upfront: this adventure and those like it are adventures not of ínsulas but of crossroads, in which nothing is won but a broken head or a missing ear (I, 10; 70). [Esta aventura y las a ésta semejantes no son aventuras de ínsulas, sino de encrucijadas, en las cuales no se gana otra cosa que sacar rota la cabeza o una oreja menos (p. 97)].

Years of captivity made Cervantes well aware that the imperialist agenda of the Spanish monarchy was threatened by what McCrory has described as “an incipient nation-state” in the western Mediterranean (67). Cervantes’s political expression, then, encompassed what Anderson has termed an “imagined community” (5), one that was persistently challenged by another, stronger, one, the Barbary State as it increasingly accumulated

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power.22 Braudel once underlined how traffic had turned the Mediterranean into a sophisticated maritime highway, a model to other realms, making it appear much more urban than Paris and London at that time (277-278). As don Quijote and Sancho journeyed, it was difficult to delimit what physical spaces they inhabited. In fact, Barcelona was the only city proper that they ever visited. Roque Guinart, mythical thief from the city of Barcelona, who robbed the rich to give to the poor, was a soothing contrast to the duke. He was a man of ethics who treated the beleaguered caballero with the respect that he had lost during his stay at the duke’s court. Roque was in fact an analogous, but highly rebellious, caballero who shared and upheld don Quijote’s ideals of contemporary chivalry, albeit in a revolutionary manner. For Quint, Roque became the prototypical heroic character whom don Quijote emulated (132). Given that politics “was at once everywhere and nowhere” (Cascardi 2012, 165), geographical anonymity in Don Quijote provided a safe haven for debating “what ought to be” (2012, 165). Don Quijote became involved in the business of the polis and its forms of government because, as Machiavelli understood, the republic emblematized the common good, to which all citizens of his kind aspired (Fernández Rodríguez 125). Unless he served the republic, don Quijote would not have felt he was fulfilling the duties required of a man of his station. Cervantes, like Machiavelli, engaged with history and made transparent his intense preoccupation with the macro and micro aspects of political power. For Angelo Di Salvo, it became implicit in Don Quijote that in the Spanish realms there were too many “unqualified counselors… constantly offering useless advice to the monarch” (51). Even though the priest and the barber were intent on discovering whether don Quijote was still mad, the barber coyly addressed serious problems at court, declaring to don Quijote: experience shows that all or most of the schemes presented to His Majesty are either impossible, or absurd, or harmful to the king and his kingdom (II, 1; 460). [tiene mostrado la esperiencia que todos o los más arbitrios que se dan a Su Majestad, o son imposibles, o disparatados, o en daño del rey o del reino (p. 543)].

Within an historical framework derived from his books of chivalry and his own experience, don Quijote confronted two seventeenth-century 22 McCrory describes the Barbary that Cervantes encountered as “a world of Machiavellian intrigue and subterfuge, of espionage, greed and violence,” 68.

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caballeros: the vainglorious don Fernando—abuser of civic liberty— , and the heroic but penniless captive Rui Pérez de Viedma (Clamurro 166). As a segundón (second son), don Fernando was likely as penniless as Rui Pérez because he was completely dependent on his father, following the laws of mayorazgo (primogeniture) which had been installed in Spain to protect the nobles’ economic power and land at the beginning of the sixteenth century, a topic that Pierre Vilar has explored in more detail (69). For Vilar, Don Quijote exposed how the crisis of Spanish imperialism had unmasked a nation that had not adapted fast enough to the changes of a nascent proto capitalism (71). The enterprise of conquest had enriched a chosen few in Spain, but the nation’s archaic economic system had not facilitated this prosperity reaching the poorer sectors (71). Equally, Spain had not been able to control, or to provide enough reinforcements to contain, the English pirates and privateers that assaulted the galleons as they returned with goods from India, Africa, and the New World (McCrory 146-147). The Spanish empire, increasingly xenophobic, had also chosen to rid itself of merchants and investors, the very people who would have supported and promoted the New World enterprise. For instance, the indianos (New World travelers) who were returning from America were prevented from investing their capitalist gains in Spain (Vilar 70-71). The Spanish crown, which defaulted on loans and caused extreme inflation, ultimately misused and diminished the potentially enormous benefit brought by Christopher Columbus’s most extraordinary occasione. Described as “the first king of Christendom” (P, 21; 150) [el primo re de’ cristiani (p. 896)], and the epitome of a prince of virtù, Ferdinand of Aragon, the great grandfather of Philip II, held the reins of his dominions firmly. He knew when to appear pious, when to be cruel, and how to keep “his subjects in suspense and amazed” (P, 21; 150) [sospesi et admirati gli animi de’ subditi (p. 897)]. Machiavelli admired him greatly. Through his reading of The Prince, Cervantes would have known of Ferdinand’s necessary use of (oxymoronic) “pious cruelty” (P, 21; 151) [pietosa crudeltà (p. 897)].23 With Machiavelli’s praise of Ferdinand as an antecedent, don Quijote addressed the perceived glory of Spain’s political past and demonstrated that he was keenly aware of the strategic errors committed by Ferdinand of Aragon’s heirs. In his own discussion of principalities, don Quijote admitted that rulers could be so fortunate as to 23

Machiavelli places Ferdinand of Aragon in an “almost new prince” category (P, 21; 150) [quasi principe nuovo (p. 896)], a fact that highlights a common Machiavellian trait, one which thrives in ambiguity. See Manel Rodríguez Fuster’s “La visión de Fernando el Católico en El Príncipe.”

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inherit a realm. On the other hand, there were those of low birth who were required to “rise by degrees until they become great lords” (I, 21; 161) [y van subiendo de grado en grado, hasta llegar a ser grandes señores (p. 200)]. Difficulties for hereditary rulers, according to Machiavelli, were not unsurmountable because they had lineage in their favor. Put differently, having a father or close relative who had been a ruler allowed new princes to make—and to recover from—more mistakes. They were forgiven more easily than leaders who started out with nothing and no family truly to recommend them (P, 2). In Machiavellian terms, Philip III had inherited the Spanish realm by fortuna only. In his analysis of prince Philip’s vulnerabilities, Manuel Fernández Álvarez has emphasized how Philip II had shielded his younger son from the immense responsibilities of the crown, perhaps out of fear of the terrible fate that had befallen don Carlos, prince Philip’s elder brother. As the son of Philip II, Philip III became de facto emperor and protector of the Catholic faith, a task for which he had not been prepared. Towards the end of his life, Philip II knew of the ineptitude of his son, stating to his trusted ministers: “I am afraid they are going to rule over him” [Temo que me lo gobiernen (378)]. With Machiavellian virtù, therefore, Philip II strove to impede the influence of the privados, favorites, fearing that his son’s negligence would engender a new dynasty in Spain, what Fernández Álvarez has termed “lazy kings” [reyes holgazanes] (379). But the king’s preoccupation and precautions were to no avail. After Philip II’s death, his son’s favorites rapidly took over the court. They discharged good ministers from Philip II’s time and unleashed corruption in the heart of the Spanish monarchy (379). Looked at through a Machiavellian lens, Philip III never learned to be a “true” king. He lacked the bravado necessary to rule and the brains to be in tune with the times and to change his “method of procedure” (P, 25; 160) [modo di procedere (p. 975)]. He did not understand, therefore, that he was being judged. He was not astute enough to perceive that Spain’s ills and the errors of its subjects would essentially become his own responsibility and his fault (D, III, 29). His court was considered frivolous, perhaps in comparison to the austerity of his father’s reign. Philip III’s actions ultimately justified his father’s fears and, following Lynch, historians consistently have considered him among the most inept kings of the Habsburg dynasty (14-15). In his overall performance, Philip III did not behave according to his station; he acted not as a king but as a mere member of an aristocratic entourage. His court moved constantly, not for political purposes but for recreational or religious reasons. This allowed the aristocracy to become too powerful in the places he left behind. As Simon Barton has noted, the new king was

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happy to rid himself of too much responsibility and therefore restored to the nobles the power that Philip II had taken away from them (120). Indicating a Machiavellian moment, Fernández Álvarez has proclaimed that the decay of the House of Hapsburg had an irreversible impact on the future of the dynasty. With the triumph of the privados, a new social order emerged, and the system implemented by Ferdinand and Isabella was destroyed. On this, Fernández Álvarez has asked: “How to turn the Crown prince into an authentic statesman? [¿Cómo conseguir que el príncipe heredero sea un auténtico hombre de Estado?] (380). Philip III never sought out the immanence of permanent glory. His father had radiated it because he had been truly admired. For Machiavelli, it is critical to understand that such an aura could only be granted, never acquired. To paraphrase his words, no matter how hard a prince might strive, only others could bestow glory upon a ruler (Price 591-593). Machiavelli proclaimed that, out of necessità, rulers were required to present a spectacular and ideal self-image to others. They needed to appear larger than life and to construct a public versus a private persona. Rulers had to be wise and to choose good ministers whom they could trust implicitly. Counselors, free of self-interest, could only concern themselves with matters in the prince’s interest (P, 22). Philip III revered Francisco de Sandoval y Rojas, marquis of Dernia and, predictably, he quickly made him Duke of Lerma. Without precedent, Philip III bestowed upon his favorite the title of valido (most worthy). As a valido Lerma had the closest access to the king, and, most important, was considered by others as the king’s most trusted political advisor. In contemporary terms, this would be the equivalent of Philip III appointing the duke as the first chief minister of government in Spain, as Lynch has observed (15). As a valido, the duke reviewed and decided on all manner of administrative operations at Philip III’s court, a maneuver that Machiavelli had advised against because “that adviser would in a brief time take the state away from [the prince]” (P, 23; 158) [quel governatore in breve tempo gli torre’ lo stato (p. 945)]. With the country now effectively under his control, the fortunate valido pursued his own personal agenda without difficulty. He amassed a huge fortune and used nepotism to fill high-ranking administrative posts. Eventually, he would show his true colors: “Men always turn out badly for you unless some necessity makes them good” (P, 23; 156) [gl’uomini sempre ti riusciranno tristi, se da una necessità non sono fatti buoni (p. 945)]. Some have argued, however, that the Duke of Lerma had been a prudent counselor, but that this quality has gone unrecognized. As the king’s favorite, he had acquired many enemies and had been inevitably envied. Machiavelli would have surely commented that, in spite of his

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wisdom, the Duke of Lerma could never have made Philip III look good, because “a prince who is not wise in his own right cannot be well advised” (P, 23; 156) [uno principe che non sia savio non ara mai e consigli uniti, non saprà per se stesso unirgli (p. 945)]. Philip III’s egregious political errors demonstrated that he was ill fitted for his position. For Vilar, Philip III was ultimately a monarch to be pitied (67). He should have behaved regally, like gli antichi. Glory on the battlefield was the ultimate ambition of don Quijote himself. Reinforcing the fact that heroism is best displayed through humility, don Quijote often talked about being remembered for his glorious deeds and actively shunned self-serving flattery. During the reign of Philip III, the Spanish court was overcome with idleness. It was a place of wasted opportunity and misplaced purposes, increasingly dependent on the riches of the New World enterprise. Whereas competent leaders had successfully created protonations out of the separate administrate units in the Americas (Anderson 54), the Spanish administration was incapable of regulating taxes on the Galleons returning from the New World. The crown, nonetheless, had some clever ways of raising funds. For example, they received donativos (voluntary gifts) from colonial merchants. In truth, these were payments that the Spanish administration received from criollos in exchange for pardoning tax fraud and for bestowing honors and nobility titles (Lynch 165). Because heavy taxation caused “withdrawal and flaw” (165), the crown became burdened by enormous debts and by a malfunctioning economy that failed at agricultural development. The old aristocracy became idle, disdaining manual labor, much like the duke and the duchess in don Quijote. To solve its problems, Philip III’s government increased the fiscal obligations of farmers, deeply affecting those least able to comply, through la carcoma de los censos [the wood- worm effect of the censos] (Johnson 18). Cervantes was well aware of his country’s ills, since he had been in contact with peasants who were obliged to pay taxes to help deter Spain’s looming economic crisis. He had been under financial duress as well most of his adult life, having been accused in lawsuits of keeping wages that were property of the Crown. Unlike his son, Philip II inspired awe and behaved in an exemplary way, a perception built upon a constructed masculinity. He carefully orchestrated the spectacle of a warrior king with deep religious convictions, a winning combination for his times. Certainly, no enemy could conspire easily against a man “with such a reputation” (P, 19; 136) [ad chi è reputato con difficultà si congiura (p. 787)]. As the heir of Charles V, Philip II was always given the benefit of the doubt; he was never scrutinized too closely as he defined his own mandate and tried to

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surpass his father’s legacy. Perhaps erroneously, Philip II attempted to be king, counselor, and policy maker all at once (Lynch 15). He had the capacity to take advice and he understood key policy issues: for instance, he was well aware that for the good of the nation he could not evict the totality of the moriscos. Doing so would have led to a debilitating loss of work force and, in Johnson’s analysis, this is in fact what happened later when the imprudent Duke of Lerma made that fateful decision, “wreak[ing] havoc on the economy” (55). Along with his regal stance, Philip II had endured his own share of reversals of fortuna, among them revolts in the Netherlands and the disastrous defeat of the Spanish Armada in 1588. Driven by religious zeal, and a desire for omnipotence, Philip II had failed to be circumspect about the difficulty of his maritime enterprise. In the Armada fiasco, Philip II simply did not choose well. After the untimely death of the Armada’s true leader, Álvaro de Bazán,24 the monarch made an impetuous choice in selecting the Duke of Medina as a replacement. The duke was an inexperienced aristocrat who, upon hearing of his appointment, had begged not to be put in charge (McCrory 140). Machiavelli would have concluded that Philip’s English enterprise was doomed already because prudence had not led to the choice of an able leader. Beyond that, fortuna brought unforeseen and treacherous weather against the Spaniards as the Armada approached the English coast. The Duke of Medina was incapable of adapting to the unpredictability of the weather and the ocean. As a consequence, Philip II failed for the second time to conquer and to alter the destiny of England (his marriage to Mary Tudor having been his first failed effort). Yet, because of his strength of character, he was not vilified as his son would later be. Philip maintained his heroic, majestic aura. If the people did not love him, they certainly respected him.

24

In Don Quijote, Cervantes pays homage to the mythical admiral using the voice of the captive Rui Pérez de Viedma: “On this voyage the galley La Presa, whose captain was a son of the famous corsair Barbarossa, was captured by the flagship of Naples, La Loba, under the command of that lightning bolt of war, that father to his soldiers, that victorious and never defeated Don Álvaro de Bazán, the Marquis of Santa Cruz” I, 39; 400 [En este viaje se tomó la galera que se llamaba La Presa, de quien era capitán un hijo de aquel famoso corsario Barbarroja. Tomóla la capitana de Nápoles, llamada La Loba, regida por aquel rayo de la guerra, por el padre de los soldados, por aquel venturoso y jamás vencido capitán don Álvaro de Bazán, marqués de Santa Cruz (p. 338)].

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The Index and the Anti-Machiavellians In 1559, Pope Paul IV imposed the Index, an instrument of censorship that limited what Catholics could read. Curiously, Machiavelli was placed on the Roman Index against pernicious books, but he continued to be read in Spain, a discrepancy that Puigdomènech has analyzed in detail (1988, 30). Notwithstanding the Pope’s edict, Machiavelli’s works played an essential role in the development of political thought in Spain. They were especially sought out at court: diplomats, members of government, even monarchs were familiar with his ideas [los diplomáticos, los hombres de gobierno, los reyes mismos, estaban familiarizados con sus ideas (1988, 7)].

Charles V was an enthusiastic reader of the Discourses and he became one of the many protectors of Machiavelli’s legacy in Spain. The Holy Roman Emperor even dedicated a Spanish translation of the Discourses to his young son Philip II, as Puigdomènech has noted (2008, 43). Machiavelli could also be found in the library of the Duke of Béjar, to whom Cervantes dedicated his Part I of Don Quijote (Howard 7). Luis Corteguera has argued that Sancho’s tenure as a governor followed the tradition of Razón de Estado (statecraft) and therefore considered issues of morality vs. immorality in the governing of a realm. With customary discretion and the use of parody, Cervantes undeniably inserted himself into his contemporaries’ discussions of ruling and governing (261-263). 25 Although comical and filled with mishaps, Sancho’s experience as a governor contained within it a desire to critique “a reason of state devoid of morality and to underscore the ethical qualifications of good rulers,” to use Corteguera’s words (263). Following the good advice of don Quijote, Sancho proved himself to be a great governor. He demonstrated that good laws kept a city in liberty, as Machiavelli had claimed. The episode also had a subversive tone. It illustrated how a peasant, a humble man, could be 25

Corteguera highlights the fact that don Quijote, the priest, and the barber dealt with Razón de Estado without becoming submerged in the subject matter: “Cervantes did not participate directly in this contentious debate, although it was too prominent for him not to know its general contours” 263. In truth, sending the caballeros to see the king to solve the problems at court, Cervantes was advising for a type of political uprising that would have turned the mores of the court on their head.

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wiser than even a king in the art of governing. In The Discourses, Machiavelli included the lives of individuals who rose above the rest and thus turned themselves into what he termed an inconveniente (a problem) for their society. They were dangerous for governing. Through innovation they had acquired “more power than is reasonable” (D, I, 33; 92) [più forze che non è ragionevole (p. 1529)], and this presented a conundrum to their political rivals. Should the newly powerful be supported in their innovative way of policy making? Or should their opponents “attempt a remedy rather than to allow it to continue” (D I, 33; 92) [il volere rimediare che lasciarlo seguire? (p. 1529)]. Sancho was himself an inconveniente for the duke because he exceeded everyone’s expectations as a governor. Ruling by the hand of justice, Sancho became a new, dangerous role model for the ínsula and, as a consequence, he made the old laws look outmoded. The only solution left was for his caretakers to depose him. Machiavelli’s legacy became anathema to Catholic Counter-Reformation efforts in the papal court, as Puigdomènech has explored. He was one of the auctores primae classis and thus placed under the most severe category of censorship in the Index (1988, 32). Puigdomènech has demonstrated that, unlike France or England, Spain possessed only a few translations of Machiavelli’s political texts (1988, 82). This scarcity of translations had more to do with the Spanish elite’s fluency and superior command of the Italian language than with the Index itself. It would take at least thirty more years for Machiavelli to appear on the Spanish Index, through the effort of the General Inquisitor Cardinal Quiroga in 1583-84 (1988, 52-56). José Antonio Maravall has claimed that, without the influence of Machiavelli, sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish political thought, as reflected in the various treatises of the time, would not have been the same; the anti-Machiavellian authors would not have addressed political issues as they did, in a confrontational, Machiavellilike manner (184). One of the first Spanish authors to successfully navigate moral and Christian thought via the intricacies of Machiavellian politics was Antonio de Guevara, a humanist and principal counselor of Charles V (187). In his Reloj de príncipes [The Dial of Princes] (1529), Guevara made connections with Machiavelli and became an influence on Cervantes. He eulogized a mythical time, the Golden Age of man when harmony reigned, and a period of lost treasure which caused him to lament his cruel present times—just like don Quijote would later do with the goat

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herders as his audience.26 In a previous treatise, the Libro áureo de Marco Aurelio [Golden Book of Marcus Aurelius], the Spanish intellectual had alluded to the magic of America when speaking of the value of his book as akin to the gold found in the Indies (19). Likewise, he claimed that he had found his story in a manuscript among the books left by Cosimo de’ Medici, thus imitating a characteristic trope from the tradition of the books of chivalry. In Cervantes, the manuscript found in the Alcaná market in Toledo took this trope to a new extreme by presenting various levels of narration, one that included a text written in Arabic by Cide Hamete Benengeli.27 Guevara wrote in a nostalgic tone and considered time not only as a chronology but also as an inventor of new things and as a recorder of old things. This connected him closely with Machiavelli’s own political philosophy. The enforcers of the Quiroga Index ignored Machiavelli’s valuable lessons on empire; his fate in Spain subsequently took a turn for the worse (Puigdomènech 1988, 56). Prominent individuals like the Duke of Sessa attempted to save Machiavelli’s work by purging it of certain chapters, but to no avail. From a political perspective, the Jesuits’ influence in the Church was too strong, and the objectionable pieces of Machiavelli’s works proved too difficult to excise to everyone’s 26

In the Reloj de príncipes, Guevara, as don Quijote would later do, commented on the Golden Age of men: “That was called the golden age, which means made of gold; our time is called the age of lead, which means made of iron; and this difference did not arise because gold failed and iron was discovered, nor because our age lacks wise men, but because malicious men are abundant in our time” [Llámase aquella edad dorada, que quiere decir de oro; llámase esta nuestra edad edad férrea, que quiere decir de hierro; y esta diferencia no nació de que entonces se falló el oro y después se descubrió el hierro, ni aun porque faltan en esta nuestra edad sabios, sino porque sobran en ella maliciosos (52)]. 27 The “found manuscript” was an old tradition in the books of chivalry. For Guevara and Cervantes, there appear to be striking similarities. In the Libro áureo Guevara stated the following: “By chance, as I was reading through a story, I found a reference to this particular tale, and inserted in it was an epistle that seemed so fine to me that I used every human effort to find it. After looking through many books, searching many libraries, talking to many wise men, and making inquiries in many kingdoms, I found the story at last in Florence among the books left by Cosimo de’ Medici, a man who is certainly well remembered” [Acaso pasando un día una historia, hallé en ella esta historia acotada, y una epístola en ella inçerta y paresçiome tan buena, que puse todo lo que las fuerzas humanas alcanzan a buscarla. Después de rebueltos muchos libros, andadas muchas librerías, hablando con muchos sabios, pesquisando por muchos reynos, finalmente descrobrila en Florençia entre los libros que dexó Cosme de Medicis, varon por çierto de buena memoria (20)].

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satisfaction (Puigdomènech 2008, 47). Significantly, Machiavelli had already been subject to censorship in Rome at the hands of his own descendants who attempted to make him acceptable by creating expurgated versions of his creations and of his spirited words (Godman 303). They did everything they could to save Machiavelli from oblivion but they could not bring themselves to publish their famous relative under a different name, preferring to yield to the necessità of the times to dissemble or erase things when required (304). Just as Volterra had famously been commanded by executors of the Counter-Reformation to paint vestments or fig leaves over the genitals and backsides of Michelangelo’s Last Judgment, so Machiavelli’s relatives chose to hide the parts that needed to be concealed. As a page at the Roman court, Cervantes would have encountered The Prince or The Discourses in this condition, among secretly uncensored pieces, which is akin to seeing Michelangelo’s paintings with their Braghettone coverings. Anti-Machiavellian intellectuals emerged in France and Spain primarily because the Florentine Secretary’s conception of sound political advice was at odds with rigid Christian morals. For him, only the verità effettuale mattered. Advisers to the prince needed to bridge the gap between Counter-Reformation Catholic doctrine and political virtù; that is, between dogma and effective action in the real world. Toward the end of the sixteenth-century, however, during the French phase of the antiMachiavellian effort, Innocent Gentillet began the initiative to distort and tarnish Machiavelli’s legacy. Howard has revealed how Gentillet cleverly took sentences from The Prince out of context and turned them into maxims so that he could condemn their perceived religious immorality (71). In France, as in Spain, Machiavelli’s imitators were simultaneously his main detractors. Imbued with “Catholic Hispanic imperial ideology” (8), anti-Machiavellians sought to advise the monarchy politically on how best to “maintain imperial dominion” (63). The Spanish antiMachiavellians, most of them courtiers and men of the cloth, freely deployed Machiavelli’s dicta to advance their own careers, even as they wrapped themselves in the virtue of being dependent on a higher authority. Howard has noted that theoreticians such as Fadrique Furió Ceriol and Balthazar Ayala, without acknowledging Machiavelli, adopted his vocabulary and political theories and cleverly tailored them to fit comfortably within a militant, imperial Counter-Reformation discourse (52-67). The anti-Machiavellians publicly abhorred what they perceived to be immoral and atheist, while they privately appropriated and disseminated key Machiavellian concepts (5). In sum, anti-Machiavellian Spanish authors pointedly condemned the scabrous parts of the Italian author’s texts and at

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the same time differentiated and distanced their own writings from his. They also folded their grasp of Aristotle’s Politics into their readings of Machiavelli. Some authors went as far as to create their own maleficent fantasy version of Machiavelli’s oeuvre. Foucault’s take on the antiMachiavellians, following Robyn Marasco’s analysis, described in detail how the authors used their publicly adverse reaction to The Prince to develop an art of government. Mimicking the anti-Machiavellians, Foucault never engaged directly with The Prince, preferring to stay within the realm of Machiavelli’s detractors (even though, as Foucault stated, these authors had not read the text in depth). Marasco has specified that, when addressing The Prince directly, Foucault took a perspective that was restricted to its use as a vehicle for the anti-Machiavellians; hence, he never considered Machiavelli to be part of modernity (2007, 346-348). In some ways, then, Foucault himself acted exactly like the antiMachiavellians by neglecting Machiavelli’s other political works, especially obviously the Discourses. It was characteristic that later antiMachiavellian authors no longer consulted the original source. Instead, they chose to refer mainly to what preceding anti-Machiavellian authors had said, a habit which perpetuated the Florentine Secretary’s ill repute, as Howard has discussed (6-7). Defenders of the Catholic faith enforced numerous political-religious check points and essentially acted as mind readers. For Avraham Oz, the anti-Machiavellians negotiated “Machiavelli’s separation of religious tenets from political realism” and modified it (118). Slandering Machiavelli’s character while ruthlessly plagiarizing his political advice and powerful writing reminds us of contemporary political tactics. For the Spanish anti-Machiavellians, it was critical that their writings reach the ear of the monarchical court. They were motivated to preserve Spain as a central nation state. The year 1598, when Philip III virtually placed his crown in the hands of the Duke of Lerma, was nervously regarded as “the end of an age” and the beginning of the unknown (Lynch 16). Having been blocked by Philip II, counselors thirsty for power saw an occasione in Philip III’s ineptitude and sought to distinguish themselves by writing about how to promote the prosperity of the state. In their zeal to correct governmental wrongs, the Spanish letrados agreed with “Machiavelli’s call for a militant, imperialist understanding of Christianity,” as Howard has argued (86), but did not hesitate to denounce many of Machiavelli’s beliefs, such as his focus on fortuna and human freedom from divine intervention (86-87). The Index failed to silence Machiavelli. In truth, even if the censors had been successful, his political theories would have nonetheless

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prevailed through his opponents who plagiarized, imitated, or indirectly based their ideas on Machiavelli’s own (Puigdomènech 1988, 39). The anti-Machiavellians, for their part, wanted to erase his name so that they could take full credit for their own derivative work. In an unforgettable passage in The Prince, Machiavelli spoke of a particular type of cruelty and of the negative effects of applying it too many times: It is to be noted that in taking a state its conqueror should weigh all the harmful things he must do and do them all at once so as not to have to repeat them every day, and in not repeating them, to be able to make them feel secure and to win them over with the benefits he bestows upon them. Anyone who does otherwise, either out of timidity or because of poor advice, is always obliged to keep his knife in his hand; nor can he ever count upon his subjects, who, because of their fresh and continual injuries, cannot feel secure with him (P, 8; 106). [Onde è da notare che, nel pigliare uno stato, debbe lo occupatore d’epso discorrere tutte quelle offese che gli è necessario fare e tutte farle a uno tratto; per non le avere a rinovare ogni dì, e potere (non le innovando) assicurare li omini e guadagnarseli con benificarli. Chi fa altrimenti, o per timidità o per mal consiglio, è sempre necessitato tenere il coltello in mano; né mai può fondarsi sopra e sua subditi, non si potendo quegli (per le fresche e continue iniurie) mai assicurare di lui (p. 486)].

The anti-Machiavellians ignored this advice and refused to further analyze the meaning of necessità. Their demonization of Machiavelli created a propaganda image of an evil counselor who specifically required his rulers to use cruelty—and to shed blood—obsessively. About this, Machiavelli himself might have commented that “everyone can see but few can feel” (P, 18; 134) [tocca ad vedere ad ogniuno, a sentire a pochi (p. 760)]. Following Howard, however, we know that the anti-Machiavellians ultimately triumphed. They succeeded in creating Machiavelli’s reputation as a sower of evil, one that still reverberates today (69). Neapolitan Giovanni Botero, in his Della ragion di stato [The Reason of State] (1589), coined a term that had first been used by Giovanni Della Casa in his 1549 “Oration to Charles V.” Botero’s rhetoric was antiMachiavellian, and, as a man of his times, he was careful to make his claims conform to Catholic Counter-Reformation ideology (Howard 72). In 1592, Botero’s work was translated and, in the tradition of Juan Boscán, adapted for a Spanish aristocratic audience by Antonio de Herrera (71). With Counter-Reformation effervescence, Botero’s Ragion di stato promoted moral conduct and utter subjugation to one’s superior. Like Sancho, who was eventually an inconveniente for the duke’s court,

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Machiavelli’s acute sense had become an inconveniente for Botero and subsequent anti-Machiavellians because his persuasive style and clarity of thought were hard to resist. As Harold Bloom expressed about the anxiety felt by new authors, the anti-Machiavellians completed Machiavelli’s ideas and simultaneously turned away from him by expressing his ideas “in another sense” (1975, 14). The anti-Machiavellians revealed themselves as skillful counselors who had inherited a forceful and persuasive tone from a source that they belittled. They propagated a hegemonic religious discourse and proposed to know the verità effettuale, writing about plausible—not imagined—political methods for Spain to keep the majestic empire secure. Their discursive imagery focused on ways of conquering and preserving a state and thus shared purposes with Machiavelli. On the surface, however, Razón de Estado reflected a reactionary stance. Its emphasis on Christian values and morality appeared antagonistic toward the imperialistic enterprise. Razón de Estado theoreticians attempted to finesse this internal antagonism but ended up turning statecraft into an artificial political operation, which, for Salvador Cárdenas, became increasingly subjected to obscure and highly theoretical laws (64). The censoring eyes of the Index readers were certainly on Cervantes’s mind as he crafted what resembled political discourse for his knight errant and other characters. De Armas has explored the classical roots of census and censorship to highlight how Cervantes successfully dealt with the potential for the Index to censor his text. For de Armas the Spanish author staged a disguised interpretation of Ovid’s classical poetic work in the novel (2013, 139) by transmitting Ovid’s own predicament and subsequent permanent exile from Rome (when the poet fell from grace with Emperor Augustus for his imprudent writing). Obliquely alluding to the author of the Metamorphoses, Cervantes cleverly reproduced both his and Ovid’s vulnerable position. As a result, De Armas affirms that Don Quijote “is a body that speaks and resists” (2013, 139). In his madness, don Quijote was freer than most, and his political proclamations were formulated in polyphonic fashion. From this standpoint, like Dante in his Divine Comedy, Cervantes adopted both Christian and classical tenets to narrate his story. By constructing an epic that featured a mad knight errant, Cervantes navigated the real and the ideal. He protected his novel from the barriers of censorship that would have denied him access to a muchdesired readership. In the Burning of the Books episode of part I, 6, for instance, the comical figure of the housekeeper gestured toward a grotesque rendition of the Inquisition. Bursting onto the scene, equipped with “a basin of holy water and a hyssop” (I, 6; 45) [una escudilla de agua

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bendita y un hisopo (p. 66)], she assured herself that no enchanter would punish them for getting rid of all the evil books that had caused so much damage to Alonso Quijano. This “innocent” gesture by the housekeeper, the story said, caused the priest to laugh at her simplicity. Egged on by Quijano’s niece, the housekeeper agreed to burning the intellectual’s texts, and her fanaticism underscored the horrific and arbitrary powers of the Inquisition. As noted by Godman, Machiavelli’s texts had already suffered the same fate by decree of the Roman Inquisition (304). Through ambiguity and innuendo, Cervantes managed to fool the eyes of the censors and publish subversive fiction. “La española inglesa” [The Spanish-English Lady], for instance, is a novella that portrays Elizabeth I in extraordinarily conciliatory tones, which is remarkable considering that the queen was viewed as the personal archenemy of Philip II and of Spain, especially after her signing of the treaty of Nonsuch in 1585 (McCrory 130). Olid has claimed that Cervantes utilized dicta from The Prince to portray Queen Elizabeth; she appeared in the novella as a benign yet astute ruler who understood necessità and occasione and who acted with an exquisite Machiavellian-like in-betweeness (2013, 47). In Don Quijote, the knight errant became irate when the barber maliciously narrated the story of a crazy man who thought he was Jupiter. Championing the knights errant of yesteryear, don Quijote defended himself and declared that his only purpose was to highlight the virtù of the caballeros. Sounding not unlike Machiavelli’s reply to accusations that he had idealized the Romans, don Quijote cleverly juxtaposed the knights of antiquity with contemporary knights, the ones who inhabited the courts. Don Quijote deployed his caballeros, as Machiavelli had done in the sixteenth century with his exemplary Romans, as a foil for criticizing the “soft” ways of his times. He took specific aim at seventeenth-century courtiers: But our decadent age does not deserve to enjoy the good that was enjoyed in the days when knights errant took it as their responsibility to bear on their own shoulders the defense of kingdoms, the protection of damsels, the safeguarding of orphans and wards, the punishment of the proud, and the rewarding of the humble. Most knights today would rather rustle in damasks, brocades, and the other rich fabrics of their clothes than creak in chain mail; no longer their armor from head to foot… no longer does anyone with his feet still in the stirrups and leaning on his lance, catch forty winks, as they say, as the knights errant used to do (II, 1; 464-465). [Pero no es merecedora la depravada edad nuestra de gozar tanto bien como el que gozaron las edades donde los andantes caballeros tomaron a su cargo y echaron sobre sus espaldas la defensa de los reinos, el amparo de las doncellas, el socorro de los huérfanos y pupilos, el castigo de los

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soberbios y el premio de los humildes. Los más de los caballeros que agora se usan, antes les crujen los damascos, los brocados y otras ricas telas de que se visten, que la malla con que se arman… ya no hay quien, sin sacar los pies de los estribos, arrimado a su lanza, sólo procure descabezar, como dicen, el sueño, como lo hacían los caballeros andantes (pp. 547-548)].

Replicating the tones of Machiavelli’s praise for the individuals of antiquity, don Quijote indirectly criticized the caballeros of his own time for their slothful ways and their lack of gentlemanly behavior. The Art of War addressed the best ways of fighting a battle, contemplating the strengths or weaknesses of the infantry, artillery, etc. Situated directly at the center of those considerations was the inescapable truth that the Italian states were not equipped to withstand the superior force of other nation states, such as Spain. In Don Quijote, the very presence of the knight errant indicated that he was a man out of sorts, that he did not belong in the contemporary scene of seventeenth-century Spain. Anachronistic and exemplary, the men of antiquity represented ideals for both Machiavelli and Cervantes, ones that needed to be rediscovered and emulated by men of courage for the betterment of the polis.

Caballeros of Antiquity and Razón de Estado In part two, don Quijote, the priest and the barber, his friends and tormentors, directly discussed Razón de Estado (II, 1). Cervantes was well equipped for this discussion, having had plenty of time to decipher ordinances and laws as he roamed around as a civil servant. Backed by a substantial library, don Quijote gave evidence that he was fully in tune with his patria’s historical moment and that he possessed a discerning perspective on the polis. The second part of the novel opened in clearly political terms, with don Quijote in bed, perhaps sane, perhaps crazy, looking gaunt and dry, but with a strong wish to converse about the state of the nation. Cervantes was completely aware of Philip II’s desperate bid to retain world supremacy via the Armada Invencible, epitome of extravagance and obsessive religious pursuit. Related to this, Jean Canavaggio has asked the following question of Cervantes’s perspective on the king’s decision: What is happening, in the meantime with the Invincible, with the war machine that is intended to rupture British sovereignty and that Miguel, in the farthest corners of Andalusia, is helping to get on its feet?

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Don Quijote’s reflections on the Razón de Estado offered strong evidence that the knight errant was conversant with Machiavelli and that his library held volumes of Machiavelli and the anti-Machiavellians.28 He debated at the political level, speaking with intelligence and eloquence about the established ways of governance, such that he was thought to be in actual possession of his wits (II, 1). He condemned the fact that his contemporaries favored “vice over virtue, arrogance over valor” (II, 1; 465) [el vicio de la virtud, la arrogancia de la valentía (p. 548)] and identified the sluggishness that prevailed in the Spanish court. In fact, with knights errant as members of the court, “His Majesty would be well served and save a good deal of money” (II, 1; 465) [Su Majestad se hallara bien servido y ahorrara de mucho gasto (p. 549)]. Don Quijote’s highly idealistic caballeros of antiquity matched the ideal warriors of antiquity found in Machiavelli’s Discourses and the Art of War. By incorporating the caballeros of the books of chivalry into his story, Cervantes created space for a veritable, and thinly disguised, mini political treatise, one that exalted the deeds of the brave men of the past while also condemning the mores of the court in his present time. Machiavelli once praised the mighty laws given by mythical Lycurgus to the Spartans: “That republic may be called fortunate if it produces a man so prudent that he gives it laws… without needing to reform them” (D, I, 2; 23) [tale che felice può chiamarsi quella republica a cui viene in sorte uno uomo sì prudente che gli dia leggi… sanza avere bisognio di ricorreggiere quelle (p. 1110)]. Likewise, in Don Quijote, the knight errant and his interlocutors immersed themselves in the ways in which territories were governed “correcting this abuse and condemning that one, reforming one custom and eliminating another” (II, 1, 460) [enmendando este abuso y condenando aquél, reformando una costumbre y desterrando otra (pp. 541-542)]. They rearranged so many laws that it seemed as if their conversation had turned into a new legal treatise. Mimicking the whole intention of don Quijote, the discussants spoke in terms of new legislators in the style of “a modern Lycurgus, a latter-day Solon” (II, 1; 460) [un Licurgo moderno, o un Solón flamante (p. 542)]. Lycurgus, the mythical 28

For further reading on the Spanish anti-Machiavellians, see Juan Manuel Forte J, and Pablo López Álvarez. Maquiavelo y España: Maquiavelismo y antimaquiavelismo en la cultura española de los siglos XVI y XVII. Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2008.

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Spartan sovereign, gave up his rule out of a sense of justice and went into self-exile only to be begged to return to power. Solon, for his part, was a ruler-poet who understood the common good and put the city before his own personal interests. As Olid has noted, this use of the same two classical political figures, directly or indirectly taken from Justinian and Plutarch, squarely connected Don Quijote with Machiavelli’s Discourses (2015, 359). To underscore the prudence of gli antichi, in his Discourses Machiavelli highlighted the lack of personal ambition of the Romans. Cincinnatus, for instance, had led a quiet life as a farmer until he was asked by the republic to take up arms to serve and honor his patria. The Florentine Secretary eulogized the fact that “in Rome honour was paid to poverty” (D, III, 25; 317) [l’onore che si faceva in Roma alla povertà (p. 2889)] because Cincinnatus had performed his job with the greatest of virtù and returned to his farm after he was no longer needed. Machiavelli did not approve of amassing wealth for wealth alone as it was not sufficient for securing the protection of a realm. In fact, by concentrating on material rewards, soldiers lost their heroic compass, as don Quijote would proclaim in his defense of warriors later on. Had monetary rewards been the ultimate goal, the ambitious Greeks would have overpowered the Romans. The virtù of “good soldiers, not money, are the sinew of warfare” (D, II, 10; 178) [non il danaio ma i buoni soldati stimano essere il nervo della Guerra (p. 2052)]. Don Quijote would not hide his contempt for the lack of virtù of his contemporaries. He emphasized the importance of militaristic strength, which had also been a main factor in Machiavelli’s urge to provide a city with troops from its own territory (Maravall 188). In La Mandragola, Machiavelli exposed the threats that constantly assailed Florence, a city without a true army, by having a woman inquire of Frate Timoteo: “Do you believe the Turk is coming into Italy this year?” (III, 3; 30) [Credete voi ‘l Turco passi questo anno in Italia? (p. 93)]. Similarly, don Quijote, the priest, and the barber asked if “the Turk would come down with a powerful fleet (II, 1; 460) [el Turco bajaba con una ponderosa armada (p. 542)]. To answer a question that was always on Spaniards’ minds, don Quijote employed Machiavelli’s belief that only humans with virtù were capable of controlling the ravaging effects of fortuna. Wisely, or rather cleverly, the knight errant praised a derided Philip III when he heard that the Spanish ruler had taken provisions to withstand an attack from the Ottoman Empire: “His Majesty has behaved like a most prudent warrior by fortifying his states in good time so that the enemy will not find them unprepared (II, 1; 460) [Su Majestad ha hecho como prudentísimo

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guerrero en proveer sus estados con tiempo, porque no le halle desapercebido el enemigo (p. 542)]. The monarch’s prudence, however, was not sufficient for don Quijote. As the priest and the barber suspected, don Quijote wanted the ruler to take further action. The best solution for Spain, he added, would be found in the caballeros of yesteryear: What else can His Majesty do but command by public proclamation that on a specific day all the knights errant wandering through Spain are to gather at court, and even if no more than half a dozen were to come, there might be one among them who could, by himself, destroy all the power of the Turk (II, 1; 461). ¿Hay más sino mandar Su Majestad por público pregón que se junten en la corte para un día señalado todos los caballeros andantes que vagan por España, que aunque no viniesen sino media docena, tal podría venir entre ellos, que solo bastase a destruir toda la potestad del Turco? (pp. 543-544)

Cervantes was in tune with Machiavelli, praising the sacrifices of men of valor for the betterment of the homeland. In his Arms vs. Letters discourse from part one, he clearly sided with Machiavelli who contended that the battlefield was where patria was preserved. Unlike the men from don Quijote’s books, contemporary young men were disengaged; unlike true soldiers, they were often corrupted and unaccustomed to a disciplined or austere way of life. The deeds of brave soldiers were unappreciated by the majority of the men at court. Going further, the caballero proclaimed that students were equipped with too short memories. They managed to graduate even though “they stumble and fall, pick themselves up and fall again” (I, 37; 330) [tropezando aquí, cayendo allí, levantándose acullá, tornando a caer acá (p. 390)]. Don Quijote lamented that, triumphing all the same, the young men became quickly accustomed to a higher station in life and thus turned into the “soft” men whom Machiavelli despised. They eagerly exchanged past hunger for a full, pudgy stomach; ready for selfish pursuits, they left behind the militant soldiery they had once sought (I, 37). The knight errant was displeased that the former students preferred to “command and govern the world from a chair” (I, 37; 330) [mandar y gobernar el mundo desde una silla (p. 390)]. Machiavelli’s journey into a heroic past turned into a quixotic desire to transform Florentines into the Romans of antiquity. His attempt to promote Florence’s socio-historical renewal was based on the shared recovery of a fallen civilization, one that he pieced together to remind Florentines of a past glory. In the preface to his autograph manuscript in the Discourses, he stated that many of his contemporaries also made public gestures of admiring the past, keeping actual pieces of it in their

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possession, such as fragments “from an ancient statue at a great price just to have it near” (Bondanella and Bondanella 15). In a strikingly quixotic stance, Machiavelli decried the Florentines for holding on to those cultural artifacts because he wanted them to progress from mere admiration to imitation and thus to manifest, through their actions and attitudes, that they were infused with ancient virtù. In the end, instilling Roman virtù in the Florentines proved challenging. As Bondanella and Musa have discussed, the storyteller Matteo Bandello amused himself at narrating Machiavelli’s ineptitude in assembling a militia to oppose the constant threats to Florence’s civic liberty (481). It was a quixotic dream. Machiavelli was perplexed, amazed, and saddened by the Florentines’ disdain, neglect, or ignorance of the civic lessons to be learned from past history. Since contemporary laws were the creation of men of antiquity, with whom he conversed in his library, he found it a necessità to know and, more important, to adhere to what had been inherited from the ancients. Following this approach, Machiavelli prescribed remedies that were hard to swallow and that were designed to prevent rulers from failing in the face of fortuna and the times. Machiavelli advised princes to exercise virtù and to be aware that they could not rely on a tactic or strategy to work the same every time. For that reason, they had to be prepared to make promises they might not be able to keep if later those commitments were in conflict with the best course of action. By appearing to be good while executing necessary cruelty, rulers would be successful. They would keep the faith with their people and with the leaders of other critical territories. Fortune, according to Machiavelli, had “no lack of ways for aiding her friends and thwarting her enemies” (FH, VI, 4; 1288) [la fortuna, alla quale non manca modo di aiutare gli amici e disfavorire i nimici (p. 585)]. She turned his beloved Florence into an enemy and allowed it to become enslaved by foreign powers. With a frankness that discredited him in the eyes of his readers, love for his city inspired him to criticize his contemporaries. Italy, he said, had become utterly subservient to aggressive foreign powers. Its only hope was the emergence of an ideal caballero/ruler who could heal her from her pain (P, 26). In the Discourses, which Machiavelli dedicated to his good friends Zanobi Buondelmonti and Cosimo Rucellai, the main topic was the Roman republic but Florence was never far from his mind. For the most part, he described the Romans in contrast to the Florentines, as generators of good and fair legislation. In their polis, strong laws and good citizen-soldiers kept everyone in check; neither aristocrats nor the people held excessive power (D, I, 2). Once vanquished, Florence could never become free

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again. Unable to become a republic, the city’s ancient nests of heroism, which it had inherited from the Romans, could no longer house new birds of virtù. In exile in San Casciano, Machiavelli lamented the “injustice and absurdity” of a world that overlooked competent leaders for reasons of pedigree, connections, or, as Viroli has commented, because they were plainly too poor (2000, 6). Machiavelli was one of those penniless men of virtù. His Prince was the political statement of a lowly outsider who wrote in an effort to temper “a great and continuous malevolence of Fortune” (P, dedication, 78) [una grande e continua malignità di fortuna] (p. 236). Gazing at the spot where he was vanquished by El Caballero de la Blanca Luna, don Quijote proclaimed: Here was Troy! Here my misfortune, not my cowardice, did away with the glories I had achieved; here Fortune turned her changes and reversals against me; here my deeds were obscured; here, in short, my happiness fell, never to rise again! (II, 66; 893). [¡Aquí fue Troya! ¡Aquí mi desdicha, y no mi cobardía, se llevó mis alcanzadas glorias; aquí usó la fortuna conmigo de sus vueltas y revueltas; aquí se escurecieron mis hazañas; aquí, finalmente, cayó mi ventura para jamás levantarse! (p. 1018)].

Machiavelli also felt like a vanquished man, attempting to overcome defeat at the hands of the Medici, a family whose behavior toward him was like the Caballero de la Blanca Luna’s toward don Quijote. Following Tarlton, we know that we cannot divorce the Florentine Secretary’s writings “from an impassioned attempt to account for, encompass, and transcend the horrible ways in which his career strategies had gone wrong” (2004, 3). As much as he was looking for a leader to cure the ills of Florence, he was also seeking to reverse the malevolent impact of fortuna which had caused his fall from glory. He dug deeply into the Italian character and used the past and the present to secure once more a place for himself in a political discussion from which he had been permanently banned. Addressing the political difficulties that Sancho would face, don Quijote cautioned the future governor that “offices and great responsibilities are nothing but a deep gulf of confusions” (II, 42; 730) [los oficios y grandes cargos no son otra cosa sino un golfo profundo de confusiones p. 840)]. In Florence, Guicciardini had written against the favoritism that permeated elections, allowing ignorant and poorly qualified citizens to gain high office (McCormick 108). Machiavelli himself endorsed class-conscious laws for “effective political accountability” (12). In the same fashion, don

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Quijote advised Sancho to be guided by fairness and “never be guided by arbitrariness in law, which tends to have a good deal of influence on ignorant men who take pride in being clever” (II, 42; 731) [Nunca te guíes por la ley del encaje, que suele tener mucha cabida con los ignorantes que presumen de agudos (p. 841)]. In truth, he spoke of the need for political innovation, for renewal, for something that would have a positive impact on the perceived idleness of the Spanish monarchy. Machiavelli believed that individuals were inclined to accept good laws and to work for the common good, as Zerba has remarked (150). For Oz, this “social ploy” would create a sense of community that would aid the prince in the business of preserving a territory (119). Given the state of affairs in Florence, Machiavelli spoke with urgency about an ideal ruler. That ruler, he contended, would unite the Italian city-states so that their citizens could again enjoy civic liberty. He was, however, pessimistic, believing deep within himself that no good prince truly existed in the Italian states. Ultimately, the Italian territories appeared to him “without a leader, without organization, beaten, despoiled, ripped apart, overrun, and prey to every sort of catastrophe” (P, 26; 162) [sanza capo, sanza ordine, battuta, spogliata, lacera, corsa; et avessi sopportato d’ogni sorte ruina (p. 1011)]. At the end of his life, Alonso Quijano recovered from his fantasy of being don Quijote, a caballero styled in the fashion of Amadís, Orlando, and the other illustrious knights errant. Feeling himself healed from the influence of literature, he stated to those who surrounded him: My judgment is restored, free and clear of the dark shadows of ignorance imposed on it by my grievous and constant reading of detestable books of chivalry. I now recognize their absurdities and deceptions, and my sole regret is that this realization has come so late it does not leave me time to compensate by reading other books that can be a light to the soul (II, 74; 935). [Ya tengo juicio ya, libre y claro, sin las sombras caliginosas de la ignorancia, que sobre él me pusieron mi amarga y continua leyenda de los detestables libros de las caballerías. Ya conozco sus disparates y sus embelecos, y no me pesa sino que este desengaño ha llegado tan tarde, que no me deja tiempo para hacer alguna recompensa, leyendo otros que sean luz del alma (p. 1063)].

It was a genuinely sad moment for readers when don Quijote broke the news to his peers, including his faithful squire Sancho, that he was no longer the irrepressible don Quijote but the very human Alonso Quijano, the Good (II, 74). He came to the realization toward the end of this life, he told his interlocutors, that his way of conducting himself had been

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erroneous. He had been wrong all along to believe that his men of antiquity could cure the ills of society. For Machiavelli, his worst fears were realized when Rome was sacked in 1527 by rogue Spanish troops who pillaged the city with impunity. A horrendous event for the Italian peninsula, the Sack of Rome also retrospectively justified Machiavelli’s urgency and his candor. He had not been wrong when he advised forcefully that Italy required protection from invasion. Later in 1527, Machiavelli died. As for don Quijote, the world paid no heed to his conversion to Alonso Quijano the Good. Even today, a plethora of quixotic individuals continue to compete against impossible odds in an attempt to make life more just, more beautiful, and better for others.

CHAPTER TWO ALBERTO BLEST GANA

The Social in Social Order: The Rise of the Siútico With a focus on relationships, Durante la Reconquista, Martín Rivas, and El ideal de un calavera chronicle grueling chapters of nineteenthcentury Chilean history and reveal a deep form of socio-political discord that continues into the twenty-first century. Usually considered traditional and objective, as opposed to theorizing and ideological, Blest Gana has been depicted by his biographers as an outstanding novelist who was mainly indifferent to politics. The brothers Justo and Domingo Arteaga y Alemparte described Blest Gana in 1870 in the following fashion: sixteen to eighteen years ago, a young man of a strong and a rather martial disposition distinguished himself in the elegant salons of Santiago. He had impeccable and nonchalant manners and knew how to dance perfectly. He knew how to converse amiably with the ladies and discreetly with the gentlemen. That was don Alberto Blest Gana… a military career did not present any incentives for his ambitious goals. He abandoned it promptly to occupy a vacancy in the Ministry of War. He held the same position for many years, a fact that can be explained simply when one considers the poor conditions for promotion endured by a civil servant in our nation. On the one hand, he did not seem too keenly interested in the political militancy of the time; on the other hand, his intelligence, efficiency and laboriousness made him a highly valued worker in that State office. [dieciséis a dieciocho años atrás, se hacía distinguir, en los salones elegantes de Santiago, un joven de continente seguro y un tanto marcial, de modales correctos y desembarazados, que bailaba á la perfección, que sabía conversar amenamente con las mujeres y discretamente con los hombres. Era don Alberto Blest Gana… la carrera militar no tuvo incentivos para su ambición. La abandonó pronto y fue a ocupar un puesto de jefe de sección en el ministerio de guerra. En ese puesto se estacionó muchos años, lo que se explica fácilmente dentro de las tristes condiciones á que está sujeto entre nosotros el ascenso de los empleos civiles. Por una parte, no tomaba gran interés en la política militante, y por la otra, su

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Blest Gana did in fact insert socio-political views into his texts. But, he hid them under the thick layers of love affairs and within the detailed descriptions of characters. His views are everywhere in his novels, and we see them especially in the harshness as well as the beauty of people’s behavior. In his own unique manner, then, Blest Gana addressed society’s ailments and their impact on the developing nation. Following Luigi Patruno, we know that, in Martín Rivas, Blest Gana interrogated the health of Chilean society (242). He exposed the pain of the citizens of Santiago who were struggling financially. Sometimes amusingly and other times disapprovingly, he narrated societal illnesses and concentrated intently on the powerful hold that materialistic concerns, more than anything else, had over people. In his Epistolario, Blest Gana defended the protagonist of his El ideal de un calavera to Lastarria. Questioning the purpose of restraining youth from desire, he created Abelardo who, although flawed, attempted to serve his nation and its larger goals. In his correspondence with Lastarria, Blest Gana stated that Abelardo was just following his own passion and that he was not driven by hypocrisy or morality (Epistolario, 16; 41). As Laura Hosiasson has observed, the protagonist was an indomitable rebel who was admired by his narrator. Just as Bilbao had rejected Chile’s conservative ways, Abelardo refused to abide by the cultural practices of his time. He advocated for free love, for example, instead of commitment to traditional marriage, a position that, in Hosiasson’s words “situated him very far from the mid-nineteenth century cultural norm” [lo sitúan muy lejos de la norma cultural de mediados del siglo diecinueve (264)]. In this manner, then, as he affirmed himself to Lastarria, Blest Gana used Abelardo to project the image of a rebel and disfranchised citizen, a feature that was especially evident in the character’s restlessness. During the construction of the republic, political organization became a model framework for social structure. There was considerable dissent around the formulation of Chile as a nation, and this occurred in a context where an obsession with social life was embedded in the larger notion of order. Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera vividly detailed the difficulties, nuances, and exigencies of social and political conduct. They also portrayed psychological wounds arising from irreconcilable views on the nation. Informed by the legacy of the independence movement, the two novels thus can be read as socio-political treatises on Chilean mores. A similar commentary, this one exemplified by historical action, can be detected in Durante la Reconquista. In a subtle and indirect manner, then,

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Blest Gana was a nonconformist author. His texts featured a not-so-pretty Chilean society and engaged his readers with the hows and the whys of Chile’s socio-political divisions. In this sense, the behaviors and beliefs of Blest Gana’s characters placed a spotlight on the intense stratification of the nation, which itself resulted from a paradigm of authoritarianism, of the dominance of one group over another, in the words of historian María Angélica Illanes (“Portales: La última carta”). In his study of the nation’s twentieth-century conflicts, Gabriel Salazar has distinguished the same paradigm at work in the 1973 coup by the Armed Forces, who were intent on the overwhelming defeat of one group for the purpose of eliminating disorder (238). In Chile’s human geography, the twentieth-century coup caused the collapse of the totality of the nation’s urban social popular movements. Contemporary Chile remains made up of social enemies. Contardo, in Siútico: Arribismo, abajismo y vida social en Chile, has explored the nation’s significant social paranoia. Using colorful vignettes to frame each chapter, Contardo narrates how Chile is divided by strict parameters of perceived rank. Its elite consistently scrutinize others so that they may recognize the siútico. As a disguised pícaro (rogue), in the truest sense of Lazarillo de Tormes’ term, siúticos unequivocally realize Lazarillo’s words: “I determined to place myself next to the good people” [yo determiné de arrimarme a los buenos (105)]. Like contemporary renditions of the pícaros, these social climbers illustrate a society bathed in acrid social practices. In fact, the siúticos in Contardo’s account appear to be devoid of subjectivity in those instances when they do not find themselves within close proximity of “the mediators,” as René Girard has called the individuals who ignite desire of mimicry in others (53). Just like the snobs that Girard has analyzed in Proust, the Chilean siútico “will fawn and cringe in order to be accepted by people whom he has endowed with an arbitrary prestige” (70). Using Girard’s theories, one could safely perceive don Quijote as an über siútico who internalized the role of the caballeros of antiquity to such an extent that he fluctuated from normalcy to exceptionality in his desire to arrive at the mediator’s soul, in this case the prototypical knight emblematized by Amadís de Gaula (141). For the Chilean siúticos, the more rejection they endure the more they desire to be accepted. Consequently, if they are not admitted to the carefully monitored aristocratic social spaces, such as prominent clubs, they react by joining a “golf club for the new rich” [club de golf para nuevos ricos] (Contardo 205). Thus they mimic, as in a distorted mirror, what rejects them, the place that is too-good-for-you. In essence, by being persistently rejected,

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the siúticos demarcate the physical social spaces and the human geography of “the other.” This notion directs us to Foucault’s concept of heterotopia, which he defined as a site that has “inverted the set of relations that they happen to designate, mirror, or reflect” (1986, 24). Specifically, the physical space of the siúticos undermines and contradicts the one occupied by those who think they are superior by birth and pedigree. It also reflects it back. According to one of Contardo’s interviews with a barrister who had been born with the fortuna of an old and socially important last name, the siúticos must exist in the vicinity of prominent people. Otherwise, if too distant from the model they envy and aspire to emulate, they would cease to be (Contardo 159-160). From a Machiavellian perspective, we could argue that, just as an effective prince ought to be surrounded by the people in order to differentiate himself and act superior to them in all his endeavors, the Chilean upper class also needs the siúticos. They are a source of contrast over and against which the cuicos, members of the buenas familias (good families) define themselves. In cases where they are unable to avoid physical proximity, aristocratic Chileans deploy linguistic tools to separate themselves. Besides utilizing critical allophones, which are as remarkable to the listener as an haute couture vestment,1 the well-todo adopt a specific vocabulary to keep the siúticos and their arch performances of aristocracy away.2 Contardo argues that this linguistic 1

Some allophones are attached to colonial roots, such as a distinctively sounding “tr” that screams oligarchy—with slight variations, it is also an allophone uttered in rural sectors, by the pueblo. On this, the phoneme “ch” in Chile has three allophones rooted in sociolect: the more or less standard affricate; a fricative, denoting a low social sector; and a rather affricate/occlusive allophone executed by the upper-class. I have taught Italian for about thirty years. Curiously, the affricate/occlusive allophone “ch” in middle position, in a word like “noche,” in some utterances opens the ‘o’ and ‘a’ to acquire the consistency of Italian vowels, such as in the realization of a dental occlusive in a word like “notte” in Italian. In her book Cuicoterapia: El cuiquerío chileno al diván. Un poco en serio, pero no tanto [Cuicotherapy: The Chilean Cuicos on the Analyst’s Couch. Somewhat Serious But Not Too Much], Josefina Reutter declares that, for well-to-do Chileans, overemphasis of the “tch” would be considered an act of siutiquería (tackiness, vulgarity, affectation) (pp. 22-23). 2 The president of Chile, Michelle Bachelet, perhaps attempting to garner a larger audience, during her campaign abruptly changed the way she pronounced her name: “In 2014 the current President of the Republic released a radio spot. She was heard to say ‘I am Mishelle Bashelet [sic]’ with an unnatural pronunciation (from what we are accustomed to hear). Social media reacted immediately. ‘Why now, during her radio announcement, does Michelle Bachelet refer to herself as Mishelle Bashelet?,’ commented an unsettled individual on Twitter. The candidate

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code “works only in opposition to the language used by the middle class” [solo funciona por oposición al lenguaje utilizado por la clase media]. In this code, different terms, by their usage, connote social opposites. From a long list, two examples from Chile’s agrarian past are illuminating: “lentes” vs. “anteojos” (lenses vs. glasses) and “bebé” vs. “guagua,” (baby vs. baby in Quechua and Mapudungun). “Lentes” and “bebé” would be typical of the masses; “Anteojos” and “guagua” of the Chilean aristocracy. Undoubtedly, the much maligned “bebé” (which is now used ubiquitously, marking the term “guagua” more prominently than ever) resonates with the upper crust as a vulgar linguistic infiltration, one that irritates and separates (Contardo 30-31). This is ironic in a nation with a love affair for the English language. The word “bebé,” of course, derives from the French but that word comes from the English “baby.” Given the Chilean elite’s prevalent custom to use English or words from other languages—the socalled adoption of extranjerismos—in conversation, one can only conclude that their dislike of “bebé” is linguistically arbitrary (Michell). Their abhorrence of the term, therefore, should be understood primarily as social and not linguistic; it denotes a use of language to reject the lower and middle classes. Contardo finds that classism and implied racism beat ferociously in the heart of Chilean citizens.3 Moreover, he contends that the term siútico is a label imposed upon others by people who consider themselves to be of superior breeding (44). Looking at this through a Machiavellian lens, one detects that citizens born in privilege find themselves in charge of a “hereditary state” (P, 2; 79) [stati ereditarli (p. 258)]. Being atop Chile’s social order, and acting as superior and infallible members of a society, they make the rules and determine what is allowed to be. Whatever they reject, then, is not permitted. Faced with such extreme social rigidity, people who seek to advance are bound to become siúticos and are inevitably

then admitted that her delivery contained elements of the ‘siútico’” [la actual Presidenta de la República estrenó su spot radial. Ahí se le escuchó decir ‘soy Mishelle Bashelet [sic]’ con una pronunciación poco natural (para lo que estamos acostumbrados a escuchar), a lo que las redes sociales reaccionaron de inmediato. ‘¿Por qué ahora en su anuncio radial Michelle Bachelet se refiere a sí misma como Mishelle Bashelet?,’ decía un tuitero descolocado. La entonces candidata reconoció que le salió ‘siútico’] (Opazo and Jaque). 3 Contardo argues that, without even blinking, Chileans, with rare exceptions, rapidly execute what he terms “an instant evaluation” [la evaluación exprés]. That is, basing themselves on people’s physical looks, Chileans make a determination about their compatriots’ “income, address, education, and occupation” [ingreso, domicilio, educación y condición laboral (84)].

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compelled to construct and perform a persona for their mediators, in the Girardian sense. Always alert, members of high society remain paranoid and socially imprisoned within similar literal and figurative walls. They aggressively spy out flaws, looking for the cracks in the façade of people’s looks and behaviors, so that they can make an expedient escape or at least avoid an undesired interaction. Deep down, they are in constant fear that, by association with a siútico, they will be found guilty themselves of siutiquería (tackiness, vulgarity, affectation). Ultimately, however, they need the siúticos as much as the siúticos need them. As Machiavelli says: the prince needs to be surrounded and supported by the people. Sought after by social inferiors, the Chilean elite can then prove to themselves that they are indeed who they think they are. Contardo includes in his construction of the siútico various examples from Martín Rivas as well as from novels by other noted Chileans, such as La chica del Crillón [The Girl at the Hotel Crillón] (1935), by aristocrat Joaquín Edwards Bello (1887-1968). Extremely complex in its philosophical and social ramifications, the term siútico became an efficacious descriptive tool for Blest Gana. With noted exceptions, he described siúticos as individuals who aspired in vain both to scale the echelons of society and to be perceived as equals by their affluent social counterparts. Correspondingly, the term itself denoted in Blest Gana’s texts a grotesque characterization of a social “other.” The siúticos essentially went overboard in their affectations. They appropriated and then exaggerated the behaviors and attitudes of the people they wanted to emulate. In an excruciating example from Contardo, “Pamela”, a young woman with prominent mestizo features, literally stalked “Bernardita”, another young woman with criollo features. Bernardita, as the narration illustrates, did anything and everything to escape the company of her social stalker. Never one to give up, Pamela opted to dye her dark hair blond (Contardo 59-60). She thus realized Bhabha’s formulation of mimicry; social and cultural identification for her meant “the production of an image of identity,” just as it would have done for a colonized subject (1994, 145). Contemporary Chileans have complicated matters even further by expanding the vocabulary they use for social rejection. For instance, ubiquitous terms like rasca and flaite, which Chileans pronounce with gusto, designate individuals considered to be of inferior social status. Consistently linked to a rural human geography, these individuals possess

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prominent mestizo features that express a migration history from the countryside to inner-city urban areas.4 Machiavelli warned that individuals had to be alert to the rapid changes in the times. Always deeply aware of political fluctuations, Chileans with patrician roots live under constant scrutiny of how to behave and what to do. In other words, they are always prepared to modify the way they perform their elite status because it is crucially important for them to be perceived as being on top of the social ladder. Being considered part of the elite is thus an extremely fluid condition. Machiavelli would argue that, because of the complexities of life, it is a status that needs to be built often and with careful thought. Just as the Chilean vocabulary of social rejection has expanded, terms that define individuals from the upper class have also diversified to include a word such as cuico, which denotes a person of high social status. According to Josefina Reutter, who made a name for herself with a blog called Cuicoterapia, a cuico is defined as follows: “A person who has class, lineage so to speak, and who uses a certain style of language and certain customs. But the most important feature (of the cuico) is the person’s contact network” [Una persona que tiene clase, abolengo por decirlo de alguna manera, un cierto estilo de uso del lenguaje y ciertas costumbres. Pero lo más importante es la red de contactos] (“La bloguera”).5 Being defined as a Chilean cuico, therefore, implies the possession of a rich web of social connections. These, ultimately, bestow the honor of being a legitimate cuico on the person with the right set of associates, with the right “red de contactos,” as Contardo also emphasized in his own account. Like a herd, such individuals appear to be on the opposite end of the spectrum from the flaites. But, since they conduct their lives according to strict codes, such as refusing to wear anything ostentatious, they actually situate themselves as reverse mirror images of the flaites, who on the contrary identify themselves by the use of precise social markers. Both groups unequivocally identify themselves by how 4

In opposition to the siúticos, the rascas or the flaites do not necessarily seek the Chilean aristocracy’s vicinity. As a result, in the field of social conflict, they separate themselves defiantly and they aggressively appropriate the material culture of those “others”, without ever canceling out their own subjectivities. 5 In her book Cuicoterapia, Reutter defines the cuico in the following manner: “Cuicos, then, are those who historically—for more than two generations—have come from ‘good families.’ They have received the best education, live in the best neighborhoods and, above all, are very well connected” [Los cuicos, entonces, son quienes históricamente —más de dos generaciones— vienen de ‘buena familia’, han recibido la mejor educación, viven en los mejores barrios y, sobre todo, están muy bien conectados (19)].

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they speak and by what they wear, even if they possess obvious differences in facial—or racial—features. In the Fashion System, published during the revolutionary sixties, Roland Barthes paid particular attention to the linguistic messages of the clothing people wore. He identified critical markers that situated an individual in society, among them the “vestimentary,” the circumstantial (evening, weekend, etc.), and the “character” features (discreet, amusing, etc.). The first marker dealt with features of fabric, color, design, etc.; the second with situations, occupations, etc.; the latter concerned people’s states, moods, etc. For Barthes a garment thus was defined as “utterances in the corpus” that an individual would communicate to the world (20). In a sense, because there are so many forbidden choices of clothing for the Chilean upper classes, the range of connotations embedded in their fashion is very reduced. Within such rigid boundaries, it is not hard to see what Reutter means when she says that the so-called Chilean gentry reside in a type of social prison: Many cuicos know that there are certain cuico codes or laws that cannot be violated. Being a member of the cuico world implies following those tacit laws. No cuico wants to leave that world, that network ... for a cuico it is extremely difficult to be free. So, being a cuico takes away one’s freedom. [Muchos cuicos saben que hay ciertos códigos o leyes cuicas que no se pueden violar. Estar en el mundo cuico implica seguir esas leyes tácitas. Ningún cuico quiere salir de ese mundo, de esa red… para los cuicos es súper difícil ser libre. O sea, ser cuico te quita libertad] (“La bloguera”).

Barthes explored the way that fashion magazines influenced and dominated people’s choices. He underlined how a linguistic statement could affect an individual’s desire for a piece of fashion. Essentially, an utterance such as “accessories make the spring” implies that fashion and the world are interconnected, whereas, in truth, he reasons, what happens is that a conformity is established by social conventions (23-24). Barthes’ analysis of how fashion magazines influence people as they consider what to wear works remarkably well in the world inhabited by Chilean high society. In Machiavelli’s Florence, likewise, it was critical for the patricians to wear clothing that would define who they were, and most important of all, who they were not. From a metaphorical viewpoint, thus, the contact network alluded to by Reutter is like a fashion magazine. It expresses the significance of relationships for the cuico and is a mark of status that is on the same level as their clothes, circumstances, character, and personal features.

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Without easy access to the contact network, the siúticos, the social wannabes, persistently appear to be wearing the wrong type of fashion. Naturally, as they lack the right type of signifying relations, per Barthes, they become aspiracional (aspirational), a neologism that undoubtedly was taken from English. From Blest Gana’s nineteenth-century conception of nation to a twenty-first century narration of national identity, the siúticos have always been social intruders. They have continuously performed the role of conjurers or, rather, magicians. Following Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt, we know that the elite, by contrast, have always been a very close-knit group, one that is aware that extreme views could disunite it. During Balmaceda’s progressive mandate, in fact, members of privileged families emphasized social cooptation and attacked the beleaguered president for having dared to elevate balmasiúticos to power (2014, 58). The balmasiúticos were individuals that, according to the oligarchy, did not merit the positions they held. In other words, they had no business occupying governmental positions that supposedly should have belonged only to individuals from the highest sectors of society. Using Reutter’s words, the balmasiúticos were not part of the “red de contactos.” In Chile’s narration of national identity, then, the siúticos appear to others as a “contradiction between what they are and what they want to be” [contradicción entre lo que se es y lo que se quiere ser] (Contardo 112). From the perspective of the aristocratic people-in-the know, the siúticos belong in geographical spaces termed heterotopias of deviation, “in which individuals whose behavior is deviant in relation to the required mean or norm are placed” (Foucault 1986, 25). In Blest Gana’s novels, acts of siutiquería were perpetrated methodically and with the clear purpose of impressing others. Amador Molina undoubtedly never dressed in a desultory fashion. His choice of outfits was an achievement of siutiquería, which Rafael San Luis described in minute detail and with unusual attentiveness to Martín Rivas as he prepared him for his introduction to the notorious Molina family. As expected, the family failed to disappoint the description provided by the young patrician. Later on, in a jocular description, Blest Gana’s narrator relished detailing Amador’s ludicrous notions of a caballero’s required accoutrements when the young rogue dressed himself to the nines to visit the Encinas’ elegant home. Recounting a twenty-first century version of Amador Molina, Contardo contends that the siútico must always be ready to change and behave in a strategic manner (52-53), two dynamic features that situate the siúticos within a remarkable Machiavellian landscape. This can be exemplified by looking at the “new” statesman Francesco Sforza from an anachronistic perspective. Sforza was a notable siútico who rose to

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become part of the gentry on the strength of his virtù. In Machiavelli’s words, “Francesco, through the required means and with a great deal of ingenuity, became Duke of Milan” (P, 7; 96) [Francesco, per gli debiti mezi e con una grande sua virtù, di privato diventò Duca di Milano (p. 415)]. For the Florentine Secretary, to secure his realm as a “new prince,” a ruler was obliged to perform and to present an optimal version of himself to others. He had to be ready to promptly suit his actions to the appropriateness of the times, as well. In that respect, as Evelyn S. Welch has noted, Sforza created a very close circuit of soldiers in his massive castle to protect himself from political adversity; ultimately, he sought solace from those who had always perceived him as a usurper. In other words, he constructed a world for himself where he was not at risk of being belittled by those who considered him inferior. He thus triumphed at making himself an ottimati. Such claustrophobic conditions in his fortress, of course, could have allowed for treachery and conspiracies. Because he knew how to inspire fear and loyalty, however, he was able to withstand conspiracies while he was alive—but things did not go so well for his unprepared heirs (192). In Contardo’s account, the siúticos perennially operate on a theatrical level to ascend the echelons of society in an effort to penetrate a world they idealize. Nonetheless, the Machiavellian virtù with which the fortunate few reinforce their own fortresses, à la Sforza, makes the new siúticos’ goals difficult to attain. The most audacious siúticos gleefully enter heterotopic spaces that, per Foucault’s concept of spatialization, appear to offer simple and natural openings but in reality conceal curious and rigid barriers. Entrance to these heterotopic sites may seem easy, but in fact that is only an illusion. The unwanted can enter those desired spaces, but, upon entry, they discover most vividly how much they remain excluded from them (1986, 26).6 6

Contardo relates the story of a young man from the provinces, identified as “Marido de la Pitu” (Pitu’s husband), who encountered vast difficulties because he lacked a sense of belonging in his new job. No matter how hard he tried, he could not do or say the right thing. One day, happy about a business deal, he entered the small room where all the other top managers from work were having lunch. Without hesitation he said “buen provecho” (Bon appetite) to those present. Contardo added: “It is interesting how a single expression can disrupt, alter, or shake up a situation. When Pitu’s husband uttered the word ‘provecho’ he caused an instant and ferocious exchange of glances among the managers. Their glances turned into a hiss of daggers that went through the air to cut through the poor man’s silhouette, crumple it like a piece of paper, and remove the stranger from their midst. And he did not even notice. At least not until hours later, when Amunátegui, someone with a reputation as a role model for good taste within the company, said, paternalistically, that he did not know how things were done in the

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In Martín Rivas, Rafael San Luis, who had displayed bravado on the battlefield, was utterly embarrassed to encounter doña Bernarda Cordero in the public sphere, mostly because of his past liaison with her daughter and partly because of what the old woman represented in his society. Like poker players on the lookout for a “tell”, prominent members of society search for last names, clothing, looks, behavior or manners of speech, and use this information to disentangle themselves immediately from the presence of siúticos. According to Contardo, ridiculous postures, exaggerated—and usually mistaken—verbal (even facial) expressions, excessive display of material possessions, and egregious attire lead the siúticos indisputably to fail in their attempt to fit in (111-112). Mimicking the sixteenth-century Il Cortegiano [Book of the Courtier] (1528) by Baldassare Castiglione, Blest Gana indoctrinated his audience against acting in an affected manner, the preferred way of the siúticos. Social exchanges were to be made through a type of nonchalance that Castiglione termed sprezzatura, an exercise in natural and refined behavior for individuals at court whose purpose was to allow them to escape affectation and ridicule. Placing his protagonists in different scenarios, Blest Gana taught finishing school and proper behavior to people through the likes of the conscientious Martín Rivas7 who aspired to a good education but, unfavored by life reversals, was clearly not born with a silver spoon in his mouth. In essence, the author taught the worthy citizens of Chile how to operate like Machiavelli’s fox and the lion (P, 18; 134) [la volpe et il Lione (p. 757)], astutely—and for Blest Gana also decently—without losing respect for others. Like a lion, they could fearlessly reach the top south, but between Santiago and Talca no respectable person ever said ‘buen provecho’” [Es interesante la manera en que una sola expresión puede trastocar una situación, alterarla o sacudirla. Ese ‘provecho’ del marido de la Pitu provocó un cruce de miradas instantáneo, feroz, un silbido de dagas que atravesaron el aire para recortar su silueta, prepicarla con hendiduras sucesivas como se hace con un papel, y retirar de escena al extraño. Y él sin siquiera enterarse. Al menos no hasta unas horas más tarde, cuando Amunátegui, algo así como un modelo del buen tono dentro de la empresa, le dijo, paternamente, que no sabía cómo sería en el sur, pero que entre Santiago y Talca nadie respetable decía ‘buen provecho’ (205)]. 7 By some accounts, even Martín Rivas is considered to be a siútico: “This dull and provincial young man from a family who has fallen on hard times counters the mundane habits of the Encinas with some hidden, latent pride of knowing himself to be better morally and intellectually superior to them” [Este muchacho opaco y provinciano, de familia venida a menos, contrapone los hábitos mundanos de la casa de los Encina con cierto orgullo escondido, latente, el de saberse mejor, moral e intelectualmente superior] (Contardo 116). Be that as it may, Martín’s heroics and honest ways diminished any shadow of siutiquería.

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echelons of society and, like a fox, recognize the traps and thus avoid a social faux pas. In most of his interactions, therefore, Martín carefully calculated the risks and offered the best way out to those who came to consult with him on issues including matters of the heart, personal reputation, and heavy duty politics.

Martín Rivas: Constructing A Nation In his chapter on “Cultural Roots,” Benedict Anderson has indicated that newspapers were capable of reproducing a nation for their community of readers. In Anderson’s analysis, members of a community inhabited the same chronological space, shared similar positive and negative experiences, and became united by information. While they bonded, readers were not necessarily cognizant of each other’s existence, but, through the simultaneous ceremony of registering the news in a common physical space they shared an imagined community (35-36). Along with newspapers, the “oldfashioned” novel also represented for Anderson a classical portrayal of a society where individuals interacted in a community afflicted by various ills. Characters in such novels were affected by fictionalized events that had a basis in reality, and the texts thus recreated for readers “a community in anonymity which is the hallmark of modern nations” (36). Martín Rivas first appeared in 1862 as a serialized novel in the newspaper La voz de Chile [The Voice of Chile]. When the book reached print, it was dedicated by Blest Gana to Manuel Antonio Matta, founder of the Chilean Radical party in 1833. Matta was also founder of La voz de Chile newspaper, which was itself dedicated “to the propagation and defense of liberal principals” [a la propagación y defensa de los principios liberales (MR 59)]. It is significant that Blest Gana subtitled Martín Rivas a Novel of Socio-Political Customs [Novela de costumbres político-sociales], indicating thereby that the text was intended to hold a mirror up to Chilean society and thus to reflect its customs as well as its tensions and vicissitudes. Don Dámaso Encina was described as “a methodical man who governs his person, like his life, by invariable rules [el hombre metódico, que somete su persona, como su vida, a reglas invariables (MR 62)]. One of his routines was reading the newspaper every day; he developed his views and delivered speeches to his peers based on the editorials of conservative and liberal newspapers alike (MR 73). A man of acute business sense, he sometimes supported the conservative government and sometimes the liberal opposition, depending on which direction the political wind was blowing. Most of the time, he heeded the advice of his capitalist friends,

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who, as one would expect, only read news that confirmed their views. There were a few occasions, however, when he felt himself part of the selective liberal elite. Ironically, he was prone to liberal positions when his various business enterprises were succeeding. The day Martín was given shelter in the Encina mansion, for example, don Dámaso felt particularly generous. This was partly because his son Agustín had arrived from Paris and partly because he had finished a good business deal. Adopting the viewpoint of the liberal newspapers, don Dámaso on that day expressed the sentiments of a progressive citizen, citing freely from the headlines: “all citizens must be engaged in public affairs; and the rights of the people are sacred” [todo ciudadano debe ocuparse de la cosa pública, y los derechos de los pueblos son sagrados (MR 79)]. Newspapers may have constructed the nation for the Encinas and their peers, but don Dámaso was fundamentally opportunistic. He chose one party over the other for business reasons. His political flip-flopping only intensified once he abdicated his business “throne” to Martín so that he could dedicate himself “to the political fluctuations that he hoped someday would give him a chair in the Senate” [a las fluctuaciones políticas que esperaba le diesen algún día el sillón de senador (MR 447)]. All in all, don Dámaso’s discussions with other Chilean citizens allowed the novel, therefore, to verbalize the political upheaval of the early 1850s. The animosity between the pelucones and the pipiolos, a topic of conversation at many of the Encinas’ evening tertulias culminated in civilian unrest and bloodshed. Using this as his frame of reference, then, Martín Rivas embodied the Chilean nation in its turbulent developmental stages.

Heroic Masculinity Machiavelli was a patriot who dedicated his thought to ways of solidifying the Italian states and turning them into a cohesive unit that he conceived to be the Italian nation. In nineteenth-century Italy, the intelligentsia of the Risorgimento rescued his work and legacy from its previously maligned fate undoubtedly because they recognized in it Machiavelli’s love for patria. Post res perditas, in the privacy of his home in San Casciano, Machiavelli stressed the need to establish a national identity through the creation of an ideal prince who would rescue Italy. In nineteenth-century Chile, Blest Gana never stopped thinking of ways to define his own patria. His approach mixed heavy-duty politics with enthralling, vivid descriptions of people’s customs, as Roberto Huneeus has analyzed. For Huneeus, the Chilean author was an artist who never abandoned the politician or the diplomat in him, and this complementarity

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contributed to the pivotal match of his writing skills to the depiction of Chile in the nineteenth century (9). Essentially, he was a fiction writer who was also equal parts politician and historian. Alluding to the notorious pago de Chile,8 the ingratitude towards a compatriot, Huneeus has stressed that Blest Gana thought more about his country than his country ever thought about him (11). We could add that, especially during his life in Paris, Blest Gana was preoccupied with contemplating what it meant to be a member of the Chilean polis in the city itself—and how to be a member of the French polis as a Chilean. As a result, he developed precise and detailed descriptions of characters who inhabited mostly urban geographical spaces, especially Santiago—and later on Paris—, and thus used his fiction to leave a literary and historic testament to the contemporary state of the Chilean nation. In Machiavelli’s Clizia, the inept paterfamilias Nicomaco thought himself brilliant but was demonstrably incapable of negotiating well with others. He stubbornly and futilely pursued the love of young Clizia, who was herself destined to become the wife of his son, Cleandro. To get his way Nicomaco not only wanted to fool his son but also his wife Sofronia, the leader of his domestic circle. Both Sofronia and Cleandro knew well of Nicomaco’s intentions but, in order to gain his trust and discover ways to impede him, they played along and pretended to believe his incredible lies. Unfortunately for Nicomaco, his obsession changed him into a fool, which led his wife Sofronia to express her concerns. Referring obliquely to an illfitted suitor for Clizia, Sofronia directed her comments to her husband’s stupidity: “Whereas every man praised us before, now every man will find fault with us (II, 3; 17) [dove prima ogni uomo ci lodava, ogni uomo ora ci biasimerà (p. 139)]. When his plot was uncovered—and by every member of the household—, Nicomaco was ridiculed for his folly, his lack of acumen and his shortage of scruples in such a vigorous way that his masculinity was put into question. In contrast, it was his wife who gained everybody’s respect. She convincingly proved that she possessed more bravado, more virtù, than her husband, and this allowed her to emerge as a new and stronger domestic ruler. Like Machiavelli, Blest Gana delighted in presenting weak citizens. In fact, characters like Nicomaco abounded in Blest Gana’s work. In El ideal de un calavera, as an example, don Lino Alcunza appeared at the beginning of the novel as an amusing nineteenthcentury Chilean Lysidamus, thinking he could easily win the sexual favors of young Candelaria Basquiñuelas. Later on, as he concocted a dark plot to 8

Chileans’ ingratitude and lack of recognition toward someone who has done great service to the nation.

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make Candelaria an unwitting hostage, he became a villainous character capable of betrayal and a negative exemplum of morality and citizenship. He was forced to pay a high price for his obscene behavior. Like the unwise Nicomaco, don Lino was confronted and made to suffer for his errors, figuratively emasculated by the novel’s irrepressible protagonist, Abelardo Manríquez, himself a personification of the young and the bold. Machiavelli’s political philosophy led to a theory not only for his time but also for future times, an assertion which can be substantiated by the fact that numerous studies on Machiavelli have continued to be made well into the twenty-first century. John Najemy has said that “Machiavelli is now everywhere,” (2010, 5) and has produced a long list of works on Machiavelli that runs from Michael Ledeen’s Machiavelli on Modern Leadership: Why Machiavelli’s Iron Rules Are as Timely and Important Today as Five Centuries Ago (Truman Talley Books 1999) to Harriet Rubin’s The Princessa: Machiavelli for Women (Doubleday 1997) and Carnes Lord’s The Modern Prince: What Leaders Need to Know Now (Yale U Press, 2003) (2010, 6-7). Validated by texts on socio-political action and ethical matters, Machiavelli’s ideas are being continuously considered by authors who want people to lead productive lives in the public as well as the private sphere. As Miguel Vatter has asserted, Machiavelli’s commitment to freedom, but never to immorality, required the exercise of the “relativity of the moral.” As life imposed its tremendous demands on people, it was necessary to deploy an “ethics of responsibility” in the negotiation of one’s commitment to freedom and one’s requirement to be moral. For Vatter, that is the legacy which Machiavelli has bequeathed to modernity (310). From this perspective, Machiavelli’s theories lend themselves well to an analysis of the actions and motivations of individuals in nineteenth-century Latin America, a time when young nations were defining themselves. According to Gertrude Yeager, Chileans’ commitment to freedom played a part in their disillusionment with the Director Supremo (Supreme Director) Bernardo O’Higgins. Although they had lauded him in battle, the Chilean ottimati became disenchanted with O’Higgins’ opinion that they could not self-govern (120) so they helped to oust him and indirectly sent the Director Supremo into exile (121). Not long after, however, in the apogee of minister Diego Portales, the Chilean aristocracy engaged in a Machiavellian “relativity of the moral” (Vatter 310) to justify their support of a Ministro who believed that the nation “could only be governed by an authoritarian regime.” In Historia mínima de Chile [A Brief History of Chile] (2014), Rafael Sagredo has argued that even in the middle of the nineteenth century, people in Chile still held tenaciously to a monarchic notion of a good

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Christian ruler-prince “responsible only before God” [responsible solo ante Dios] (2014, 126). For Machiavelli, the successful prince was able to perform acts of piety while at the same time taking over dominions. For him, one of the best princes of his time was Ferdinand, the Catholic king of Spain, who performed regality and piety like no other.9 Concurrently, like Ferdinand, the ideal ruler needed always to be alert to the dynamics of change. Contending that inaction was progressively damaging to a state, Machiavelli asserted that the stability of a city depended on the capacity of individuals of virtù to recognize troubles early on, as soon as they arose. For this reason, “if you wait for them to present themselves, the medicine will be too late, for the disease will have become incurable” (P, 3; 84) [ma aspettando che ti si appressino, la medicina non è ad tempo perché la malatia è diventata incurabile (p. 277)]. For Machiavelli, preventive measures were a safe and fruitful way to deal with threats. Inaction would always leave a territory vulnerable, at best thinly united, at worse, conquered by another state. Machiavelli made clear that he was not interested in imaginary outcomes. As he famously declared in his Prince, he was resolved to give sound advice that would work: “Since my intention is to write something useful for anyone who understands it, it seemed more suitable to me to search after the effectual truth of the matter rather than its imagined one (P, 15; 126) [sendo l’intenzione mia stata scrivere cosa che sia utile a chi la intende, mi è parso più conveniente andare drieto alla verità effettuale della cosa che alla inmaginazione di epsa (p. 692)].10 Nonetheless, his construction of an effective prince required the mythical as much as the real. While Machiavelli did not shy away from encouraging dissembling and manipulation on the part of a ruler, we know that he intended those actions to be exercised expressly in support of the specific goal of 9

In Chapter 21 of The Prince, Machiavelli writes: “Nothing makes a prince more esteemed than great undertakings and examples of his unusual talents. In our own times we have Ferdinand of Aragon, the present King of Spain. This man can be called almost a new prince, since from being a weak ruler he became, through fame and glory, the first King of Christendom; and if you will consider his accomplishments, you will find them all very grand and some even extraordinary,” (150) [Nessuna cosa fa tanto stimare uno principe, quanto fanno le grande imprese e dare di sé rari exempli. Noi abbiamo nelli nostri tempi Ferrando di Aragona, presente re di Spagna: costui si può chiamare quasi principe nuovo, perché d’uno re debole è diventato per fama e per gloria el primo re de’ cristiani; e se considerate le actioni sua, le troverrete tutte grandissime e qualcuna extraordinaria (p. 896)]. 10 Vittore Branca, editor of a volume on the Principe, personified Machiavelli as an intellectual who lived the “realtà effetuale” with gusto, (vii).

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preserving a realm. Antonio Gramsci, founder of the Italian Communist party, discerned sagaciously that Machiavelli’s Prince was a “live” text; it injected vigor into those dry, rigid, and religiously dogmatic scholarly texts that had been previously written on principalities. For the twentiethcentury Italian philosopher, The Prince fused political ideology and political science into the form of a myth (125). Mark Brown, analyzing the role of Machiavellian ideas in scientific pursuits, concurred with Gramsci that Machiavelli’s urge for realism, a point which his arguments made with frequency, contained in itself elements of a high rhetorical idealism (25). In chapter 26, in particular, he spoke of a savior whom he saw through the eyes of Rome’s mythical past as he emboldened an Italian prince to protect Italy from the barbarians. He was in fact describing a non-existent persona. In this fashion, Machiavelli, as don Quijote had done for Spain, did not look to the present and his contemporaries for a solution to Italy’s ills but rather to the books in his well-stocked library. In Cervantes, Literature, and the Discourse of Politics, Anthony Cascardi has argued that Cervantes took it upon himself to address relevant political subjects (2012, 7). By way of illustration, in Don Quijote the knight in shining armor surprised a group of simple goatherds with his commentary on his nation’s state of affairs. Inspired by a handful of acorns, don Quijote waxed on about a mythical Golden Age where possessions were shared by all and he contrasted this time starkly with what he perceived to be the goals of his contemporary and individualistic Age of Lead. The knight errant spoke of a mythical time of harmony and an ideal society: “There was no fraud, deceit, or malice mixed in with honesty and truth” (I, 11; 77) [No había la fraude, el engaño ni la malicia (p. 105)]. This is obviously a classical topos but, characteristically for Don Quijote, Cervantes also used it to allude to don Quijote’s own complex undertaking, especially the fact that he interacted with others while always being aware of the present. He never fully let go of his real circumstances and, with a clear mind, spoke of justice in seventeenth-century Spain: “Justice stood on her own ground, and favor or interest did not dare disturb or offend her as they so often do now, defaming, confusing, and persecuting her” (I, 11; 77) [La justicia se estaba en sus propios términos, sin que la osasen turbar ni ofender los del favor y los del interese, que tanto ahora la menoscaban, turban y persiguen (p. 105)]. Brian Loveman and Elizabeth Lira have described how the short-lived governments of the nineteenth-century Chilean republic projected a mythical representation of their nation (8). From this perspective, we can infer that political leaders conceived of their national space by resorting to a kind of idealization of patria that was akin to don Quijote’s. The various

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attempts to consolidate the nation in a set of shared institutions presupposed the idea of bringing together a scattered human geography, like the Insula Barataria of Don Quijote. Emulating don Quijote’s stance, one sector of Chileans, emblematized by Ramón Freire (1787-1851), Chile’s Supreme Director from 1823-1826, remained well rooted in the present and fought idealistic battles.11 Their goal was to change the state of affairs of their times and to pursue the highest republican ideals.12 Since solid and reliable colonial institutions had been shattered by the wars, institutional life and political legitimacy were eradicated from the social order, a fact which underlined the nation’s incapacity to recover from its past traumas (Loveman and Lira 61-62). Chileans at this time were on an undeniably quixotic quest to reunite a dispersed family, a community of sorts, that they imagined had actually existed in the past. Once that had been accomplished, with the seams of patria joined together again, they reasoned that all political disagreements would somehow dissipate effortlessly, and a new Chile would emerge to be shared by all citizens (8). If political harmony could ever be attained in Chile, the right conditions to forge an ideal nation would exist, and citizens would be in a position collectively to recover what they perceived had been lost. Similarly quixotic rhetoric surrounded Salvador Allende in his campaigns in the twentieth century. Allende wanted to ignite change but also to recuperate a national unity for all Chilean citizens. He blended the ideal with the concrete, supporting access to education and access to the commodity markets at the same time. The young hero of Martín Rivas hailed from the mining town of Copiapó. From there, he somehow executed the incredible feat of winning over the big city and gaining access into a very rigid society. Besides his acumen and extreme virtù, he understood early on that he had to play an urban role. In Cervantes’s text, don Quijote himself became immediately aware that if he was going to help the world, he had to adapt to his new persona and change the way he looked. Without hesitation, he gathered up remnants from his ancestors to start a new life as a knight errant from bygone years. In the text, a number of other characters also transformed themselves—or at least they attempted to do so—through clothing. In fact, with reference to the power of clothing—specifically the use of secondhand garments—Alexandra Palmer and Hazel Clark have studied its 11

Freire was made Supreme Director again for a brief period in 1827. Freire was a fervent pipiolo but his demeanor also conveyed an anachronistic conception of patria. He showed himself to be foremost a soldier and then a national ruler, engaging in battles that were left over from the wars of Independence. See Jocelyn-Holt, 2011, pp. 369-370. 12

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significance as “valued commodities and as markets of social change” (9). In the same vein, the material culture of clothing in Don Quijote served as evidence that it could facilitate and promote social mobility—or could prove to be a social equalizer. In the text, clothing enabled characters to weather the tests of fortuna in the game of life. As one might have expected, changes in attire were executed by the characters in melodramatic terms in Don Quijote. Jesús Maestro has perceived in this a spectacular illusion occurring alongside everyday reality, an intertwining of sorts that intrinsically connected garment changing to a theatrical event (42-43). The wealthy peasant Dorotea, for example, after being seduced by Don Fernando, had to confront the loss of her virginity, a fact that diminished her prospects for a good marriage. Virtue had always been her strongest weapon and the best chance for her parents to arrange a favorable marriage with a member from her own class. To reverse her fate, she decided to make a journey to recuperate her lost virtue, leaving her home and her parents in search of the man who had deceived her. She was well aware that her reputation and personal safety were at risk as she crossed the dry lands of Spain. All alone she wandered the winding paths of the Sierra Morena, a placed filled with intruders and danger of all sorts. To protect herself, she changed her gender identity through clothing. After briefly journeying as a man, she adopted the role of Princess Micomicona for don Quijote, not only as a theatrical ruse meant to convince him that she was a real princess, but also as a means to protect and to recover her former self. She needed to “be” the princess Micomicona in order to regain control of her life. So when Dorotea told the priest that she would play a better Princess Micomicona than the barber, the story made it clear that the young woman had been preparing her entire life for that precise part. She had read books of chivalry and she herself was a damsel in distress: Dorotea took from her pillow slip a dress made of a certain fine woollen cloth and a mantilla made of another attractive green fabric, and from a small box she took a necklace and other jewels, and with these she adorned herself and in a moment resembled a rich, great lady (I, 29; 242). [Sacó luego Dorotea de su almohada una saya entera de cierta telilla rica y una mantellina de otra vistosa tela verde, y de una cajita un collar y otras joyas, con que en un instante se adornó de manera que una rica y gran señora parecía (p. 292)].

In Sancho’s case, he felt that proper clothing could help his daughter rise in social status and effect a splendid marriage. As Cide Hamete

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Benengeli has explained, in the conspicuous “apocryphal” chapter five of part two, Sancho and his wife struggled to understand each other because Sancho was speaking like a true courtier and his wife, therefore, could not comprehend what he said. For her, however, one thing was certain: Sancho’s ambition to rise up in life was bound to produce changes in the way people perceived her and her family. Indeed, for Sancho, that was precisely what needed to happen: “if God lets me have any kind of governorship, I’ll marry Mari Sancha so high up that nobody will be able to reach her unless they call her Señora” (II, 5; 487) [si Dios me llega a tener algo qué de gobierno, que tengo de casar, mujer mía, a Mari Sancha tan altamente, que no la alcancen sino con llamarla señora (p. 572)]. Unhappy with Sancho’s intentions, Teresa begged him to stop trying to place Sanchica at court, realizing that sooner or later the courtiers would find out the truth about her humble origin simply by observing her demeanor. Pleading with her husband, Teresa tried to make Sancho see the implicit danger in his desire for upward mobility: She should marry an equal, that’s the best thing; if you raise her from wooden clogs to cork-soled mules, from homespun petticoats to silken hoop skirts and dressing gowns, and from you, Marica to Doña and my lady, the girl won’t know who she is, and wherever she turns, she’ll make a thousand mistakes and show that the threads of her cloth are rough and coarse (II, 5; 487). [casadla con su igual, que es lo más acertado; que si de los zuecos la sacáis a chapines, y de saya parda de catorceno a verdugado y saboyanas de seda, y de una Marica y un tú a una doña tal y señoría, no se ha de hallar la mochacha, y a cada paso ha de caer en mil faltas, descubriendo la hilaza de su tela basta y grosera (p. 572)].

From an anachronistic perspective, Sancho spoke from the perspective of a siútico. He convinced himself that with money and the ability to mimic the behavior of others Sanchica would prosper. In this regard, Sancho’s words connect back to doña Bernarda Cordero’s perception of upward mobility in Martín Rivas. In both accounts, access to money provided all the tools necessary to “arrive” at the top of the social ladder. For Sancho, wearing the right type of clothing would brand his daughter and give her a powerful weapon in her confrontation with high society. As he said: “she just needs to practice for two or three years and then the nobility and the dignity will be a perfect fit” (II, 5; 487) [todo será usarlo dos o tres años; que después, le vendrá el señorío y la gravedad como de molde (pp. 572-573)].

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For a twenty-first century audience, Martín Rivas provides a map of nineteenth-century Chilean societal clashes on a human and geographical scale and, in doing so, it underscores how Chile was and still is a nation of socio-political enemies. Guillermo Araya has noted that in many of Blest Gana’s novels historical conflicts among citizens were inconspicuous, especially in Martín Rivas (1975, 19). Momentous episodes in Chilean history remained in the background at first, but later grew in prominence to become key elements that defined the characters’ fates. Visions of order collided as characters and the nation strived for unity. As Sagredo has argued, the Constitution of 1833, for example, stipulated above all the maintenance of order through the dominance of the aristocracy. In fact, it provided ample powers to the executive and turned the president into a custodian of conservative order (2014, 127).13 Blest Gana’s intention, however, was to use his discursive space to create an intellectual community that could express the various and opposing views of the citizenry and the nation. For Juan Poblete, Blest Gana was intent on “encompassing at least elite and popular versions of civil society and elite and popular versions of public spheres” (2008, 310). In the end, the Chilean author became a ruthless commentator on his fellow citizens’ materialistic interests and thereby produced an extraordinary glimpse into Chilean social inequality. Blest Gana was the son of Guillermo Cunningham Blest, an Irish-born physician and founder of Chile’s first School of Medicine. Blest Gana’s mother was María de la Luz Gana Darrigrandi, a Chilean gentlewoman with familial ties to Manuel Blanco Encalada, Chile’s first official president. Encouraged by two older brothers who had themselves left Ireland for the new nation, Cunningham Blest arrived in Chile in 1823 or 13

Jocelyn-Holt argues against the conventional view that the Constitution of 1833 imposed total order in Chile and that the Chilean state arose independently from the elite: “Supposedly, Portales and his associates were able to contain the anarchy and disorder of the previous decade, imposing —with the Constitution of 1833— a political model centered on an authoritarian president, endowed with ample powers (essentially emergency and state of emergency powers). This type of model supposedly also regulated any kind of autonomy that could be conceived by Parliament. According to this view, a founding state should have arisen independent from the elite” [Supuestamente, Portales y sus asociados fueron capaces de frenar la anarquía y el desorden de la década precedente, imponiendo —con la Constitución de 1833—un modelo político centrado en un presidente autoritario, con amplias facultades (en lo esencial, poderes de emergencia y de estado de sitio), modelo que además fiscalizó cualquier tipo de autonomía que el Parlamento pudiera concebir. Según esta visión, un estado fundacional habría surgido independientemente de la élite (2014, 51)].

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1824, shortly after O’Higgins had been removed from power (Silva Castro 10). Although critics do not seem to agree on the extent of Cunningham Blest’s involvement with Chilean liberal ideas, one could safely infer that his Irish background and status as a subject of the British Empire would have caused him to instill liberal leanings in his children. Per Silva Castro, Cunningham Blest was instrumental in stimulating the type of conversation that led to the founding of Chile’s School of Medicine, a feat that led him to be surrounded by the best of acquaintances, among them Diego Portales (16-20). Not only a physician, Best Gana’s father was involved in politics, which put him into contact with the pipiolos of the time. In fact, Poblete Varas has noted that Cunningham Blest was accused of supporting notable pipiolo Francisco Bilbao (13), a prominent nineteenth-century Chilean revolutionary intellectual. All critics concur that Cunningham Blest’s children were active participants in Chile’s narration of national identity, contributing with outstanding civic engagement. Along with Alberto, distinguished among the Blest Gana siblings were Romantic poet Guillermo, and José Joaquín, a lawyer and literary critic. Interestingly, Guillermo represented the pipiolo views and José Joaquín leaned toward those of the pelucones. As for Alberto, we find his firm liberal principles expressed in his literary production. By virtue of his family relations, the author was well acquainted with the sociopolitical impact of the tertulia in Santiago, and this featured prominently in his works. According to Chilean literary critic-historian Alone, whose work was particularly restrained in recognizing any political passion in the Chilean author, many of the participants in the Blest Gana family tertulia had been involved in one way or another in the Motín de Urriola and were thereafter forced to go into political exile or underground (1940, 41). Like Machiavelli and Cervantes, Blest Gana was an iconoclast. Commenting on the state of Chilean literary studies, he declared that he lived in times distinguished by intellectual mediocrity and obsessed with worldly concerns (1861, 81). With his novels, then, Blest Gana sought to elevate the status of Chile and reinvigorate humanistic and intellectual endeavors. He possessed a quixotic tenacity and the same precisevagueness of Machiavelli—a term that describes the manner in which the Chilean author’s socio-political meanings gradually unfold in his texts. During the independence movement, intellectuals had already expressed how critical a proper education was for the formation of citizenship and the development of strong leaders. The conservative interior minister Juan Egaña, as he championed the creation of the Instituto Nacional in 1813, heralded that “without education a modern society possessed neither ‘opinion, public spirit, nor the men to build the state’” (Yeager 75).

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Following the spirit of Egaña’s words, Blest Gana believed that a wellgrounded education would be the forge for a vibrant nation, and he created Martín as an exemplum of patria. When he became invested as a professor of literature at the Universidad de Chile, the author offered a eulogy for his admired predecessor Juan Bello Dunn, son of Andrés Bello and founding member of the Sociedad Literaria (Literary Society) of 1842. During his time, he said, education had become undervalued and it was now being undermined by a growing belief that accumulating material goods was what mattered most. Anticipating the frustrated laments of twenty-firstcentury Chilean teachers, the author bemoaned the inferior place of culture and academic pursuits. For him it seemed as if there were no followers left of Bello’s intellectual and idealistic dreams. Echoing Machiavelli’s own despondency in the face of the Florentines’ diminishing civic spirit, Blest Gana spoke with frustration of a nation that lacked the virtù to release itself from a preoccupation with mediocre goals. It seemed that citizens expected to be spoon-fed whatever was coming from Europe, be it “arts, literature, commerce, industry,” etc. (1861, 81). In the twenty-first century, we can use the same argument for Chileans who strive to adopt any fashion or behavior that comes from the United States. Thinking about Cervantes’s approach to literary texts, Cascardi has underscored how Cervantes had conveyed the importance of being conversant with “literary forms of discourse” (2012, 7). Likewise, contemplating the steps necessary to invigorate intellectualism in Latin America, Blest Gana remarked that his country of birth needed to develop a strong literary tradition. He urged fellow Chileans to nurture inquisitive minds through the cultivation of literary studies and thereby to raise the nation’s intellectual level. Chileans were not ready to think, explore, or create on their own, he claimed, because they were so transfixed and blinded by materialistic goals (1861, 81). As an exemplum, Martín’s acute mind and his solid upbringing and strong education stood in as replacements for his lack of money. The critic Alone, adept at selfcreation, has put forward a perceptive, quixotic characterization of Martín Rivas. As the young man became acquainted with Santiago and its people, Martín maintained his commitment to strong principles and did not once waiver from a chivalrous stance. The young provincial committed himself to obtaining a first-rate education in order to make himself and his family proud. He conducted himself in “an irreproachable manner, perhaps too irreproachable” [una conducta irreprochable, acaso demasiado irreprochable], as Alone has observed (1940, 154). Like don Quijote, Martín dazzled people with his acumen and knowledge. Similarly, in his demeanor toward others, Martín reinterpreted the approach of an idealized

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knight errant, according to Alone. He was a man without fault who came across as an extremely heroic legendary Romantic paladin (1940, 156). Machiavelli and Blest Gana find a point of connection in their diplomatic careers. In the words of Roberto Ridolfi, Machiavelli managed to win the illustrious position of Florence’s head of the Second Chancery with “no reputation, very little experience, and brilliant intellect” —and as a mere twenty-nine-year old (15). Having endured ups and downs in his own life, Machiavelli saw a relationship between his personal hardships and the political distress of his beloved city of Florence and he reproduced that correlation in his fictional works. From his fortuitous political appointment, he worked indefatigably for his republic and accumulated vast experience in political affairs, visiting prominent European courts and meeting heads of state. Diego Paredes, examining the unfair portrayals of the Florentine Secretary, has claimed that as one studies the socio-political ideas of Machiavelli one should concentrate on thinking along with him (“El anarquismo”). By a stroke of fortuna, Machiavelli’s political career ended when the Spaniards prompted the return of the Medici to Florence in 1512. Just as Machiavelli had obliquely positioned himself in his writings, Blest Gana also wrote himself into his texts. Certainly, Martín Rivas, which opened in July 1850, presented an author and character who were of a similar age. As expected, the plot overflowed with costumbrismo, emphasizing social mannerisms and curious customs while intertwining the destiny of its characters. For Blest Gana, history revealed its records through the intimate details of people’s lives. Indeed, his novels’ vivid costumbrismo provided a unique opportunity to pause and contemplate a quiet haven in the river of romance and intrigue. In this regard, history became “a turbulent leap that the same river rushes to as it completes its course” [un salto turbulento en que se precipita el mismo río en el momento mismo de finalizar su curso], to borrow Araya’s very apt descriptions (2000, 20). At the same time that they fell in and out of love, the characters were fully immersed within the socio-economic spaces of Santiago, sometimes succeeding in business deals or experiencing setbacks from harsh economic policies or political practices. As Blest Gana’s alter-ego, then, Martín superbly achieved the author’s own goals and ideals, quietly—and at times boldly—manifesting the author’s anger and contempt towards the mores of Santiago’s citizens. In Machiavellian terms, then, Martín became the ideal condottiere who would lead Chilean society to a more dignified place.

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Chilean Independence: Order in Disorder The socio-political issues treated in Martín Rivas erupted as Chile was becoming a nation, and a disorderly one at that. Susan Dunn and James MacGregor have stipulated that Machiavelli did not discourage political disorder; that is, he was not against class conflict between the patricians and the plebs because “order, paradoxically, could be strengthened by disorder” (43). Related to this, Jocelyn-Holt has depicted how the Chilean criollos accidentally found themselves without a monarchy, a chance occurrence that ignited an unanticipated and rather disorderly journey toward emancipation from Spain. After the earthquake of independence, then, Chileans moved for the next eleven years, at times unsteadily, to establish a “legitimating new order” [nuevo orden legitimante] (2011, 356). Jocelyn-Holt has discussed how this particular route of the patriots was characterized by a high level of trial and error and by utopian enterprises brushed with tinges of realism (2011, 357). Arguing against the idea of a solid nineteenth-century national state, the Chilean historian has contended that until 1860 the government was unable to consolidate the much desired political order (2014, 52). Regarding his assessment, Jocelyn-Holt has said: In the light of recent history, however, this exaggerated image of a wellorganized and civilizing nation-state is clearly more difficult to accept. How is it that, having achieved and maintained these lofty accomplishments throughout the nineteenth century, we would end up becoming—as alluded to in a recent title—a ‘nation of enemies.’ [A la luz de la historia reciente, sin embargo, esta imagen exagerada de un estado-nación bien organizado y civilizador es claramente más difícil de aceptar. ¿Cómo es que, habiendo alcanzado y mantenido estos altos logros durante todo el siglo XIX, terminaríamos siendo—como se alude en un título reciente— una ‘nación de enemigos’ (2014, 49)].

This assessment finds an echo in Machiavelli’s discussion of his own republic. Within a contemporary landscape, Dunn and Macgregor in particular have cogently discussed Machiavelli’s contention that to safeguard the republic people ought to stay above the fray of self-interest or private pursuits, remaining first and foremost loyal to a strong civic spirit (43). In Blest Gana’s text, Chileans did not attempt to prevent or to mend their past socio-political mistakes. There were only a few citizens in Santiago who were unselfish enough to fight for their patria, undeterred by governmental repression and military jurisdiction. In an uneven battle, Chilean subjects were up against what Loveman and Lira have described

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as “an energetically pursued mandate” [mando enérgicamente ejercido] on the part of a stern administration that maintained the right to impose a state of emergency and martial law and thus inflicted constant repression on Chileans from 1830 until 1860 (57). Martín Rivas reproduced the unforgettable love story of the young provincial Martín and the beautiful Santiago socialite Leonor Encina handin-hand with a portrayal of Chile’s political differences. As Doris Sommer has commented, in the text love and politics dwelled in each other’s spaces. In this regard, constancy, discretion and heroism were required attributes of protagonists both in love and politics (214). The novel recounted socio-political clashes twenty years after José Joaquín Prieto assumed the presidency of Chile in 1831, following the vanquishing of the liberal troops led by Freire in 1830, at the decisive Batalla de Lircay (Battle of Lircay). For Juan Durán Luzio, the text’s vivid characterization of the historical episodes from the 1850s disclosed the rigor with which Blest Gana utilized chronology to delineate the young protagonist’s heroics and his valiant pursuit of lofty national goals (43). At the end of the novel, however, Martín was content to leave the battlefield to immerse himself in the world of the Encinas. The liberal agenda, then, symbolized as it was by a fervent impulse to found a national culture and literature, finished by accepting without qualms, and even helping to solidify, a state of economic dependence and the preservation of the status quo, as Bernardo Subercaseaux has discussed (150). On this, the denouement of the 1851 Motín de Urriola, with its crushing of liberal ideas, gave Blest Gana the historical-literary material for exposing the interests of the conservatives vs. the progressives. At the same time, it allowed his protagonist to surmount the social and monetary abyss that separated him from Leonor’s society. Jocelyn-Holt has contended that authoritarianism permeated the way in which Chile began to consolidate its institutions, as the period of the republic has customarily been understood (2011, 356-358). Arguing against a traditional vision of such times as conservative, the historian has described how the nation took steps toward a rather liberal form of government.14 During the Freire government, which has been characterized as a period of probationary governing rooted in more or less coherent 14

Along the same lines, Yeager analyzes how Barros Arana constructed the image of Portales within the perspective of a moderate liberal which was perceived by the historian as an “evolutionary necessity” for the day (121). Kinsbruner, studying the life of Diego Portales, also asserts that the statesman pursued the ideals of liberalism and should be interpreted in the sense of Locke and Montesquieu (1967, 6).

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purposes, Juan Egaña’s effort toward stability was translated into the constitution of 1823, a charter redolent of moral codes that embodied and promoted the mérito cívico (civic merit) within society. For James Wood, Egaña’s constitution signaled “the inculcation of civic virtue in society, one of the central concerns of nineteenth-century republicanism” (33). From this perspective, Egaña’s document dictated what efforts would be used to inculcate this necessary civic spirit in a dormant new nation. The constitution aimed fundamentally to unite the differing views of the new citizenry, bringing together those who still wished to cling to the old monarchic modes with those who had been impatiently waiting for their chance to engage in the business of governing. But it was not all about idealism and unity. Egaña was granted a Machiavellian occasione in the writing of the constitution, which he used to stipulate the heightened requirements for becoming a legal Chilean citizen, thus tightening the circle of his own constituents. Among other demands, property ownership and demonstrated financial stability were considered essential characteristics to qualify a person born in Chile to participate in the country’s civic life (33).

Revenge of the Pelucones and Pipiolos Blest Gana’s method of combining public and private political spaces to narrate his society, especially as he decried its lack of a true civic spirit, resonates harmoniously with Machiavelli’s approach to his own work. The roots of the divisions between the two dominant factions exposed in Martín Rivas, the pelucones and the pipiolos, were to be found at the moment of independence from Spain, a fact also recorded by Blest Gana in Durante la Reconquista. In The Society of Equality, Wood has brought to the fore how the pelucones and pipiolos, in their numerous attempts to establish the republic as a veritable functional system, held distinct views of how the nation would operate. Two things, however, united them: their need to prosper economically and their hatred of the O’Higgins’ government. O’Higgins thus managed to unify the ruling class against himself and against what they considered the “personalistic politics” of a despot like the Supreme Director (24). From an economic perspective, deposing the Supreme head of the nation was good for business. After O’Higgins was exiled, the Chilean markets opened rapidly to international commerce. His departure, however, did not facilitate the reconstruction of a polis. An effective and concrete republic remained elusive; it existed, for the most part, in the criollos’ minds only.

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Machiavelli was wary of human motivations. He maintained that political strife within Florence had opened the city up to invasion by barbarians and undermined any attempt to assure its future strength. Because of their animosities, Florentines had turned his beloved city instead into a political servant of more powerful territories, like Milan or the papal court (FH, V, 1). According to Jay Kinsbruner, after the exit of the Spaniards from Chilean territory, O’Higgins “became Supreme Director of an administration that did not exist” (1968, 92). Per JocelynHolt, the period known as Patria Vieja (Old Patria) had to deal with legitimacy; for O’Higgins and his Patria Nueva, the issue was to establish a viable government. In both cases, troubling issues were resolved by “combining improvisation with certainty” [combinando improvisación con certeza], to borrow Jocelyn-Holt’s words (2014, 358) a phrase which resonates with Machiavelli’s advice on keeping new realms. During his tenure, O’Higgins created the judicial tribunals and founded the future of Chile’s judicial power, which have been studied by Sagredo. Significantly, many of the realists, who had fought tenaciously for Spain and, therefore, against the very idea of Chile as a nation, were successful in seeking refuge or even in obtaining positions working for the newly established national tribunal. This fact became part of the basis for Chilean justice such that, as Sagredo has argued, justice became, “more attentive to the protection of property and goods than people themselves, a condition that would be reaffirmed many years later during the Pinochet dictatorship” [más atenta al amparo de la propiedad y de los bienes, que de las personas. Como quedaría demostrado muchos años después, durante la dictadura de Pinochet (2014, 111)]. O’Higgins personally experienced a rapid journey to the top only to come crashing back down again without any redemption, a fate which Machiavelli ascribed to many leaders. As a “new prince”, the Supreme Director did not enjoy the benefits of familiarity and needed to act with caution, making sure that he could “suit (his) actions to unexpected events” (P, 2; 79) [temporeggiare con gli accidenti (p. 258)]. The turmoil caused by the change of command from royalists to patriots required that he start from scratch and assemble an entirely new government. Machiavelli emphasized how crucial the right performance was to the construction of a public self. For a nation’s new leader, this fact could make or break him: What makes (a ruler) despised is being considered changeable, frivolous, effeminate, cowardly, irresolute; from these qualities a prince must guard himself as if from a reef, and he must strive to make everyone recognize in his actions greatness, spirit, dignity, and strength (P, 19; 136).

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[Contemnendo lo fa essere tenuto vario, leggieri, efeminato, pusillanime, inresoluto: da che uno principe si de’ guardare come da uno scoglio; et ingegnarsi che nelle actioni sua si riconosca grandeza, animosità, gravità, forteza (pp. 786-787)].

O’Higgins felt compelled to apply laws that pleased no one, not the church, the spoiled oligarchy or the combative liberals. Machiavelli cautioned that rulers only out of strict necessity should allow themselves to join a more powerful head of state “for you remain his prisoner if you win” (P, 21; 152) [vincendo rimani suo prigione (p. 900)]. O’Higgins was perennially and substantially tied to the powerful Argentinean Libertador José de San Martín (1778-1850). Their strong union included being pledges to the highly secretive Logia Lautarina, a brotherhood initiated by San Martín. The Logia became suspect in a number of political crimes, among them the murder of guerrillero Manuel Rodríguez. In reality, the Supreme Director could not operate on his own because the Logia had to approve his actions. For this reason, “O’Higgins began to remind Chileans of the foreign origins of their independence and government” (Kinsbruner 1968, 94). On this, Machiavelli declared that people, motivated by either greed, suspicion, or resentment, are quick to dishonor or cause any type of social injury to their rulers, unwilling to honor them (D, I, 29). Therefore, when the glorious remembrances of the golden battles for Chilean independence transmuted slowly but surely into lead, O’Higgins came to be perceived increasingly by the upper classes as a leader imposed upon criollos by San Martín during the planning and execution of the crossing of the Andes. In their eyes, he was now a dictator who conducted himself unjustly, wielding governmental powers without any legislative authorization. Machiavelli urged a prince to be mindful of both domestic policies, relating to the subjects of a territory, and international policies, covering relations with foreign nation states. For the Florentine Secretary, these policies could coexist in peace provided that the ruler was respected at home and that he could avoid or prevent any conspiracies from arising against him (P, 19). Before his forced abdication as Supreme Director in 1823, O’Higgins and the Chilean oligarchy were conclusively irreconcilable. Because he was unable to flatter, be a genuine leader during peaceful times, or to choose good ministers, he missed an occasione to repair some rough patches. O’Higgins had begun his government with a strongly positive reputation, hailed as one of the heroes of the independence movement. Nonetheless, in only five years he managed to alienate many of his compatriots. Chile’s Supreme Director, in this sense, did not read

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the signs of the changing times, as Machiavelli would say, and became increasingly distrusted by the oligarchy. The upheaval created by O’Higgins’ edict doing away with nobility titles and coats of arms, what Simon Collier and William Sater have characterized as “the outward and visible signs of aristocracy” (42), only exacerbated the upper classes’ animosity toward their head of state. After all, for some prominent families, acquiring nobility titles amounted to a substantial and long-term effort that required the expenditure of valuable family assets. Kinsbruner has underscored how, from the beginning of his tenure, the Chilean ruler encountered complications with the art of governing; for instance, he wavered between monarchism and republicanism and was perceived by his peers as more comfortable with international diplomatic relations than with sound domestic policies (1968, 138-139; 161). O’Higgins, moreover, remained in a war-like stance throughout his time as Supreme Director of Chile. This reminds us of Fabrizio Colonna’s comments in Machiavelli’s Art of War, where he argued that to uphold his civic duty “a good man could not make war his only profession” (I; 16) [che uno uomo buono non poteva esercitare questo esercizio per sua arte (p. 3204)], which is in some ways all that O’Higgins did. During the formative years of the nation, the descendants of the early criollos received and displayed a set of conflicts that inhered in the postcolonial social order. Undoubtedly, O’Higgins stood trial partly for desiring to do away with social pomp and circumstance, a trait we see exhibited by the characters of Blest Gana’s text. Regarding the legacy of O’Higgins, Diego Portales would later assert that O’Higgins’ tenure had been at best tentative and unstable; at worst, his mandates, according to the Ministro, were not conducive to economic prosperity. In less than a decade, therefore, the first Supreme Director of Chile managed to antagonize the Church, the aristocracy, and a burgeoning business community (Kinsbruner 1968, 161-162), to his own eventual demise. For Portales, a strong political regime controlled by the military and the oligarchy was ultimately preferable (Jocelyn-Holt 2014, 169).

Figuración Social and the Making of the Constitution After O’Higgins departed for Peru and an exile from which he would never return, civic disturbances sabotaged efforts to maintain equilibrium via a constitutional government as the nation sought to create itself as a republic. Loveman and Lira have underlined how this unsettled period established the main foundations for political rupture and subsequent reconciliation in Chile, a condition typified by an incompatibility between

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lofty goals and political interests. The organization of the Chilean republic was at best tenacious, with at least three constitutions between 1823 and 1833, as well as a myriad of short-term presidential mandates. In Martín Rivas, the pretentious don Simón Arenal was “considered to be a wise man by the family because of his dogmatic speeches and eloquent silences” [considerado como un hombre de capacidad en la familia, por lo dogmático de sus frases y la elocuencia de su silencio (MR 151)]. He was the character who proclaimed viva voce the sanctity of Chile’s constitution, stating that people could not freely embrace it without having read it. Nonetheless, the story let us in on his extreme views on the 1833 charter; he was challenged constantly by doña Francisca Encina, which betrayed the fact that he himself had not truly read it or completely understood it. Before the independence movement began its meandering but inevitable process, the Chilean elite felt increasingly belittled by the peninsulares but were mature enough politically to stand on their own. They grumbled in private and longed to accede to a power that had been denied to them. Significantly, they did not wish any longer to share the economic benefits produced by their land (Sagredo 2014, 104-106). In El peso de la noche, Jocelyn-Holt has made insightful observations on the rising demands, starting in about 1808, for the Chilean opulent to sit for portraits by famed Peruvian artist José Gil de Castro, known as Mulato Gil. This surge reflected a longing on the part of the upper class for figuración social, a wish to appear prominently in society, and also pointed to an increasing social rigidity (2014, 119). In this sense, where there was a lack of civic liberties, there was also a corresponding overabundance of performance of polite society and the practicing of refined customs. Blest Gana apprehended well the urge for figuración social in santiaguinos (inhabitants of Santiago) and created characters whose main purpose in life seemed to be to appear prominent and to be surrounded by peers—the cuico contact network—all the while expressing a specifically superior attitude toward others. Drawing attention to Chileans’ ostentatious display of affluence, Blest Gana compared the socially forgiving Chilean salons to the more restricted aristocratic salons of Europe and affirmed that the European new rich were never truly accepted within the upper echelons of society precisely because their recently acquired money perennially situated them as newcomers, a fact abhorred by the old European gentry. The city of Santiago, the text indicated, was characterized by a highly fluid and genealogically ambiguous society where money was king. In his description of the tertulia at the Encina mansion, Blest Gana stipulated

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that the qualms of the decaying European aristocracy were considered superfluous among affluent Chileans. Citizens like Agustín and Leonor Encina were encouraged by an entrepreneurial society to display their wealth through expensive clothing and strongly scented perfumes which had been brought into the country from exclusive European markets. By the same token, Alberto Edwards has enumerated how many of the old conquistador families, devastated by war or idleness, were over the long run replaced in social status by merchants and emergent capitalists, with fewer generations of patrician roots but with more gusto for representing themselves and their exclusive interests in nation building (9). In other words, as the republic was forming, Chile became increasingly dominated by a new economic class, one of capitalists who pledged allegiance to the so-called “aristocracy of money” [aristocracia de dinero (MR 66)]: In Chile we can see that everything is giving way to wealth… We highly doubt that this is a step towards democracy. Those who base their vanity on the blind favors of fortune ordinarily affect an insolence with which they believe they can hide their worthlessness, which makes them look down upon those who, unlike them, cannot purchase deference with luxury or the notoriety of their wealth. [En Chile vemos que todo va cediendo su puesto a la riqueza…. Dudamos mucho que éste sea un paso dado hacia la democracia, porque los que cifran su vanidad en los favores ciegos de la fortuna afectan ordinariamente una insolencia, con la que creen ocultar su nulidad, que les hace mirar con menosprecio a los que no pueden como ellos, comprar la consideración con el lujo o con la fama de sus caudales (MR 66)].

Blest Gana, then, was critical of the fact that money had the power to turn an obscure individual into a mighty person, without any consideration for that person’s virtues or vices. For that reason, the Molina clan aspired to have a piece of the pie, at least a slice of the material possessions that belonged to members of the financial class. Moved by these ambitions, the family, minus Edelmira, plotted a subterfuge to force Agustín Encina into a marriage with Adelaida Molina. The bride and groom were completely unsuitable, however, for Santiago’s society. Unaware that it was a scheme, doña Bernarda Cordero de Molina believed that the fictional marriage between her daughter and the Encina aristocrat would be a crucial triumph. She longed to belong to the social sphere of Agustín and his posh family. In this way, the old lady acted like Sancho, who boasted to his wife Teresa Panza that, if fortune had decided to come his way, he was not going to avoid profiting from her favor (DQ, II, 5). Decidedly, doña Bernarda felt lucky and was not willing to part with her good fortune. Her whole life

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had been filled with deprivation and frustration. Not fortunate enough to have been born wealthy or to be related by marriage to a wealthy family, she reckoned that she would be allowed to enjoy some of the profits of her daughter’s happy alliance. The widow felt that she had finally been given the occasione to transgress the barriers of a prohibited class and to break them down, a task that she felt certain could be, and needed to be, accomplished with the proper attire: Doña Bernarda then started to describe the dresses that would be convenient for her daughter to wear, not forgetting which ones she herself would like to have, pointing out the stores where they could be bought. The detailed account of her descriptions made it clear that the good lady had carefully thought about this matter… On her list, beside colored dresses, she would buy for herself a good black petticoat and a chiffon shawl because merino made her feel too warm ... doña Bernarda took into account how much fabric would be needed for a dozen shirts for Adelaida, plus the cost of labor for embroidering ruffles to adorn the shirts, two dozen pairs of stockings, several pairs of French boots and various essential items that, according to her, would prepare her daughter, destined as she was very soon to shine in the most selected society of Santiago. [Doña Bernarda entró entonces en la descripción de los vestidos que convendrían a su hija, sin olvidar los que a ella le gustaría tener, indicando las tiendas en donde podrían encontrarse. Lo prolijo de los detalles hacía ver que la buena señora había meditado detenidamente su asunto… En su enumeración entraron, además de los vestidos de color, una buena basquiña negra y un mantón de espumilla para ella, que no podía, por el calor, sufrir el de merino… doña Bernarda sacó la cuenta del número de varas de género de hilo que entraban en una docena de camisas para Adelaida, con más el importe de los vuelos bordados que debían adornarlas, el de dos docenas de medias, varios pares de botines franceses y diversos artículos de primera necesidad para la que, según ella, estaba destinada a figurar en breve en la más escogida sociedad de Santiago (MR 218-219)].

In Víctor Valenzuela’s analysis, material goods not only equaled prestige and comfort for doña Bernarda, they also meant respect. For the old woman then “money (was) above any other human consideration” (78). In like manner, the way that Bernarda Molina dressed herself and her daughter constituted the most visible articulation of her desire for societal value and power. With wealth, her peers would now call her “Señora,” a title that would harmonize perfectly with what she would wear. Highly aware that she was being catalogued by what she wore, she eagerly anticipated frequenting the stores of the well-to-do where she would

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purchase and display luxury items and clothing as part of her attempt to exhibit herself and her family in the urban space. Blest Gana often bemoaned the fact that the exhibition of luxury was so critically important in Chile. He wrote to Antonio Huneeus of his disapproval of the extreme fondness for ostentation that prevailed among his compatriots. In an exasperating tone that was reminiscent of Machiavelli’s private correspondence, Blest Gana wrote that, as a general rule, social ills such as the continuous abuse of purchases made on credit alone, kept the Chilean nation in perennial trouble. From an educational perspective, the author adumbrated the bad habits of Chileans, heralding the fact that the society was in need of help. As Silva Castro has established, Blest Gana also condemned the exaggerated display of luxury items and the facility— verging on eagerness—with which Chileans entertained “tall tales” [el cuento del tío]. Similarly, he critiqued “the ease with which Chileans deluded themselves about fantastic business enterprises” [facilidad de ilusionarse sobre la solidez de muchos negocios fantásticos] (146). Even in the political arena, Blest Gana conjectured, there was a defective, selfish use of power (146). With skepticism, the author described this malaise as being peculiar to Chilean society and indicative of its tendency not to think about the general good but mainly about one’s personal interest. Those characteristics still feature prominently and spectacularly in the mores of twenty-first-century Chileans.

Martín the Hero and His Path to Leonor Cervantes created one stalwart knight in don Quijote, and Blest Gana created an equally brave one in Martín. The knight errant never compromised his beliefs or his moral rectitude, which made him a persona non-grata in a diminished Spanish empire. The social promotion of don Quijote from hidalgo to a knight in shining armor was formalized under a spirit of high idealism that was nonetheless intrinsically interwoven within a materialist context: Alonso Quijano, in turning himself into a “Don”, had to drastically change the way he dressed. From this perspective, then, the motivations and ambitions of young Martín Rivas can be said to appear as those of a nineteenth-century Chilean knight. The poor business decisions of his dreamer father placed the young man as a default rescuer of his family and himself. To an extent, he had lived a peaceful, albeit economically constrained, life with an uncle in Coquimbo, where he studied while his father took care of his household with gradually depleted and meager funds. It was during those years apart from his family that the young Martín fully grasped the importance of a good education. From the

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moment his father died, Martín was bound to leave his native Copiapó, urged on by the wishes of his deceased father to study hard, to secure a noble profession, and thus to help the family escape from what would become certain poverty; in other words, José Rivas had wished for his son to have a shot at a decent life. Copiapó, located in the North of Chile, was not going to help Martín attain the goals his father had set for him. Everything the young man wanted to accomplish needed per force to be attempted in Santiago, where the country’s power was deeply centralized. With a journey to the capital as his mission, Martín valiantly withstood the agitated waters of the Pacific Ocean as he headed to Valparaíso. From there, like an unwitting conqueror stepping into the unknown, he went on to confront the lives of Santiago’s affluent and the not-so affluent society. Made famous by his Prince, which he composed in exile while hoping to return to the business of politics, Machiavelli wrote about the inevitability of crude reality with the gusto of an artist. He examined human behavior through avid reading of ancient history and via his own experiences as an ambassador for the short-lived Florentine republic. The Italian author never hesitated to transfer politics from the inconstant and overwrought stage of a governmental palazzo to the domestic realm. Machiavelli understood that his native city suffered from divisiveness and disagreements about its political direction. In Chile, the domestic strife that culminated in the failed Motín de Urriola demonstrated that Chileans were not ready for a watershed event that would change the direction of their nation. Looking back over this moment in history, we can see how irreconcilable views of the nation inhered in the conflict; in concrete ways, they persist even to this day, as the nation continues the struggles depicted by Patricio Guzmán in La Batalla de Chile [The Battle of Chile]. Machiavelli maintained that new rulers who had had to fight hard to get to the top were obliged to confront and to settle many more issues than their hereditary counterparts. Once in power, however, they remained relatively strong (P, 6). The first few days at the Encina mansion proved extremely difficult and disheartening for Martín. From the moment of his arrival, the young provincial was made immediately aware that he was “trespassing” in a private world where he did not belong, a fact that Blest Gana underscored through Martín’s outmoded clothing, which was typical of a provincial in a big city (MR 60). Attire from 1842 and 1843, Martín’s clothing was a throwback to a more prosperous time. By 1851, however, it looked jarring. It revealed Martín as an outsider and signified that the good old times were gone. In a sense, his clothing reminded society not only that he was wearing something from a different time, but also that his

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persona, like Don Quijote’s, was anachronistic. As scholars of fashion would attest, Martín and his clothing expressed a “re-performance of the past, frequently labeled as ‘retro’” (Jenß 178). As a nineteenth-century don Quijote, the young provincial’s appearance did not just make santiaguinos laugh but it made them uneasy. Described early on by Agustín Encina to his sister Leonor only as an extremely poor boarder (MR 70-71), Martín represented a departure from most of the people that the elegant brother and sister knew. Outside of their father’s business deal in Copiapó, there was no contact network that could possibly align Martín with the two Encina youths. In the words of Contardo, the wealthy siblings could not recognize Martín.15 Against all expectations, however, he went from rags to riches and only improved as time went by. In this regard, Sommer has contended that, beside Martín and the young warrior Rafael San Luis, most male characters in the novel were docile and lacked virility (217). Equally, Mónica Meléndez has assessed Martín as a civic role model against whom the rest of the characters were measured. Martín himself tested his ideal attributes within the traditional social spaces and in comparison to his fellow characters’ expressions of identity. Following Meléndez, some male characters lacked the desire to be productive in society and thus transgressed the limits of traditional masculine identity. Others feminized their roles and appeared to be content as ornamental men. In the case of women, some presented masculinized versions of themselves in a way that ran counter to traditional nineteenth-century feminine domesticity (61-62). From a sociopolitical perspective, the young provincial Martín proved that he could conquer Santiago. He was highly ambitious and acted with Machiavellian virtù, purposefully and cleverly. He clearly recognized that he could exert agency at the center of a young nation only by following liberal-yetmoderate rules. A non-extreme approach, consequently, enabled him to navigate the rough waters of nineteenth-century classism and politics with confidence. Martín’s path to Leonor was impeded by society’s mores which held that any interactions of a society girl with young men her age were to be carried out under strict parental supervision. Even Leonor, despite her arrogance and domineering attitude, could not break the rules which governed young ladies’ behavior. During one of their many conversations, Martín and Leonor were alone in a room without a chaperone, which led 15

As Contardo makes clear, the well-to-do connect with each other through various social networks, such as last names, vacation places, etc. He even compares the recognition that takes places among the elite to animal mating (203, 285).

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don Dámaso to ask Doña Engracia gravely: “Why is our daughter alone with this young man?” [¿Por qué está la niña sola con este muchacho? (MR 112)]. The rules of engagement for males and females were enforced in figurative Campos de Marte (Fields of Mars), battlefields where upperclass young men were required to suppress their sexual impulses in order to court a good catch, which meant a wealthy young girl of marriageable age with the potential to increase their own fortunes. In Santiago, as in European cities, there was a real geographical Campo de Marte that brought people from all sides of society together. In this huge open and public space, which acted like a gigantic tertulia, couples would use subterfuge so that they could meet “in private.” A typical example would be the supposedly accidental encounter, which occurred in Rafael and Matilde’s amorous rendezvous. In one of the many conversations with her cousin Matilde Elías, Leonor demonstrated how divergent her character was from that of her compliant cousin. Undoubtedly, Matilde was a beautiful blonde. Yet, her countenance was fragile and her disposition timid, which emphasized how unlikely she was to go against the will of her parents, especially her father. Preparing the stage for her future marriage with Martín, Leonor made it clear how determinedly and willfully she would react in the event that she were to love a man, especially one without means. No one would persuade her to do other than what her heart would dictate: — … You told me you were in love with Rafael; then you refused to confide in me, and next I saw you prepare your wedding attire to marry Adriano ... Are you telling me you did not love Adriano? —I did not. —Then you did not forget Rafael. —Could I forget him? And can I forget him right now? ... —Then why did you leave him? —You know the severity of my father. —Oh, no!, nobody would make me do that —proudly proclaimed Leonor—, and less if I loved another man. —If you have never loved, like you say, you would never say what you just said—Matilde replied. —It’s true, I have never loved, at least according to the idea that I have of love ... That zeal which men demand that we reciprocate bothers me. I find in it something of that superiority they claim over us, and that thought makes my heart retreat. I have yet to find the man who has enough selfrespect to despise money and prestige and enough pride to not surrender to beauty.

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Martín Rivas, unlike his counterparts in the novel, behaved righteously and still attained agency and his desired material goals. Sommer has maintained that, in Martín, Blest Gana brought to fruition the rightful marriage of money and morality, making him a mediator of social issues, love and money (209). Having a strong heart and high ambitions for himself and his family, Martín moved up in life with determination. From living in the mansard of don Dámaso’s beautiful home during the early months of his arrival, and possessing a ridiculously small amount of money to survive, he rapidly became a stockbroker for don Dámaso’s wealth. Notwithstanding his strength of character, the young provincial understood the value and the social importance of clothing, luxury items and material accessories. Don Quijote, for his part, dreamt that someday he would become emperor. He also understood that it would be a difficult road: no doubt that knights errant in the past endured many misfortunes in the course of their lives. And if some rose to be emperors through the valor of their mighty right arms, by faith, it cost them dearly in the quantities of blood and sweat they shed (I, 13; 89). [no hay duda sino que los caballeros andantes pasados pasaron mucha malaventura en el discurso de su vida. Y si algunos subieron a ser emperadores por el valor de su brazo, a fe que les costó buen porque de su sangre y de su sudor (p. 119)].

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Like don Quijote, Martín knew that to triumph he had a hard road ahead. For that reason, it was essential that he dress like a gentleman. As he emulated the immortal knight errant, Martín never abandoned the chivalric codes of spiritual nobility. But he nonetheless allowed himself an inclination toward ambitious, materialistic goals. Just as don Quijote wanted to be made emperor, Martín wanted to make it big in the city. He dreamt big even as he maintained the high-minded civic spirit of a rolemodel. Martín strove to uphold his good morals while simultaneously warming up to the idea of belonging to the upper echelons of Santiago society and to being on a par with the Encina family. Anyone Martín encountered was affected to some degree by his high intelligence and oxymoronic humble pride. This was especially true of his best friend Rafael San Luis and, of course, Leonor Encina, who fought hard not to fall in love with him. Because of Martín and his contact with the Encina family, San Luis was able to let go of an undesirable past and, albeit briefly, to dream again of happiness with Matilde Elías. Even later on, as the tragic young man rescued himself from despair through politics, calling it “my new mistress”16 [mi nueva querida (MR 377)], San Luis could always count on his true and only friend Martín. For Leonor, Martín signified the epitome of rectitude and masculinity. She learned early on that he possessed, like her, an unusually strong personality, which made both of them a force to be reckoned with. She admitted to herself that she could never have anticipated how attracted she would be to Martín, confiding to her cousin Matilde that, in spite of his poverty, Martín was nobody’s puppet: “At dinner he rarely speaks without being addressed first, and when he does, it is to express his scorn for vulgar opinion” [En la mesa habla rara vez sin que le dirijan la palabra y, cuando lo hace, es para manifestar su desprecio por las opiniones vulgares (MR 119-120)]. Exuding masculinity, therefore, the young provincial slowly made a space for himself in the heart of beautiful Leonor. As for don Dámaso, he sensed Martín’s knack for good business deals, a trait which the young provincial father’s had lacked, and hired him immediately as his secretary. The capitalist offered the young man thirty pesos a month, a sum that would have helped to relieve some of Martín’s financial hardships. With humble pride, Martín rejected his benefactor’s offer, assuring don Dámaso that earning a good opinion from his protector was an even better payment for him. Don Dámaso, described as a positive man in the novel, was not accustomed to such magnanimity. When Martín courteously refused his 16

The term “querida” has many connotations in Spanish, from “sweetheart”, “love”, “lover”, to “mistress.” I believe “mistress” fits the context of San Luis’s words to Rivas.

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offer of a tempting salary, don Dámaso concluded that the young man displayed the classical characteristics of what was known to him as “quixotism” [quijotismo (MR 98)]. After being welcomed by the household’s paterfamilias, Martín received a lukewarm reception from the rest of the Encinas, who only thought of him as a non-descript, poor allegado (a person living on somebody else’s premises). Martín felt utterly embarrassed of himself and his poverty, an experience similar to what don Quijote might have gone through at the court of the duke and the duchess. Looking at Agustín and Leonor’s beautiful clothes, Martín was made painfully aware that his outdated clothing and shoes were only just one small sign of his outsider status. In an impetuous and futile attempt to quickly remedy his situation, he took a stroll through his new city with the intention of buying new shoes to resemble Agustín’s impeccably shiny French boots. Unfamiliar with the big city, the young provincial found himself caught up in a comical dispute with a boot vendor in Plaza de Armas of Santiago. The confrontation culminated in a fistfight with the result being that Martín was thrown in jail on his very first day in the capital city. Utterly humiliated, like don Quijote after a misadventure, Martín returned to the Encina household the following day. He had been expected the night before and therefore knew that it would be impossible to conceal how he had spent the night outside of the house. Martín felt compelled to narrate his embarrassing misadventure to his protector. Noticing that the distinguished capitalist “made visible attempts to contain his laughter” [hacía visibles esfuerzos para contener la risa (MR 97)], Martín very much wished to beg don Dámaso for his discretion. His misadventure had made him look ridiculous and rudimentary; worse, he was mortified that the whole family would learn of his stupidity. Being so new to the house, however, he could not muster the courage to request secrecy from don Dámaso and, feeling a sense resignation, accepted his fate. Martín’s virtù, nonetheless, still held him together as he confronted the family’s reaction. His quixotic episode at Plaza de Armas was a wake up call for Martín. It helped him to see that it would not be easy to live in the elegant Encina house, a place where he would always be reminded of the substantial social abyss that stood between him and his beloved Leonor. When teased and reprimanded by the elegant Agustín about going to Plaza de Armas to buy shoes, Martín replied to him with sincerity: What could I say to you, sir?... I am provincial and poor … My first description explains my misadventure and the second one indicates that a French boot maker would be too expensive for me.

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[¿Qué quiere Ud.?... soy provinciano y pobre. Lo primero explica mi aventura, y lo segundo, que un botero francés sería tal vez muy caro para mí (MR 99)].

Feeling socially inadequate and humbled by his poverty, Martín steadfastly reminded himself of his mission in Santiago. Humiliated by Leonor, who would only talk to him when she wanted news of Rafael San Luis, Martín reacted with anger and pride. In his room, appropriately situated on the highest floor of the Encina mansion, among the servants, he ruminated about his life, desperately promising to make a name for himself. Admittedly, as a young man in love, he acted with passion and lost his normal capacity to reason. Just for a brief moment he let loose and, acting like a vanquished ruler, entertained crazy thoughts and lost faith in himself: Many imprecations against his fate and against the pride of the rich, crazy vengeful plans, a vast despondency when he looked into the future, a raging desire to acquire a name for himself, one that would make everybody admire him, a thousand confusing ideas (spun around) his mind. [Muchas imprecaciones contra su destino y el orgullo de los ricos, locos proyectos de venganza, un desaliento sin límites al mirar hacia el porvenir, arrebatos de conquistarse un nombre que le atrajese la admiración de todos, mil ideas confusas (rondando) su cerebro (MR 108)].

All in a Letter Martín was created as the ideal person to execute a spectacular takeover of the Chilean nation. The friendship between Martín and don Dámaso—and to an extent, as they became authentic friends, between Martín and Agustín—facilitated fruitful economic transactions that benefitted them all. Looked at in this way, the arrival at the elegant manor of “a twenty-two to twenty-three-year-old young man” [un joven de veintidós a veintitrés años (MR 60)] was a fortunate event not only for Martín but also for the Encinas. Initially, their relationship was one of superior (don Dámaso, Agustín) to inferior (Martín). But, eventually Agustín started to treat Martín like a brother, and the patriarch of the Encina family abdicated his throne in favor of Martín. Young, poor, but proud, with good looks and “a certain air of distinction that contrasted with the poverty of his attire” [cierto aire de distinción que contrastaba con la pobreza del traje (MR 61)], he arrived in Santiago with a plethora of

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intelligent ideas. In the Prince, Machiavelli humbled himself to the Medici by offering his little book, himself and his knowledge to the powerful lords of Florence. Emulating Machiavelli’s approach, Martín walked to the Encina mansion with only the offer of himself and a letter from José Rivas, his recently deceased father. For Martín, his most mortifying moment was not being thrown in jail, an episode that the text offered as a prelude to his future, seriously real, time in prison. It was confronting the formidable figure of don Dámaso. Later, during his second term in prison, after he had fought to reverse the traditional Chilean social order, he felt the confidence of a man in charge of his destiny. During his first time in don Dámaso’s study, however, he did not know what the future entailed. In such a delicate moment, the story deliberately emphasized how Martín found himself in a masculine and efficient sphere. The description of don Dámaso’s clothing, by its nature, exuded testosterone. Martín timidly handed him the letter written by José Rivas on his death bed which asked his former mine “partner” to take on his son as a charity case, “until he can fend for himself” [hasta que pueda por sí solo ganar su subsistencia (MR 63)]. Before reading the letter, don Dámaso performed a ritual that heightened the tension of the moment and at the same time impressed upon Martín the patriarch’s power and social superiority, that of a podestà over a young stranger dressed in old-fashioned clothes. Meticulously, don Dámaso approached his desk, put the letter on it, and fetched his glasses. He carefully cleaned them, and thereby delayed his reading and increased young Martín’s anxiousness about his future. Only after this did don Dámaso proceed to sit at his desk. At that moment, perhaps feeling he had taken too long, don Dámaso looked at young Martín and said: “I cannot read without glasses” [No puedo leer sin anteojos (MR 62)]. All in all, the performance of the paterfamilias was outstanding and it clearly underscored his social superiority over the young man from Copiapó. Describing the nascent republic, Simon Collier has revealed how in the northern provinces of Chile, Atacama and Coquimbo, stupendous mining veins made veritable millionaires of a certain sector of entrepreneurs, among whom we can easily include don Dámaso in Martín Rivas. In fact, as Collier has demonstrated, mining drove the economy during that period, and “the largest fortunes of the time all came from the mining zone” (7). In the text, José Rivas was given the occasione to discover a wealthy mine, but he neither possessed the necessary virtù nor did he have capricious lady fortuna on his side. Unable to provide for the education of his son, José Rivas placed Martín in the charge of other Rivas family relatives. As he was dying, José desperately sought ways to keep his family from ruin. In that moment, he remembered his old partner and

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humbled himself in a letter asking for don Dámaso’s help. The economic future of Martín and his family, therefore, depended on don Dámaso’s positive reaction to the letter from his former mine partner. The note, placed by the young man with trepidation in the capitalist’s hands, was redolent with sadness and denoted abject subjugation on the part of the Rivas family. Ironically, it also simultaneously conveyed the dying elder Rivas’ hope and faith in the future. He trusted don Dámaso’s good sense to size up the value of his son Martín. Meticulously, don Dámaso had taken away Martín’s father’s dreams of success. In an uncanny way, the Encinas were thus to Martín what the Medici family had been for Machiavelli, friends as wells as foes. José Rivas had utmost confidence in his dearest son, “delivering” him to the Encina family to fix the future of his own family. As a result, the letter itself triggered a special business relationship between don Dámaso and Martín and thereby redeemed the life purpose of the elder Rivas. The transaction of the mine’s property from the hands of José Rivas to those of don Dámaso was not executed on equal economic terms. Like a Machiavellian warrior, don Dámaso took charge from the beginning. He was impetuous and favored by youth and ambition, much like the manly men discussed by Machiavelli: I am certainly convinced of this: that it is better to be impetuous than cautious, because Fortune is a woman, and it is necessary, in order to keep her down, to beat her and to struggle with her. And it is seen that she more often allows herself to be taken over by men who are impetuous than by those who make cold advances; and then, being a woman, she is always the friend of young men, for they are less cautious, more aggressive, and they command her with more audacity (P, 25; 161). [Io ludico bene questo: che sia meglio essere impetuoso che respettivo. Perché la fortuna è donna et è necessario, volendola tenere sotto, batterla et urtarla: e si vede che la si lascia più vincere da questi, che da quegli che freddamente procedano; e però sempre (come donna) è amica de’ giovani, perché sono meno respettivi, più feroci e con più audacia la comandano] (pp. 977-978).

Young Dámaso Encina was obsessed with amassing a fortune. He sought every opportunity for advancement in life, a fact that José Rivas failed to appreciate fully. It was while traveling to the north of Chile to collect debts for his boss that young Dámaso fortunately met José, an idealistic miner who told him stories of gold and silver: “Don José Rivas had all the eloquence of a miner guided by faith after he has lost all his wealth” [Don José Rivas tenía toda la elocuencia del minero a quien

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acompaña la fe después de haber perdido su caudal (MR 65)]. Upon hearing José Rivas’ incredibly grandiose tales of wealth and fortune, “Encina saw silver shine even in the pebbles of the road” [veía Encina brillar la plata hasta en las piedras del camino (MR 65)]. Desperate about his debts, José himself asked don Dámaso to become partners in a mine that he said was ready to produce great rewards. As expected, don Dámaso inquired further into José Rivas’ tales and was unequivocally told that Rivas was a “loco”, a quixotic crazy man who had lost everything he had in pursuit of a dream, a dreaded “imaginary vein” [veta imaginaria (MR 65)]. With extreme boldness, in spite of the odds against striking it rich, Encina decided to pursue Rivas’ mad dream. Nonetheless, with virtù, Encina made sure to draw up a contract that would favor him principally: We will work the mine half-and-half and strike a little contract in which you will be obliged to pay me one-and-a-half of the capital I will invest in the exploitation of the mine and to choose me above others if you want to sell your share or a few bars. [Trabajaremos la mina a medias y haremos un contratito en el cual usted se obligue a pagarme el uno y medio por los capitales que yo invierta en la explotación y a preferirme por el tanto cuando usted quiera vender su parte o algunas barras (MR 65)].

As an astute leader, the capitalist had vanquished the businessman dreamer. Don José was threatened with jail if he did not pay his accumulating debts, which would have left his wife and son Martín, then one-year-old, completely abandoned. Before accepting don Dámaso’s unfair proposal, José objected futilely, but Encina would not budge. He had prevailed over the poor and utterly fanciful Rivas. Although they started out as partners in the mine, don Dámaso “gradually bought from Rivas all of his part” [compró poco a poco a Rivas toda su parte (MR 66)] and became its sole owner. The mine proved to be a very valuable asset for young Encina and it made him a millionaire. Rivas, instead, was reduced to becoming a mere administrator of his previous mine. Don Dámaso, whose main source of income was increasingly “usury on a grand scale” [usura en grande escala (MR 66)], easily won on the business battlefield. Martín’s father had had no choice but to accept don Dámaso’s unequal and unfair contract proposal. The capitalist emasculated José Rivas by standing firmly behind an utterly imbalanced business proposition, which he could do because fortuna was on his side. Don Dámaso’s impulse to bet his money on José Rivas’ risky business proved to be personally highly profitable, a happy combination of fortuna

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and virtù, whereas for Rivas it signaled utter failure. From a Machiavellian perspective, José Rivas was abandoned by fortuna at the time of his death. Having resigned himself to give up segments of his most precious mine in Copiapó to don Dámaso, Rivas dug his financial grave even deeper when he allowed the latter to become the main investor in the mine. On this, Machiavelli states that people who help others rise to the top must be very careful when they do so. They are bound to suffer. Additionally, individuals who “have accomplished great deeds” (P, 18; 133) [avere fatto gran cose (p. 756)] have at times relied on subterfuge—as in don Dámaso’s highly unfair business deal—, promising but not complying, “manipula[ting] the minds of men by shrewdness” (P, 18; 133) [con l’astuzia aggirare e cervelli delli uomini (p. 756)]. As expected, after investing heavily, the Santiago capitalist took advantage of Rivas’ extensive experience but did not to share the profits from the mine. With no recourse to capital of his own, the old provincial had no means of countering the financial strength of don Dámaso, a young capitalist warrior. One man’s harsh economic adversity, then, turned out to be the other man’s Machiavellian occasione. In the end, Rivas was finished in society. He had lost his quixotic dream, vanquished by the Caballero de la Blanca Luna. Machiavelli maintained that, in the face of hard choices, the correct timing of a decision had a lot to do with its outcome. The uncertainty and mutability of the times required considering and preparing for reversals; one never held absolute control over any situation: For one can observe that men, in the affairs which lead them to the end that they seek—that is, glory and wealth—proceed there in different ways; one by caution, another with impetuousness; one through violence, another with guile; one with patience, another with its opposite, and each one by this various means can attain his goals … this arises from nothing else than the nature of the times that either suit or do not suit their course of action” (P, 25; 160). [Perché si vede gli uomini, nelle cose che gli conducano al fine quale ciascuno ha innanzi (cioè gloria e riccheze), procedervi variamente: Tuno con rispetto, l’altro con impeto; l’uno per violenzia, l’altro con arte; l’uno con pazienzia, l’altro col suo contrario. E ciascuno con questi diversi modi vi può pervenire … il che non nascie da altro se non da la qualità de’ tempi, che si conformano ɨ no col procedere loro] (pp. 974-975)

In all his endeavors, the Encinas’ paterfamilias utilized strategic methods and did not hesitate to act according to the times to build his capitalist empire. Having been born without an inheritance of money or

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property, he became a new prince by excelling in business deals. Early on, young Dámaso had held the job of a mere “assistant in a shop in the port city of Valparaíso and had nothing to his name other than his meager salary” [dependiente de una casa de comercio en Valparaíso y no tenía más bienes de fortuna que su escaso sueldo (MR 64)]. He was a man with virtù waiting for the right opportunity to display his business acumen and to prove to others that he had a capitalist’s potency. From his youth onward, don Dámaso Encina demonstrated his fidelity to the virtù of money, a feature that we see exemplified in his focused infatuation with Doña Engracia Núñez’s dowry. He doubtlessly married her for her money not her looks. Even her name, En-gracia, underlines her unfortunate lack of beauty. Devoid of her daughter’s beauty, but, at one time, “willful and domineering” like Leonor [voluntariosa y dominante (MR 67)], Doña Engracia nonetheless appeared very attractive to the young lad because she had substantial wealth. Don Dámaso gladly considered this his own as soon as his marriage proposal was accepted. Doña Engracia, for her part, made a leap of faith and became a donna di virtù when she accepted to marry a man without an inheritance; she ascended even further in society by becoming a major investor in the Encina family fortune. With great assertiveness, don Dámaso invested his wife’s inheritance of thirty thousand pesos in the volatile business of José Rivas’ mine. This bold act of enterprise proved to be the vehicle that propelled him into Santiago’s social stratosphere. After that, the story tells us, don Dámaso’s ambition and drive knew no bounds (MR 64). For Machiavelli, “in the actions of all men, and especially of princes, where there is no impartial arbiter, one must consider the final result” (P, 18; 134) [nelle actione di tutti li uomini e maxime de’ principi, dove non è iudizio ad chi reclamare, si guarda al fine (p. 760)]. The business deal that brought tremendous wealth to don Dámaso was at first glance favorable only to him. It was a fundamentally unfair transaction that, recalling Vatter, violated Machiavelli’s demand that individuals take ethical responsibility for their actions. In the end, however, the real winner was José Rivas, or, more precisely, his beloved son Martín. After all, the final result of the elder Rivas’ so-called bad deal was a greatly increased sum of capital which could be left as a posthumous gift when the young Rivas married don Dámaso’s beautiful daughter. Don Dámaso, then, can be viewed from one perspective not simply as a cunning capitalist who cheated his friend out of his fortune in order to secure an excessively comfortable niche for himself in society. Indeed, the suave don Dámaso was also a vehicle for assuring the financial security and social

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advancement of Martín, both of which resulted from a kind of parental “madness” and “fantasy.”

Civic and Business Engagements In Martín Rivas, the daredevil San Luis and the prudent Rivas not only conversed about their love lives but also sought to determine—and attempted to reverse—the destiny of the nation. They became members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad and fought side by side with other citizens to widen the scope of civil rights. This proved to be a quixotic impulse. In his Literary Memoirs, Lastarria, friend and mentor of Blest Gana, expressed sorrow that Chileans had entrusted their aspirations for “social regeneration” to absolutist heads of government who only looked out for the few (2000, 214).17 Machiavelli’s Florentine Histories lamented the deleterious nature of the long enmity between the Guelfs and Ghibellines, the former under the aegis of the pope and the latter the Holy Roman Emperor. For Machiavelli the “intestine wars” between the feuding sides caused insurmountable obstacles and hindered progress towards unity in the Italian states (I, 15). The church was a main culprit in that it had ceased to maintain the integrity of its religious practices. It baffled the Florentine Secretary how the church, as a temporal power, in order to preserve a cohesive Papal unity, had kept the Italian states so resolutely divided. For him “because of the evil examples set by this court, this land has lost all piety and religion; this brings with it countless disadvantages and countless disorders” (D, I, 12; 55) [li exempli rei di quella corte, questa provincia ha perduto ogni divozione et ogni religione; il che si tira dietro infiniti inconvenienti et infiniti disordini (p. 1306)]. Likewise, the pipiolos in Chile were deeply troubled by the tight and reactionary grip the church held over the young nation. They laid bare their diverging views from the pelucones because they perceived the yoke of the church in Santiago and the provinces as politically limiting. Ultimately, then, the disagreements between the Chilean pelucones and the pipiolos, at their most basic level, symbolized bifurcated opinions on the extent to which colonial practices and conditions, including the church and a staunchly hierarchical class division, should be allowed to persevere and to influence the emerging nation. 17

Subercaseaux emphasizes the notion that Lastarria and other liberals dissociated political culture from economic concerns. That is, they embraced the “emancipation of Chilean culture” while at the same time they remained fairly passive about free trade and the economical invasiveness of cabotage (149).

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Jaime Concha published “Martin Rivas or the Education of a Bourgeois” [Martín Rivas o la formación del burgués] in 1972, during the second year of Allende’s government. Here, Concha has described Martín’s deft entry into the bourgeoisie and thereby debunked previous views which held that the young man, in his struggle with the exacting Santiago society, represented the working-middle class in some symbolic way. For Concha, Martín’s life in Santiago exemplified the steps one had to take to become a member of the bourgeoisie, not so much in economic terms, but rather in ideological situation and outlook (1972, 19). For this reason, Concha has presented Martín as a bourgeois who lacked capital and private property and thus turned the character into the basis for “an ontological discussion of the bourgeoisie” [argumento ontológico de la burguesía] (1972, 24). In Concha’s take on Martín, the young man’s impeccable manly performance stood out among his peers. He embraced membership in Santiago’s society and became increasingly more comfortable with himself as he interacted with fellow citizens, especially those from the upper echelons. In the novel, Blest Gana thus catapulted Martín from his disastrous first-day adventure at the iconic Plaza de Armas to his auspicious conquest of beautiful Leonor. Considering that Concha’s seminal article dates from 1972, a time of extreme political division in Chile, it is not a stretch to imagine that the scholar would have wanted to align Martín with a hypothetical and sympathetic political position during the time of Allende’s government. During that time nobody remained ideologically neutral, which makes us think that literary characters like Martín and Rafael would have been coopted for insertion into contemporary political discussions. In fact, there was a 1970s soap opera remake of Martín Rivas on national television. With his resounding social triumph, Martín rose in society and took a path that his father, José Rivas, was unable to follow. With the pathetic deathbed letter to don Dámaso Encina, José Rivas hoped to assure that his son could become a pupil at the Instituto Nacional where he might be able to earn a prestigious law degree. Since almost two thirds of the degrees awarded by the University of Chile between 1843-1857 were in law (Collier 13), Martín’s pursuit of this qualification reflected the aspirations of the upper-class during those times. A law degree for Martín would also mean that the father could live vicariously through his son and thereby reach the end of his own personal rainbow. Just as Virgil had guided Dante to the right path—one he could not follow himself— , don José Rivas could only lead his son to the path to wealth, without ever striking it rich himself. Thirty-three years after independence, Martín Rivas brought back to light Chile’s lingering and latent political turmoil. Blest Gana recreated the

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social ills, the so-called “vanity game” [juego de vanidad (MR 157)] of the times, as his characters expressed rupture or consensus in love and politics. Political struggles did not prevent or stall financial enterprises, however, as the novel revealed many and important economic events and behaviors. The exploitation of silver mines in the north of Chile and the opening of the Californian and Australian markets for wheat exports led to an economic bonanza for some Chileans. The positive results of investment in these affluent markets were routinely depicted in the social spaces of Martín Rivas. In this way, the novel furnished readers with a glimpse into a society that possessed, as Ricardo Latchman has argued, a Sanchesque attitude toward the security of good eating and the guarantee of personal welfare (28). Affluent characters, who had enriched themselves principally via mine exploitation, usury, and agriculture, exchanged their wealth as a currency for social acceptance. The story insisted on the importance of that acceptance by providing exhaustive descriptions of the Encina mansion, a luxurious icon of new rich money. In fact, don Dámaso was only able to buy his house because he had made a remarkable business deal with José Rivas. Against that beautiful backdrop, ultra conservatives like don Fidel Elías and don Simón Arenal were in their element, ready to help don Dámaso retain his possessions. Nonetheless, the narrator singled them out for acting in the guise of a “political parasite, seeking the support of authority” [parásito en política que vive siempre al arrimo de la autoridad (MR 89)] while only looking out for themselves and their personal gains, even as they staunchly adhered to “la gran palabra Orden” [the big word Order (MR 89)]. Don Dámaso seemed to vacillate between conservative and liberal positions and he did indeed change his socio-political stance with some frequency. In moments of sincerity, however, he affirmed without qualms that, “if a man wishes to lose everything, he needs only to become a liberal. In Chile, at least, I think it is very difficult for them to rise” [un hombre, para perderse completamente, no tiene más que hacerse liberal. En Chile, a lo menos, creo muy difícil que suban (MR 98)]. Like the rest of his associates, don Dámaso embraced the pelucones’ notion that the government had to be led by a few representatives, “patricians like themselves … elected by a severely limited and compliant body of voters” (Wood 25). For him, being a Chilean citizen meant access to an exclusive world where only a few possessed the right to comfort and wealth. Don Fidel Elías’ extreme attachment to material possessions made for amusing and exasperating interactions with his wife, the incorrigibly romantic doña Francisca Encina, don Dámaso’s proto-feminist sister. Theirs was a perfectly mismatched marriage. They never agreed on

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anything, which left them to abandon conversations halfway, since they were already aware of how they would end. Doña Francisca, an avid reader, escaped the materialistic obsession of her husband by imagining a different life through romantic novels. Predictably, don Fidel sought the companionship of “positive” and practical men like himself who were happy to reaffirm his conservative ideas.18 She expressed dismay every time her materialistic husband participated in political debates in the nightly tertulias at the Encinas. Don Fidel would either tell doña Francisca to be quiet because women were not to intervene in politics, or they would both engage in monologues on their own interpretation of events. When doña Francisca was told by her husband that Rafael San Luis still loved their daughter, for instance, the story turned a sublime moment into a humorous one. Both husband and wife were in rare agreement because they believed that an engagement between San Luis and Matilde was positive for the entire family. Doña Francisca, however, only thought of romance; don Fidel, on the other hand, had his mind fixed on money: Not heeding don Fidel’s account, Doña Francisca as expected ignored the mundane references to business that he had used to spice up the story and let her imagination run wild about the poetic side of Rafael San Luis’s reliable nature: —Oh! —she exclaimed—. That is what I call true love! —And working the land, —said Don Fidel—, this young man will make a handsome catch. —This is real proof of a faithful heart! — she continued enthusiastically. —Because Don Pedro’s other hacienda is a solid piece of property, — observed Don Fidel, for the first time willing to put up with his wife’s sentimentalism because he realized that both happened to be of the same opinion. —Oh! I am sure he will make Matilde happy. —With three thousand cattle he will make a bundle every year. —We must not hesitate, dear; this is a happy event for all of us. —Indeed. That’s a hacienda that on average yields about five to six thousand bushels of wheat. —Besides, Rafael is a highly educated young man. —And we are not even thinking about the coal and wool that can also become a great source of income. —You reduce everything to money ... … 18

Rafael San Luis informed Martín that don Fidel had not always been a political reactionary. In fact, Rafael stated that like many old pipiolos, don Fidel had changed his stripes since he had once fought against conservative principles (MR 161).

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—Dear, everything else is a mere trifle. [De aquella relación descartó doña Francisca la prosa referente a los negocios con que don Fidel la había sazonado y formuló en su imaginación la parte poética que se desprendía de la constancia de Rafael San Luis. —¡Ah! —exclamó—. ¡Mira lo que es un verdadero amor! —Y, trabajando en el campo, —dijo don Fidel—, el mocito ese puede ser un partido. —¡Eso sí que prueba un corazón bien organizado! — continuó ella con entusiasmo. —Porque la otra hacienda de don Pedro es un buen fundo, —observó don Fidel, dispuesto a sufrir por primera vez las románticas divagaciones de su mujer, porque veía que era ella de su opinión en aquel negocio. —¡Oh! Estoy segura que hará feliz a Matilde. —Con tres mil vacas puede sacar todos los años una buena engorda. —Creo que no hay que vacilar, hijo; es una felicidad para nosotros. —Así me parece; es una hacienda en la que, por término medio, se cosechan de cinco a seis mil fanegas de trigo. —Rafael, además, es un joven ilustrado. —Sin contar con la lana y carbón, que dejan una buena entrada. —Tú lo reduces todo a dinero ... … —Hija, lo demás es pura pamplina (MR 245)].

Tertulia and Picholeo: The Drawing Room and the Public Performance of Masculinity Machiavelli lamented that citizens of sixteenth-century Florence did not possess the transferable values of their tenacious ancient Roman ancestors. In his plays, he represented masculine, intelligent characters who were proactive about the accidenti (happenings, occurrences, fateful acts) involved in protecting their domestic realm. Strong, capable men vanquished other relatively docile characters who were malleable and prone to go with the flow unless they were struck by unavoidable demands. Similarly, Blest Gana construed specific social spaces as political arenas where the state of the nation would be defined. In Jonathan Culler’s analysis, Anderson’s theorizing of nation concentrated particularly on the social spaces that the “old-fashioned” novel represented (23), a paradigm characterized by an omniscient narration which uncovered an imagined community for readers. In Martín Rivas, the elegant tertulia provided a social space where men would wear their best attire and perform gallantry for the ladies while they simultaneously immersed themselves in the

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performance of politics with the men. At the salons of the Encina mansion, in particular, many young male characters behaved in a way that was extremely compliant to the caprices of the ladies. They were constantly preoccupied, moreover, with their clothing and their looks, even more so than the ladies. With this, they competed to be the center of attention for their male peers, intent on engaging in political discussion where they would argue mostly for, or rarely against, recurrent governmental repression. In Martín Rivas, people’s behavior was put on display in public as well as private social spaces. As Sommer has noted, center stage was not so much the open space but rather the coveted “cozy private sphere” of a drawing room or a bedroom. These spaces thus furnished characters with the right setting for testing their social plots and political abilities and recreated a domestic reflection of the national struggles (215, 217). In the public sphere, men and women performed for others. In private, being more themselves, they unveiled their wishes and anxieties. In the public social spaces of the tertulia and the picholeo, Blest Gana took pains to describe antagonistic interactions among individuals, and thus reflected the mood of the nation. Like a Foucauldian heterotopia, the tertulia and the picholeo evinced Chileans’ political preoccupations and reproduced the Chilean nation in miniature. They projected a likeness for society to see; that is, they expressed the “quite other side” quality of heterotopias that Foucault conceived as real utopian spaces which existed simultaneously with reality (1986, 24). These different but culturally important social environments were a constant in Martín Rivas and, in them, we can see mirrored the nation’s passage from its complicated beginnings following independence from Spain to the turbulent 1850s, a time of changing masculine and feminine identities. Machiavelli put his socio-political theories on the stage. Blest Gana, for his part, used his characters to dramatize what he detested most in society, ineptitude, vulgarity, and undeserved fortuna. Following María Muñoz, we know that the elegant nineteenth-century tertulia provided a podium for individuals to reaffirm their social status and a forum for learning about and discussing momentous episodes in the nation’s history (243). According to Sarah C. Chambers, literate women were also notable participants at tertulias, interacting with intellectuals and playing “an important role as mediators in early republican politics” (56). Given the centrality of the tertulia, Juan Poblete has observed that, in creating a national novel, Blest Gana reproduced social spaces where individuals could both see and be seen by others. This type of visibility was savored by readers at the time, since it provided them with a delicious spectacle

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(2000, 23). For Blest Gana, doña Engracia’s salon was the setting for the nascent love between Martín, a provincial, and Leonor, a most beautiful Santiago debutante. It allowed the narrator to pass bitter judgment on Chilean society, specifically Chile’s financial aristocracy. Given the various outside religious and societal restrictions, the tertulia developed into a unique social space where individuals could parade themselves in elegant clothing (Meléndez 63). At the Encina mansion, doña Engracia’s tertulia in effect became a nineteenth-century version of a sixteenthcentury Italian court. Guests flaunted their wealth through elaborate clothes and shiny jewelry, turning this elegant and splendid event into the highlight of people’s lives every night. After a short while don Dámaso urged Martín to attend because, he said, there were benefits to be gained: “For a young man who will become a lawyer, friendships are always an advantage” [Para un joven que se dedica a la abogacía las amistades son siempre una ventaja (MR 113)]. Just as in contemporary Chile, according to Contardo and Reutter’s depiction of it, the “red de contactos” [social network] built during the evening events at don Dámaso’s house would prove a critical resource for the young man from Copiapó. The social space of the tertulia thus provided Martín with the tools to initiate his rise in society. For the santiaguinos, it provided a safe and highly public space for anxious parents to display their daughters of a marrying age to suitable wealthy prospects. From this perspective, the glittering salon of her parents’ home was the stage where Leonor first realized that she was fond of the penniless young warrior from Copiapó. This sentiment initially repelled and shocked her so much that she began to consider Martín like an enemy. Leonor’s beauty made “young men’s imaginations boil” [bullir la imaginación de los jóvenes (MR 67)], and it was reinforced by the elegance of her clothing. She was don Dámaso and doña Engracia’s favorite child. Along with her beauty and her brains, this fact gave Leonor the right to contradict everyone in the Encina household. At the tertulia gatherings, she was especially cruel to her elegant suitors. She delighted in being the center of attention and an object of continuous desire. Like a Machiavellian princess, she never openly rejected her two principal suitors, but she always behaved in a speculative way that mimicked the highs and lows of the vibrant Chilean markets. Although the story made clear that she had no interest in any of the young men who courted her, she still went about the business of ruling over men’s hearts. She wore away the young men’s virility, humiliating and emasculating them in public. For a young woman from nineteenth-century Chile, she exercised a substantial

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amount of freedom, fully aware of the power her physical attributes had on men, especially her suitors: According to public consensus, Leonor had such a high opinion of her own beauty that she could not find any man worthy of her heart or her hand. While don Dámaso, focused on his goal of becoming a senator, was inclined to support whatever side could help him triumph, his daughter gave and took from each of her suitors the hope which, the night before, had lulled them to sleep.

[Leonor, según la opinión general, tenía tan alta idea de su belleza, que no encontraba ningún hombre digno de su corazón ni de su mano. Mientras que don Dámaso, preocupado del deseo de ser senador, se inclinaba del lado en que creía ver el triunfo, su hija daba y quitaba a cada uno de ellos las esperanzas con que en la noche anterior se habían mecido al dormirse (MR 73)]. Like a nineteenth-century Eleanor of Aquitaine, Leonor was very conscious of her overpowering presence in the high society salons. She was also aware of how her attractiveness was enhanced by being the daughter of a wealthy man. Any man who dared to consider himself a prospective husband would face political and social obstacles and a very steep climb. The beautiful girl made an effectual performative display of masculinity. She was in full command of her domestic realm. She acted according to the dictates of her conscience and the prejudices of her class which had been deeply ingrained in her over the course of a lifetime. In Leonor Encina’s actions and evolution in Martín Rivas we at times see a character who was emulating Mr. Fitzwilliam Darcy, the aloof, handsome, and irresistible hero of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice (1813). Afraid to pursue the unattainable goal of Leonor’s love, the young provincial Martín constantly suffered what he perceived to be the young lady’s indifference and scorn. In her eyes, however, Martín was noticeably different from the rest of the young men. She was accustomed to being the center of attention and was certain of her social superiority. From her early years, Leonor had regularly used the sword of her beautiful features against men and women in society. Such beauty and intelligence made her appear superior even to her own family. To make matters worse for Martín or any of her suitors, Leonor’s beauty was happily matched by her family’s wealth: The luxury of the Encina house served as a magnificent frame for Leonor’s beauty. Had anyone encountered this nineteen-year old girl in a

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poor room, they would have accused Fortune of behaving capriciously for not providing a frame corresponding to such beauty. So to see her reclined on a sofa lined in magnificent light blue brocade, to see her image reproduced on a pretty mirror shaped in the style of the Middle Ages, and to observe her foot ... carelessly caressing a Persian rug, the same observer would have admired the bounty of nature in such happy agreement with the favors of destiny. Surrounded by that luxury Leonor sparkled like a diamond among gold and precious stones. [Magnífico cuadro formaba aquel lujo a la belleza de Leonor... cualquiera que hubiese visto a aquella niña de diecinueve años en una pobre habitación habría acusado de caprichosa a la suerte por no haber dado a tanta hermosura un marco correspondiente. Así es que al verla reclinada en un magnífico sofá forrado en brocatel celeste, al mirar reproducida su imagen en un lindo espejo al estilo de la Edad Media, y al observar su pie... rozarse descuidado sobre una alfombra finísima, el mismo observador habría admirado la prodigalidad de la naturaleza en tal feliz acuerdo con los favores del destino. Leonor resplandecía rodeada de ese lujo como un brillante entre el oro y pedrerías de un rico aderezo (MR 6667)].

Fortuna had not only bestowed perfect looks on Leonor; it had also given her a father like don Dámaso, one who had amassed a great fortune by his astute business sense. Like Emma Woodhouse, from Austen’s novel Emma (1815), Leonor was not in the least concerned with marriage because she knew that her wealth and intelligence would sustain her. Hence, the young socialite behaved like a sovereign in possession of fortuna and virtù. In spite of Leonor’s privileged position, the patronage of a tertulia remained within the purview of doña Engracia Nuñez, the lady of the house. According to an attendee of the time, high society women were the heart of the tertulia. They opened their ornate salons to a selective group of acquaintances, the crème de la crème of society (Muñoz 243). The first time Martín was invited to a tertulia by don Dámaso, the young man could not hide his excitement at finally being allowed to enter “the salons of Doña Engracia” [los salones de doña Engracia] (113). In Machiavelli’s La Mandragola (c. 1518), young Callimaco fell head-over-heels in love with beautiful Lucrezia just by hearing about her beauty: “he spoke such praise for both her beauty and manners that he left every one of us stupefied” (I, 1; 13) [alla quale e’ dètte tante laude e di bellezza e di costumi, che fece restare stupidi qualunque di noi (p. 73)]. In the Encina household, the tertulia provided the pedestal for Leonor’s astounding beauty, setting her up as the object of desire of many of the attendees. If her mother was the

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queen, Leonor was the princess of Santiago society. Unlike other less fortunate young women, Leonor had grown used to having men at her feet. In fact, two young society men, Emilio Mendoza and Clemente Valencia, fought nightly for her attention. Like everyone else, they were mesmerized by Leonor’s beauty, but they sought her hand principally for financial reasons. In their social demeanor and their approach to life, then, the two young men revealed “the distance between the insufficient real citizen and the desired potential citizen” [La distancia entre el insuficiente ciudadano real y el deseado ciudadano potencial] (Poblete 2000, 21). Indeed, they were mostly dazzled by Leonor’s great inheritance and the way that her beauty and position would enhance their own societal status. Their ambition had no limit, and this became particularly evident in how willing they were to put up with Leonor’s humiliating ways. They did not mind being emasculated by her because success meant a golden result courtesy of her father. Mendoza was not a wealthy man, but fortuna had given him good looks. Following in his relatives’ footsteps, he learned early on that politics could be a form of “lucrative speculation” [lucrativa especulación] and thereby lead to a salary good enough to triumphantly parade the beautiful clothes that he would be sure to wear to the Encinas’ tertulia (MR 73). In seeking to marry Leonor, Mendoza was not only after material gain but also don Dámaso’s political protection. Mendoza had a mighty rival in Valencia. For that reason, he attempted to appear like his more fortunate counterpart in every respect. He would make any effort possible to reach the highest echelons of the very rich so that he might profit from access to the selective world that only material possessions could provide. People like Emilio Mendoza loved money and were dazzled by the authoritative power that wealth conveyed. Valencia was also extremely materialistic. Because he had not been born handsome, he used his financial prosperity to attract attention and admiration. He paraded himself in luxurious suits which loudly proclaimed his financial status. He drove in a cabriole in the Alameda and attended tertulia gatherings at the most prominent homes in Santiago (MR 73). A bona fide siútico, with his expensive carriage imported from France, Valencia earned the contempt of society’s old money but gained the instant love of Santiago’s ambitious young ladies, a fact which underscored the fluidity of the class system: Clemente took very little notice of that criticism and achieved his goal of attracting the attention of women, who, unlike respectable men, rarely considered ostentation to be a useless expense. So the young capitalist was received everywhere with the veneration brought about by money, the idol of the day.

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[Clemente se cuidaba muy poco de aquella crítica y lograba su objeto de llamar la atención de las mujeres, que, al contrario de aquellos respetables varones, rara vez consideran como inútiles los gastos de ostentación. Así es que el joven capitalista era recibido en todas partes con el acatamiento que se debe al dinero, el ídolo del día (MR 72)].

In his relentless pursuit of Leonor, the affluent Valencia was motivated purely by a desire to amass a huge fortune. Leonor, however, held her own and did not emulate other young ladies’ behaviors. She was not in the least dazzled by the young man’s attempted display of wealth and prestige. At one of the many tertulia events, when Clemente dared to approach Leonor, she exclaimed to her cousin: “Oh, no! Here comes that man with his pocket watch and diamonds and chains that reek of a tasteless capitalist” [¡Ah!, ya viene este hombre con sus cadenas de reloj y sus brillantes que huelen a capitalista de mal gusto (MR 87)]. Intimidated by Leonor’s negative response, and, in spite of all his opulence, Clemente Valencia was unable to get close to the young woman that night. The narration made a strong point, therefore, that Valencia was not an ideal citizen; he was very wealthy but he was uninteresting and unintelligent. He was driven exclusively by worldly interests and lacked virility and courage; he was not enough of a man for Leonor. Martín gained access to Santiago’s impenetrable social fortress without having to abandon his liberal principles. For Araya, Blest Gana kept his liberal inclinations within the lines of abstract concepts (2000, 17). With this in mind, one could argue that Martín’s liberal attitudes emulated those of his author; they were truthful and strong yet they displayed a kind of temperance. As Concha has said of Aritmética en el amor [Arithmetic in Love] (1860), Blest Gana described the grotesque misunderstandings between pelucones and pipiolos (1972, 14) and situated Martín as the voice of reason between the two feuding groups. This gave Martín a moderate, bourgeois, outlook on life, but it did not turn him into a docile man. Notwithstanding his devotion to Leonor, Martín was the opposite of meek. He came across as a man in charge of his fate, a natural “prince” in waiting. As Araya has noted, by conquering both the upper classes and the people of medio pelo, Martín became a political leader of sorts (1975, 8). Anyone he came to know trusted him because he understood how to navigate the polarized socio-political venues of the elegant and the humble. His personal experience with financial distress, combined with his acquaintance with wealth, allowed him to become the precise person to fix the ills of society. He knew how to act decisively like the fox and the

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lion.19 His audacity, then, was in being moderate yet consistent with his liberal leanings. Blest Gana’s twenty-two (or twenty-three) year-old “warrior” was determined to triumph against all odds. As soon as he set foot in the Encina “fortress”, in his second-hand, old-fashioned, provincial clothes (MR 60), Martín stood out as strange and poor. He was immediately stopped and discriminated against by a household manservant who sensed, just by looking at his clothes, that Martín did not belong. He greeted the young provincial with scorn, producing a sardonic smile when Martín told him that “un caballero” was hoping to speak to don Dámaso (MR 60). Appearances aside, Martín nonetheless exuded pride and, like don Quijote, did not suffer anyone’s condescension lightly. In fact, also like Quijote, he could barely contain himself in the face of the manservant’s insolence. Throughout the novel, then, the young man deliberately overcame those first hurtful encounters with the people and the city of Santiago.

Rafael San Luis: Narrator of the Picholeo Because he was distinctly knowledgeable of both, Rafael San Luis was the character in charge of defining and describing for Martín Rivas the social space of the picholeo against that of the tertulia, which occurred when Rafael introduced Martín to the Molina family and to the event itself, “because I want you to be cheerful and I would like to be so myself” [porque quiero que estés alegre y para estarlo yo también (MR 121)]. From Rafael’s perspective, the picholeo was a social event where men could forget about life’s hardships, such as political preoccupations or, as in the case of Rafael himself, an irretrievably broken heart. Having been raised in wealth, Rafael easily detected the “caballeros improvisados” [improvised gentlemen] —the triumphant siúticos—that hovered around Santiago’s society, such as don Simón Arenal (MR 162). He was also able to perceive that, for the lower classes, the picholeo acted as a kind of distorted mirror of the aristocratic tertulia, whose rigidity he was familiar with from his upbringing and his social acquaintances. The beautiful young man, who once held fortuna by her hair, told Martín that post res perditas he needed to forget about his relentless heartache so he had decided to start 19

Machiavelli declares that “a prince must know how to make good use of the nature of the beast, he should choose from among the beasts the fox and the lion; for the lion cannot defend himself from traps and the fox cannot protect itself from wolves” (P, 18; 134) [Sendo dunque necessitato uno principe sapere bene usare la bestia, debbe di queue pigliare la volpe et il Lione: perché el Lione non si difende da’ lacci, la volpe non si difende da’ lupi (p. 757)].

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frequenting social spaces that he had not previously visited. After the loss of his family’s social status, frequenting a picholeo became for him an almost inevitable step. He had to readjust his social life. As Concha has noted, events at the picholeo in relationship to the tertulia were meant to undermine a hierarchy of social practices and, in this sense, they were correlated, even if they were connected to two different social spheres (2000, xliv). Both evening entertainments brought to light the love-hate relationship between the picholeo guests (people of medio pelo) and those who participated in the tertulia (the role models of the vivacious picholeo celebrants). Rafael was well acquainted with the Molina family, whose picholeo festivities he and Martín were preparing to attend. As he groomed himself, he described doña Bernarda as a coarse woman, addicted to gambling, and a heavy drinker with a caustic sense of humor. A poorer counterpart of doña Engracia Nuñez, doña Bernarda presided with gusto over the picholeo carousals at her home. Her son, Amador Molina, an insouciant upstart, was described as the quintessential siútico.20 He was a social parasite who lived off his mother and his many devoted queridas.21 Doña Bernarda’s two daughters, Adelaida and Edelmira, were beautiful but they possessed completely different demeanors. Adelaida had a harsh countenance which betrayed a cold heart and an inclination for material things. Edelmira, on the other hand, was a true romantic. She had a melancholy expression that betrayed deep unhappiness with her social 20 Óscar Contardo contends that the concept of siútico has changed since Blest Gana attributed it solely to a character like Amador Molina. In contemporary times, Agustín Encina, from the upper echelons of society, would be a siútico par excellence, a fact also exposed by Alone. Agustín is excessive in clothing preferences, the use of French words, and generally affected manners: “The essence and presence of that affectation constitutes siutiquería” [En esa afectación reside, por esencia y presencia la siutiquería] (Alone quoted by Contardo,116. Emphasis mine). Nonetheless, whereas in Martín Rivas the word siútico alluded for the most part to people of medio pelo, in El ideal de un calavera, Blest Gana described a siútico who belonged to the upper classes, and attached the meaning of “tasteless individual” to the word siútico: “At least (Miraflores’s) suit proves that now as then the siútico can belong to any social class [Este traje (de Miraflores) prueba por lo menos que entonces como ahora el siútico puede pertenecer a todas las clases sociales (I; 241)]. Likewise, in Durante la Reconquista, characters used the term to chastise and cast doubt upon people who frequented “their” venues: “What are so many siúticas doing here? They probably came without being invited” [¿Y qué hace aquí tanta siútica? Muchas se habrán venido a meter sin estar convidadas (75)]. 21 See footnote 16.

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station. Unfortunately for her, she had been born into a penniless family. In Santiago access to material wealth produced a significant gap between the “self-made” bourgeois aristocrats—symbolized by don Dámaso Encina—and the people of medio pelo—exemplified by Amador Molina and his family. Salazar has stipulated that at the beginning of the nineteenth century a group of poor mestizo vagabonds began to mix with an equally poor segment of criollos, thus creating the largest social population of the Republic (92). This poorer sector of Chileans remained insulated from the nation’s financial bonanza, and by the middle of the nineteenth century they continued to be marginalized by the powerful few and to live on the fringes of poverty. According to the Chilean historian, in the 1850s, during the chronological time of Blest Gana’s novel, public credit was nonexistent and usury was inseparable from private loans (125). This made any aspiration for social improvement a complete impossibility for the lower classes, a fact that was transmitted in Martín Rivas through the tension and bitterness in the Molina family, which were put on vivid display in the picholeo: The affectation of the people at the beginning of the popular soirée to copy the ways of aristocratic society gave way to a mixture of confidence and unnatural civility… such behavior gives a peculiar colorfulness to this kind of gathering. The medio pelo people, placed between democracy, which they despise, and the good families, which they usually envy and want to copy, the medio pelo people’s customs show a curious amalgam. Their presumption makes them alter popular customs while at the same time making a caricature of the customs of those atop the social hierarchy, who, in turn, hide their absurdities under the fabric of wealth and good manners. [Al estiramiento con que al principio se habían mostrado para copiar los usos de la sociedad de gran tono, sucedía esta mezcla de confianza y alambicada urbanidad… (lo que) da un colorido peculiar a esta clase de reuniones. Colocada la gente que llamamos de medio pelo entre la democracia, y las buenas familias, a las que ordinariamente envidia y quiere copiar, sus costumbres presentan una amalgama curiosa, en las que se ven adulteradas con la presunción las costumbres populares y hasta cierto punto en caricatura las de la primera jerarquía social, que oculta sus ridiculeces bajo el oropel de la riqueza y de las buenas maneras (MR 132)].

With élan, Rafael described the great pretentiousness and the performances of civility at the picholeo. Without access to the salons of the rich, the attendees at the Molina household imagined themselves

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imitating the refinement and elegance of their counterparts at the tertulia. The habit of imbibing excessive amounts of alcohol throughout the evening, however, contributed to putting people in their place. Especially among the men, any pretense of elegance would disappear after they had consumed their fill of chincolito, a popular drink of the picholeo. Naturally, people’s behavior would become increasingly grotesque and comical. For this reason, men like Rafael San Luis perceived the picholeo as a type of burlesque theater and comedic farce. In both the tertulia and the picholeo, the piano was the instrument of choice. Following Carmen Peña, we can see an expression of Blest Gana’s interest in advancing a civilized society through education in Leonor’s musical talent and training. In the Encina household, Leonor used the piano to entertain her guests and to connect and communicate with Martín, firstly about her cousin Matilde and her love for Rafael. Like a princess of virtù, she summoned at will any of the young tertulia attendees to her place by the piano, expecting and receiving the total submission of her suitors. When she began to realize that she was falling for Martín, she used the piano as an excuse to arrange private meetings with him in the public space of the tertulia. Being watched by her elders, she controlled the way in which her relationship with Martín developed through her piano playing (C. Peña 24). As for the picholeo, C. Peña has underscored how the use of the instrument in the Molina household was meant to imitate precisely the sophistication of the tertulia gatherings (28). Unlike the musical instrument’s use in the Encina salon, the piano was not played by any of the young ladies of the house, but by a male guest “who he himself had delivered to the Molina’s that morning” [que él mismo había hecho llegar allí en la mañana (MR 127)]. In the picholeo customs, however, the use of the piano was subversive. It was played to dance a cuadrilla (quadrille). Although people thought they were replicating a dance of the tertulia, the piano, the music, and the dance itself were foreign to them. This resulted in a disorderly dance and a sense of rootlessness (C. Peña 28). Rafael’s in-depth analysis of the mores of Santiago’s medio pelo society underscored how the Molinas and their counterparts always sought to escape from their humble origins, from the people or things that they perceived coming from lesser roots, as Araya has noted (2000, 18). Like Machiavellian comedic characters, they plotted all sorts of scenarios to free themselves from what they disliked, which was themselves, really. In the Chile of the times, when people came into material means, they sought to remove themselves at all costs to a place superior to their previous station in life. These were the so-called arribistas, the parvenus. In fact,

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through arribismo they would even construct a new identity.22 People like Simón Arenal, in Rafael’s view, sought honorable positions in politics in order to detach themselves from their obscure birth and as a means of coming into contact with people of patrician roots. In a sense, Arenal escaped being categorized as medio pelo by his innate ability to succeed at amassing money. Certainly, for Rafael the medio pelo behaved according to what they thought were the mores of the well-to-do. Blest Gana thus gave us in the person of Rafael a point of access from which to view the ambivalent attachment of the people of medio pelo to the upper classes, an attachment that persists in the twenty-first century. One has only to turn on the television in Chile today to see that the inheritors of the criollos have taken center stage; that is, they are the continuing “rulers” of the nation via mass media. Holding their own version of the tertulia on television— particularly during the commercials targeted at a Chilean audience—, individuals with prominent Caucasian features transmit an assumed perception of nation and national identity. Equally, the inheritors of the criollos have ensured that no education should take place; most morning T.V. shows, for instance, are spectacles of banality watched by a majority of the inheritors of the medio pelo, whom Blest Gana had once so vividly described. The Molinas and their acquaintances perennially aspired to a station they could not attain. They were performers imitating the mediators. In fact, paraphrasing Girard, we can say that the Molinas were imitators imitating mediators in the name of spontaneity. They did this to blindly adhere to a class to which they did not belong. Forced to subsist on a very reduced monthly income, the Molinas had no chance of participating in the financial markets of Santiago. Proud of his patrician roots, Rafael made sure to separate himself socially from the Molinas, addressing them as people of the medio pelo class, that is, of a lower social stratum: For people of medio pelo who have never been to our salons, a gentleman, or like they say, a son of a good family, is the prototype of perfection, because they do judge a book by its cover. [Para las gentes de medio pelo, que no conocen nuestros salones, un caballero o, como ellas dicen, un hijo de familia, es el tipo de la perfección, porque juzgan al monje por el hábito (MR 123)]. 22 In his introduction to Martín Rivas, Concha alludes to the changing meaning of “arribismo.” In the nineteenth century, besides connoting the parvenu it also indicated the French “arriver,” one who with effort and audacity has arrived. In the twentieth century, however, it has come to signify the petty bourgeois notion of “hacia arriba” (upwards). (2000, xliv-l).

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The theatricality of the family and friends at the picholeo, with their desire to mimic the upper-classes on full display, resonated with the enjoyment of doña Bernarda. She entertained her guests in devilish ways and was absolutely gleeful when she uncovered any pretentiousness and stuffiness in the highly siútico picholeo participants. As head of the Molina household, doña Bernarda was the antithesis of good manners and work ethic. She lacked motherly concern for her daughters and actively promoted the young ladies’ loss of honor at the picholeo, as Mónica Meléndez has discussed in more detail (69). In a sense, doña Bernarda’s court was a distorted mirror image of doña Engracia’s. In the former, men became energized and aggressive; in the latter, they were emasculated by social constraints. Deeply embittered by her own harsh conditions, the old lady seemed to derive a perverse satisfaction from the socially disastrous results of male drunkenness. Amador Molina, who could have been one of Machiavelli’s exquisitely flawed comedic characters, was the king of the picholeo. At best, he represented a deluded man who thought very highly of himself. At worst, he embodied the image of a nineteenth-century pimp. He had no desire to work for a living and dedicated himself to easy money-grabbing by surreptitious means. As Meléndez has contended, the old lady encouraged her son to remain unproductive in society (69). In the Molinas’ circle, doña Bernarda and her two daughters lived under the negative influence of Amador, who made his money at the picholeo by deceiving unsuspecting men at card games. He emulated don Dámaso Encina by choosing his political alliances according to the benefits that he could receive from them, either liberal or conservatives. Further still, flaunting the banner of compatriotism, he served both parties at the same time, his primary concern being to make sure he would be paid to maintain his bad habits. He was the son of Damián, a man who claimed to come from a good family, in doña Bernarda’s reminiscences, but who unfortunately “lived like a poor man most of his life” [vivió pobre casi toda su vida (MR 123)]. Subjected to her son’s constant leeching off her tiny income, doña Bernarda barely escaped misery and deluded herself by declaring that her husband was a man of good station, which purportedly extended to the family as well. As witnesses to the despicable behavior of their reckless brother, a man with a complete lack of principles, Edelmira and Adelaida were obliged to fend for themselves during the picholeo celebrations. They were forced to endure insincere advances by men of their same social station who ridiculed themselves by imitating the stuffy manners of the upper-class. As we can see in Agustín’s advances toward Adelaida, the sisters had even more powerful enemies in the aristocrats .

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of Santiago. Intent on sexual encounters, they invaded the picholeo and showed off their wealth as they brazenly and disrespectfully courted the girls. Rafael San Luis made a point of deriding the meaning of the name of Amador, the giver of love, a perfect complement to the young man’s ridiculous persona. To fit the part, Amador used words that only a siútico would utter, combining his linguistic curiosities with a pícaro lifestyle of tricking men and living off women. Predictably, he wore extremely striking clothing, such as a white satin vest with multicolor embroidery which had been stitched to perfection by some “meticulous mistress” [querida prolija] of his (MR 125).23 As for his sisters, their names also attested to the family’s frustrated desire for grandiosity and exaggeration: The daughters are Adelaida and Edelmira. The first one got her name from her godfather, the second one from her mother who was pregnant with her when she went to see Othello and wanted to give her a name that would remind her of a night at the theater. You will hear her talk about her artistic memories. [Las hijas se llaman Adelaida and Edelmira. La primera debe su nombre a su padrino, y la segunda, a su madre, que la llevaba en el seno cuando vio representar a Otelo y quiso darle un nombre que la recordase las impresiones de una noche de teatro. Ya la oirás hablar de estos recuerdos artísticos (MR 122-123)].

Doña Bernarda’s impulse to name her daughter Edelmira after a theatre character is still replicated in Chile today, replaced by the name of a television celebrity or public figure. For doña Bernarda, grasping at grandiosity was essential. Adelaida’s name alluded to empire and nobility and Edelmira’s to a noble race. Throughout the novel, Edelmira was the target of many in Santiago’s society. As Concha has suggested, doña Bernarda’s choice of Edelmira also alluded indirectly to Desdemona’s servant Emilia (2000, xlii). Othello, one of Shakespeare’s greatest tragedies, portrayed race, gender relations, and class struggles. If we trace Emilia in Shakespeare, we discover the intricate relationship of the Machiavellian Iago and devoted Emilia, who surrendered to the former’s masculine machinations and his thirst for power. Thrust into the spectacularly macho circumstances of the picholeo, Edelmira behaved toward men in a way that was immediately recognized by Martín as opposite to the other young women there. Discernibly unsatisfied with her station in life, and mimicking Alonso Quijano and later on Madame 23

See footnote 16.

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Bovary, Edelmira escaped her condition through reading. In order to cope, she imagined herself to be “like those heroines she read about in serialized novels in newspapers” [como una heroína de algunas novelas de las que ha leído en folletines de periódicos (MR 123)]. Blest Gana expressed the quixotic desires of Edelmira Molina and allowed the delicate young woman to escape her troubled life via her passionate love for Martín. Thinking of him as one of the romantic heroes from the novels she read in newspapers, she could also conceive of being rescued by him. Edelmira, for this reason, never abandoned her dream of Martín’s love, even confessing it to Leonor. She continued to believe that perhaps one day he would reciprocate her unwavering devotion. By holding on tenaciously to Martín’s love, even though she knew that he had fallen head over heels for Leonor, she could at least fantasize about a life in an ideal nation which would provide for her. With a destiny not so horrid as Othello’s Emilia, Edelmira at the end of the novel did sacrifice part of herself to rescue Martín from death. Having been perennially subjugated to her mother’s materialistic wishes and her brother’s opportunistic ways, her loveless marriage to Ricardo Castaños was an act of ultimate munificence through which she exchanged her own emotional satisfaction for Martín’s political freedom and Leonor’s happiness.24 In the picholeo, Martín encountered a society that unraveled along the lines of Machiavelli’s Mandragola. The young women in the picholeo were an outlet of sexual desire for the patrician young men who courted them, a fact that also formed an intricate part of Machiavelli’s play. As Haig Patapan has contended, Machiavelli’s play described love relationships “in terms of utility and at most pleasure” (88). Surely, La Mandragola’s plot moved along with the aid of Ligurio, the social parasite who planned how to trick Lucrezia’s husband, himself a man who recognized that Callimaco’s lust for beautiful Lucrezia would prove to be his opportunità. Equally, Amador saw in Agustín’s passion for his sister Adelaida a ticket to wealth and social advancement. As Rafael explained, Agustín behaved with panache among his less fortunate counterparts at the picholeo, but only with the support of his father’s fortune. In this way, he thought that he could easily conquer Adelaida’s heart. To his chagrin, the young woman seemed unmoved, almost bothered, by Agustín’s insincere displays of affection. She always maintained an icy countenance. Rafael 24

As Doris Sommer argues, in spite of Edelmira’s dislike for Castaños, her marriage to him resulted in her advancing in society (210). In fact, she and her mother were taken care of by her husband. Importantly, in helping to liberate Martín from jail, the young woman secured the happiness and friendship of Leonor Encina, her social superior.

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San Luis, who symbolized a cultivated bourgeois minority, despised Agustín’s embellishments and the effects that his shiny fortune and dangling gold chains had on people. During the popular festivity, the participants were obsessed with imitating the behaviors of the well-to-do. They were obsequious towards the rich, as we see evinced in the fascination caused by Agustín Encina’s presence, a fact which illustrated how a rather grotesque majority, rich or poor, remained visibly stupefied by an unchanging social order. San Luis was a virile man, a voice for justice and progress and, contrary to what one would expect, a person who transgressed against the aspirations of the emerging class, the people of medio pelo. Evidently, San Luis never recovered from the tragic dissolution of his relationship with Matilde. Instead, he turned her into an ideal, a quixotic Dulcinea. He kept a daguerreotype of her in his room and told Martín that she was the only woman he had ever loved. Rafael later confessed to Martín, however, that he had made new libertine friends and that he had engaged in an act of concupiscence as a way to numb his senses. As soon as he met the beautiful Adelaida, Rafael made a point to forget about Matilde by bedding the unsuspecting young woman. In his behavior, then, the young patrician sought to avenge his repudiation by one woman by sacrificing the reputation of another. Adelaida immediately perceived Rafael to be rich because of his patrician appearance. He was welcomed by the Molinas with open arms. They not only adored him but turned him into the rich aristocrat he had once been. Indeed, to survive his family’s debacle, Rafael needed the Molinas much more than they needed him; with them, he was allowed to perform a social role that the fluctuating markets had taken away from him and his deceased father. He courted Adelaida to ease the pain of his heartbreak and told Martín that his air of distinction, the fact that he looked like a wealthy young lad, “surrounded me by an aura that fascinates people everywhere” [me rodeaba de una aureola que en todas partes fascina (MR 148)]. Flattered by being courted by such a handsome and distinguished young man, the pretty and penniless Adelaida fell hard for Rafael. After their sexual indiscretions, Adelaida became pregnant and, to hide it from her mother, she went away to be with an aunt in Renca, which at the time constituted the poor outskirts of Santiago. Shortly after that, Rafael became ashamed of his libertine behavior and ended their relationship but made sure he provided for his son. From that day on, Adelaida never said a word to Rafael. The young man wondered: “Does she still love me? Does she hate me? I do not know” [¿Me ama todavía o me odia? No lo sé (MR 149)].

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Meléndez has asserted that social practices in places like the picholeo featured corrupted social standards inherited by individuals from colonial times, with a penchant for assault and transgression upon the feminine space (65). According to Liliana Gutiérrez, Adelaida’s description results from a masculine perspective on gender and social position in Chile in the nineteenth century. She represents the ubiquitous rejected young woman from the lower classes who had her honor stained by a passionate and illicit relationship (“estereotipos femeninos”). Rafael’s despicable behavior toward her was typical of the way that wealthy men treated women from Adelaida Molina’s social class. In Chile’s private history, Rafael’s intrepid bedding of the penniless young woman and his subsequent abandonment of her emblematize a conduct that has occurred too many times. Without any recourse, Adelaida was obliged to hide her scandalous relationship from her mother who would have naturally blamed and punished her for it. Martín’s introduction to the picholeo by Rafael led to his dramatic ousting from the Encina house, an outcome that he had not anticipated. Because of his quixotic entanglement with Edelmira’s elopement, following her escape from a forced wedding to Ricardo Castaños, he had to pay dearly. He was discharged from Leonor’s home in a dishonorable way. In spite of being told by her brother that Martín had behaved honorably toward Edelmira, Leonor did not believe that he had acted like a caballero, suspecting an amorous entanglement between the two. Turning himself into a true don Quijote, he acted in a virile manner and stood by his friendship to Edelmira Molina without betraying her confidence. In fact, he burnt the letters they had exchanged. Had Leonor read any of their correspondence, Martín would have easily been exonerated of all charges. Nonetheless, he never lost faith and, like a man of virtù, he waited for an opportunità, believing optimistically that someday he would be acquitted. Because of his vital nature, “he found in his own suffering the strength that many lack in these cases” [encontró en su propio sufrimiento la fuerza que a muchos les falta en estos casos (MR 370)].

Loyalty, Friendship and Bad Business Blest Gana’s male characters are distinctive in their strong relationships. Essentially, Martín and Rafael are bound in friendship by loyalty, a shared belief in liberal principals, empathy, and self-sacrifice. As a new pupil at the historic Instituto Nacional, Martín was not befriended by any of his posh classmates because he was not part of the Santiago socialite network. He lacked a contact support network, the life line of the cuicos in

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contemporary Chilean society. Day after day he struggled doggedly alone until he was rewarded with the fortunate acquaintance of Rafael San Luis, by far the most amazing and magnetic individual in the novel: Two months after he started the semester, Martín noticed the presence of a student whom everyone greeted cordially… In truth there was an air of mystery surrounding the young man. His poetic beauty would catch everyone’s attention at first sight… Rafael’s attire also caught Martín’s eye because it showed capriciousness as well as an utter disregard for the type of fashion that uniformed the rest of the students. His turned-up collar contrasted with the starched ones of the rest and his black tie, loosely knotted, showed the delicate lines of his throat, bringing to mind the kind of throat sculptors give to the bust of Byron. [Dos meses después de su incorporación a la clase, notó Martín la presencia de un alumno a quien todos saludaban cordialmente… Había en verdad, cierto aire de misterio en torno de aquel joven, cuya poética belleza llamaba la atención a primera vista… Llamó también la atención de Rivas el traje de Rafael, en el que parecía reinar el capricho y un absoluto desprecio a la moda que uniformaba a casi todos los otros alumnos de la clase. Su cuello vuelto contrastaba con la rigidez de los que llevaban los demás, y su corbata negra, anudada con descuido, dejaba ver una garganta cuyos suaves lineamientos traían a la memoria la que los escultores han dado al busto de Byron (MR 101-104)].

A ruined patrician with a strong personality and iconoclastic taste in clothing, Rafael did not concern himself with many of his classmates at the Instituto Nacional. He was considered a leader among his peers, and this was palpably related to his combination of angelic good looks and self-assuredness. When he joined the class, Rafael noticed that Martín did not behave like the rest of his classmates. He quickly recognized that the young provincial was not a social blur, but a man of his own caliber and bravado. He became so interested in his new classmate that he asked another one about the mysterious young man. He was told that he was a provincial and that he seemed very sharp. He witnessed, for instance, how Martín once deftly corrected and expanded upon the opinions of an Instituto classmate, a spoiled son of one of Santiago’s affluent families. Humiliated by Martín’s audacity, the classmate angrily approached Martín after class and chastised him sharply: —It was fine that you corrected my statement —he said, looking at him with pride—; but do not ever use that tone with me again. —I will never suffer anyone’s arrogance and I will address people with the same tone they use with me—Martín responded—, and since you have

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addressed me—he added—, I should warn you that I only take lessons from my instructor, and only if they concern my studies. [—Bien está que usted corrija—le dijo, mirándole con orgullo—; pero no vuelva a emplear el tono que ha usado hoy. —No sufriré la arrogancia de nadie y responderé siempre en el tono que usen conmigo—dijo Martín—, y ya que usted se ha dirigido a mí— añadió—, le advertiré que aquí sólo admito lecciones de mi profesor, únicamente en lo que concierne al estudio (MR 102)].

In the nineteenth century, Chile’s mineral and agricultural profits led to its fortuitous inclusion in the international markets. The story of Rafael’s unexpected fall reflected the destiny of many at the time. The profound attachment to material possessions, typified by don Fidel Elías and don Simón Arenal, fostered attitudes that triggered uncivilized behavior and a failure to respect civic values. Families that placed utmost importance on financial concerns raised male children without any redeeming civic virtues. As young men, they exercised the power of their class in nefarious ways. Characteristically, they did not respect their social inferiors but gave orders and imposed themselves harshly on others (MR 147). Capital gains made the male offspring weak and the female ones even weaker because they would be dependent on the prospective riches of future husbands. In the case of Matilde, she had been genuinely in love with Rafael. But, when Rafael’s father suddenly lost his fortune in the market, her own father— via don Dámaso—broke off their engagement: To relate my father’s ruin would be to tell a story that repeats itself every day in commerce: ships with a huge cargo lost at sea, undersold wheat in California. That mine of so few and the ruin of so many! That is, the hazards of mercantile speculations. [Explicarte la ruina de mi padre sería referirte una historia que se repite todos los días en el comercio: buques perdidos con grandes cargamentos; trigo malbaratado en California; ¡esa mina de pocos y ruina de tantos! En fin, los percances de las especulaciones mercantiles (MR 145)].

These vertiginous ups and down of the markets correspond exceedingly well to a Machiavellian sense of fortuna and virtù. Rafael’s characterization of the mermaid-like attraction of speculative markets also finds an analog in Cervantes’s novella “Celoso extremeño” [The Jealous Extremaduran] and its portrayal of the Indies, the common goal for many but an actual destination and place of success for just a few. Rafael’s misfortune underscored the strong role of fortuna in nineteenth-century market

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speculation. Business propositions had the potential to go well or badly and too often this vulnerability promptly and ruthlessly decided the future of aristocratic families in Chile. The tragic outcome of his father’s bad business deal reverberated throughout every aspect of Rafael’s life. It resulted in the death of his own father and in his broken engagement to Matilde Elías. Rafael told Martín that, one day when the young aristocrat thought that his life could not get any better, his father had called him into his room: when I entered the room he threw himself in my arms. My own preoccupations had prevented me from seeing that his face had been withered and haggard for some time. His first words to me were these: —Rafael, I have lost everything! al entrar se arrojó en mis brazos. Mis propias preocupaciones me habían impedido ver que su rostro estaba marchito y desencajado hacía tiempo. Sus primeras palabras fueron éstas: —¡Rafael, todo lo he perdido! (MR 145)].

“I lived in a rose-colored world until I was twenty-two” [Viví hasta los veintidós años en un mundo Rosado (MR 144)], Rafael told Martín, reflecting on his life before his father’s debacle. The exchange markets, where fortunes were made, were far away, and the mines, like Martín’s father’s own, did not necessarily yield good results or took a long time to do so. As a consequence, fortuna had to be on a person’s side for a business transaction to succeed. Unlike outmoded colonial practices, speculation in the markets required Machiavellian new men of virtù who could persevere through the bad times when the “ruinous rivers” of fortuna took everything away. Looked at from this perspective, Rafael’s father lacked the necessary virtù for business because “it does not follow that when the weather is calm we cannot take precautions with embankments and dykes” (P, 25; 159) [non resta però che gli uomini, quando sono tempi queti, non vi potessino fare provedimento (p. 973)]. That is, men with Machiavellian bravado were the only ones capable of making a profit. The fact that they could dissemble any fear about the results of their transactions had its own peculiar influence on the outcome of market speculation—as we know from the case of don Dámaso. Here was a capitalist who, unlike Rafael’s father, conducted business in a shrewd manner, combining fortuna and virtù to enhance his social profile in the markets. When relating his family’s tragic fall, Rafael told Martín indirectly that his father had not proceeded with caution, unlike his uncle Pedro San Luis who had acted responsibly and with mindfulness by investing his gains in reliable real estate acquisitions. Pedro San Luis had

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not gambled his whole fortune on risky commercial speculations, and thus had avoided losing in an instant “the fruit of long work” [el fruto de largos trabajos (MR 161)]. The fluctuating markets and his father’s rather impetuous way caused Rafael to lose forever what had previously been a carefree life style, one that had resembled the life of a Romantic figure following hedonistic intellectual pursuits. It was devastating for him because his loving father had never prepared Rafael for bad times when the weather was favorable, to use Machiavelli’s terms (P, 25). The son of a businessman who had lost his entire fortune, Rafael became a “has been,” a discarded person who was no longer received in the households of the well-to-do. Tested by the whims of fortuna, Rafael had less endurance than Martín. To make matters worse, he found himself unable to rectify his mistake by marrying Adelaida, the woman whose honor he had taken away. She never recovered from his abandonment which caused her to develop a vindictive tone toward men and toward him in particular (Gutiérrez). When consenting to chastise Agustín for his pursuit of a sexual relationship with her, she blurted out: “the first thing I want is to make Rafael pay for what he did to me” [lo primero que quiero es que Rafael me la pague (MR 198)]. Although he held Rafael San Luis in high regard, Martín did not approve of the way he had handled Adelaida. He always felt that Rafael should have corrected his error in the only gentlemanly way possible, by marrying the poor young woman. Emulating his dear friend, Martín considered himself “disinherited by Fortune” [desheredado de la fortuna (MR 104)], but he truly displayed virtù, exemplary behavior. He was prepared to withstand the vagaries of fortuna, verifying Machiavelli’s statement that “the man who adapts his course of action to the nature of the times will succeed” (P, 25; 159) [sia felice quello che riscontra il modo del procedere suo con la qualità de’ tempi (p. 974)]. By contrast, Rafael San Luis, a charming individual “with… powerful intelligence and with the fire of a racing heart” [con… una inteligencia poderosa y con el fuego de un corazón elevado (MR 102)] was overcome by his grief. Admired by Martín from the first time he saw him, young Rafael personified the romantic hero. He was gorgeous, eloquent, with impeccable manners and taste, the type of man to whom young women would immediately become attracted. For doña Francisca, he was the ideal son-in-law, sprung out of one of her romantic novels; he was versed in poetry, the refined ways of the world, and intellectual conversations, yet he was a damaged individual. His masculinity was emphasized by his total disregard for society’s trappings and, significantly, by the originality of his taste in clothing. Additionally, he remained nostalgically attached to his

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glorious past, which we see demonstrated in his fondness for the elegant furniture that his family had possessed in prosperous times. When he received the young provincial in his house, he told Martín: What you see around you are mementos from better times… among many things that I have lost —he added with a sad tone— I still cherish a taste for the fine things in life and I have kept this furniture. [—Los recuerdos de mejores tiempos es lo que ves en torno tuyo… Entre muchas cosas que he perdido—añadió con acento triste—me queda aún el gusto por el bienestar y he conservado estos muebles (MR 121)].

Like a vanquished prince, Rafael lived through his memories and had difficulty adjusting to the new times. By bringing the treasures from the past into his new poorer surroundings, he held on to an irreversible history without wanting to face his future. Endowed by nature with highly appealing features and leadership qualities, Rafael San Luis could not cope with his father’s reversal of fortuna. He did not possess the virtù, the strength and vigor to remain as he was. As a result, he was sacrificed by Blest Gana. The young patrician lost his true place in society. He was too high brow, too educated, to live among the medio pelo people, but he was also irremediably too poor to mix with the rich. On the other hand, Martín reached heroic stature, a feat that ingratiated him with the world of the opulent and placed him at the center of the Encinas’ tertulia, as we know from Román Soto’s analysis (1139). With his brilliant use of fortuna and virtù, Martín exceeded the goals in his father’s letter to don Dámaso. He won the unconditional love of the beautiful Leonor and earned the social and financial support of the Encinas. As a result, Martín extracted a fortune from José Rivas’ quixotic silver vein and in the end became the real owner and manager of his father’s elusive mine. Like don Quijote, Martín was steadfastly faithful to his one and only. He did not encourage any other woman to come his way, which was the opposite of what Rafael had done. As don Quijote had been mesmerized by his creation of Dulcinea, Martín was overwhelmed by the idea of Leonor. When he first encountered her, he was so dazzled by her beauty that, annoyed, she had to turn her face away from his fixed gaze. The implausibility of Martín gaining Leonor’s love was at the same level as don Quijote and his sin par Dulcinea. Before his fall from grace, he had gradually begun to allow himself to believe that Leonor reciprocated his love. With hope, he wrote to his sister that he would not go back to Copiapó that summer. Instead, he would stay with the Encinas at their summer house. He happily wrote: “there will be a room for us to work,

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don Dámaso has told me… and in the remaining hours I will be able to see her” [habrá una pieza para nuestros trabajos, me ha dicho don Dámaso… y en las horas restantes podré verla (MR 347)]. Amazingly, Martín was never aware of Edelmira Molina’s obvious admiration and profound love for him. Acting like a true knight errant, he offered her his help without realizing that he was throwing away any possibility for happiness with Leonor. He had helped a young lady elope and, as anticipated, this ignited a scandal at the Encina mansion. After don Dámaso told Martín that the family’s reputation was at stake if he continued living in their house, Martín graciously offered to leave but not without first addressing Leonor. Summoning his courage, he approached an unreceptive Leonor to tell her that his help for Edelmira had been altruistic. He had acted in a most quixotic manner, undoubtedly, without pausing to reconsider the social consequences of his behavior. Worse, he had not considered how his heroic conduct would be interpreted by the Encinas, and principally by Leonor. When she did not believe him, Martín asked her: “Do you think that there is no man who can perform a service like that? [¿Cree usted entonces que no haya hombre capaz de hacer un servicio como ése? (MR 368)]. In fact, Leonor had already responded to Martín’s question when her brother Agustín attempted to explain and justify Martín’s selfless gesture: —You know, there is some truth in this situation with Martín—said Agustín to Leonor when they were alone. —Who told you? —asked the young woman, who flattered herself with the idea that Martín would debunk all the accusations against him. —Martín himself—answered the elegant young man. —Can’t you see! He does not dare deny it! — exclaimed Leonor, with an expression of animosity that by itself seemed to speak of revenge. —But he has done it because he is a good fellow. —Oh, Yes—said the young woman with a sardonic smile. —Imagine that the old lady wanted to marry her daughter against her own will. —And Martín, because he is so good, as you say, turned himself into her defender. Is that what it is? It seems like a badly concocted apology to me; the times of don Quijote are over. [—¿Sabes que hay algo de cierto en lo de Martín? —dijo Agustín a Leonor cuando estuvieron solos. —¿Quién te lo ha dicho? —preguntó la niña, que interiormente se lisonjeaba con que Martín desbarataría las acusaciones que pesaban sobre él. —el mismo Martín—contestó el elegante.

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Chapter Two —¡No ves! ¡ni se atreve a negarlo! — exclamó Leonor, con una expresión de encono que por sí sola parecía hablar de venganza. —Pero lo ha hecho de puro bueno. —Sí, ¿no? —dijo la niña, con sardónica sonrisa. —Fíjate que la vieja quería casar a esa pobre niña contra su voluntad. —Y Martín, de puro bueno como tú dices, se declaró su defensor, ¿no es esto? Muy mal inventada me parece la disculpa; ya pasó el tiempo de don Quijote (MR 365)].

As he faced the stark reality of leaving the mansion and losing the woman he loved, Martín felt like a finished man. Back in his room, he cried for the love of his life. Even in that moment of despair, however, Martín remained steadfastly faithful to Leonor. His conduct was irreproachable and it led him on a path from utter emotional despair toward his idealistic participation in the Motín de Urriola. Ricardo Castaños, Edelmira’s eternal suitor, was himself a man of constancy. Armed with patience, he withstood Edelmira’s elusiveness. He hated the sight of Martín, however, blaming him for the humiliating rejection of his beloved. Out of sheer jealousy, the young policeman would not have hesitated to gun down Martín at the Encina family gate. The rumbling of their battle brought the entire Encina family to the patio where Martín was fighting for his life, sword in hand and literally back against the wall. While Leonor begged her father to save the life of the man she loved, Martín bravely countered the attack by the two soldiers who were calling others to join them as they struggled to subdue the young hero: Don Dámaso came trembling to the group that was surrounding Rivas. —Resistance is futile, Martín—he said to him—give yourself up. —If he does not give up, shoot him—shouted Ricardo Castaños, who not only looked at the young man as revolutionary, but also as the author of his romantic misfortunes. [Don Dámaso se acercó temblando al grupo que rodeaba a Rivas. —La resistencia es inútil, Martín—le dijo—; entréguese usted. —Si no se rinde, háganle fuego— gritó Ricardo Castaños, que no sólo miraba en aquel joven a un revolucionario, sino al autor de sus desgracias amorosas (MR 415)].

When Edelmira sacrificed herself in the name of selfless love by giving up and accepting Castaños’s proposal, Martín and Ricardo each benefitted from her unhappiness. Considering her social station, as Sommer has done, by performing the role of the dutiful daughter, Edelmira nonetheless

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won access to a previously forbidden social space in Santiago’s society (210). From a Machiavellian perspective, her marriage to Ricardo Castaños harmed only her delicate heart even as it stabilized her previously precarious condition in life. Toward the end of the novel, Martín wrote to his sister Mercedes that Edelmira’s marriage to Castaños had helped the young woman to attain a more solid place in society; for instance, she developed a cordial relationship with Leonor. She had even been able to provide for her mother’s welfare, which meant sustaining her gambling habits (MR 445).

Fighting in the Streets … and the Salons Blest Gana historicized a period of political turmoil in Chile that corresponded to the end of the mandate of Manuel Bulnes and the beginning of Manuel Montt’s. This was a particularly difficult moment for the Chilean oligarchy. Martín Rivas and Rafael San Luis became connected with members of the period’s Sociedad de la Igualdad, a group of young warriors that had broken down the social barriers between artisans and the intellectual gentry. As Sociedad adherents, Martín and Rafael came into contact with the likes of Francisco Bilbao, Santiago Arcos, and Eusebio Lillo. The narrative arc of the novel had Martín arrive at the Encina manor “in early July, 1850” [a principios del mes de Julio de 1850 (MR 60)]. Blest Gana’s plan was deliberately to situate his characters in a context that anticipated their place on the battlefield as revolutionary combatants who were deeply committed to patria and opposed to the status quo. Prominent historian Francisco Encina—whose observations could be said to reflect equally the perspective of twentieth-century conservative Chilean society—has written in his Historia de Chile [History of Chile] that the revolutionary effervescence of 1848-1851 was not as politically significant as some have made it out to be. For Encina, Bilbao and the Sociedad de la Igualdad made the revolutionary impulse seem exotic. Ultimately, it was not backed by a large contingent but rather by a small minority of young enthusiasts (Griffin 21). For the historian, if there were socio-political significance in the Motín de Urriola and other political revolts it was only minor. Undesirable events, of course, they nonetheless had no major consequence in the construction of nineteenth-century national identity, in his view. For Sagredo, on the other hand, the revolution of 1851, which united liberals in protest of the election of Montt, had extensive repercussions, such as the revolution of 1859. The Motín de Urriola, from this perspective, was a testament to the rebels’ fight against continuously repressive administrations. It was also, and

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perhaps most significant, part of a larger struggle for a fairer nation, one with a stronger National Congress and guaranteed rights for citizens, such as the right to form an assembly (2014, 131). The Encina mansion became the theatre and its elegant tertulia the stage on which don Dámaso and his family performed for their social peers. In every interaction with his capitalist friends, don Dámaso was persuaded by his compadres (peers) to think conservatively about political events in Santiago. Acting the part of faithful twentieth-century momios (conservatives), wealthy capitalists Don Simón and don Fidel always made a point of instilling fear in don Dámaso, cleverly urging him to support the conservative government because the opposition was intent on depriving him of his assets. They passionately defended the status quo at all costs. Of course, there were also some liberal voices to be heard. The discussions among the tertulia guests were often heated. In this respect, they bore a remarkable resemblance to the incendiary conversations that took place during the political campaigns and the government of Allende in the twentieth century, when momios and upelientos (followers of the Unidad Popular) confronted each other. In the story, we are told that politics was center stage, providing hope for, or inspiring despair in, those involved. The oligarchy dreaded disorder, and the citizenry were being divided and overcome by it. The Chile inhabited by Martín had become a nation of enemies: Peaceful citizens saw their salons turned into tribunals for agitated debates. Brothers embraced diverse political factions against each other; rebellious children disobeyed the will of their parents and political fury disturbed the peace of numerous families. In 1850 and later in 1851, there was not a house to be found in Chile where the disembodied voice of political discussions would not resonate. There was not a person to be found who would not become impassioned by one of the political factions that divided our country. [Vio entonces el pacífico ciudadano tornarse en foro de acalorados debates a su estrado; abrazaron los hermanos diverso bando los unos de los otros; hijos rebeldes desobedecieron la voluntad de los padres, y turbó la saña política la paz de gran número de familias. En 1850 y después en 1851, no hubo tal vez una sola casa de Chile donde no resonara la descompuesta voz de las discusiones políticas, ni una sola persona que no se apasionase por alguno de los bandos que nos dividieron (MR 114-115)].

The Encina family’s tertulia brilliantly depicted the increasing antagonism between conservatives and liberals. Martín’s initiation into society thus commenced during political upheaval. On 19th August 1850,

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when Martín attended doña Engracia’s elegant salon for his first tertulia, he found don Dámaso and his male guests, young and old, engaged in a heated debate on the government’s assault on members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad. Modeled after European civic societies, the Sociedad had taken Chile by storm. As its name implied, the Sociedad brought together “top hats and frock coats… with straw hats and woolen ponchos,” a veritable “cross-class political mobilization,” to quote Wood (188). It represented the strongest challenge to the Portalian concept of the nation. Its members, artisans and university students alike, were united in their aim to expand the sense of democracy in Chile. They demanded more widespread electoral participation and sought an alternative to government by the elite (Wood 187). Looking back from the twenty-first century, it is not impossible to find points of comparison between the Sociedad’s efforts and the socio-political purposes of Allende’s government. As an example, it is not a stretch to believe that the Sociedad would have approved of the Catholic priests’ social experiment, headed by Father Gerardo Whelan, to mix the rich with the poor at an exclusive Santiago school during the turbulent Allende years, as we have seen faithfully portrayed in the film Machuca by Andrés Wood (2004). Blest Gana addressed the violence that the government inflicted upon the members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad. Despite the conservative historical perspective, then, the coercive administrative action against the rebel forces was not supported by everyone in Chile. Against the contrasting backdrop of doña Engracia’s elegant salon, pelucones and pipiolos commented on the attacks in the popular sector of la Chimba, the old name for Santiago’s Recoleta sector, where the Sociedad de la Igualdad held its meetings. In fact, Blest Gana referenced la Chimba in El ideal de un calavera when he described how Abelardo in his youth enjoyed participating in the wars of the Chimba, wars in which the projectiles were the rocks dragged along by “the turbid current of the Mapocho” [la corriente turbia del Mapocho (IC, I; 17)]. According to Salazar, the word Chimba meant the wrong bank of the river, which brings to mind the areas where the mestizo populations lived during the early years of the nation (96). At the Encinas’ tertulia, the rich and vacuous Clemente Valencia, with a trembling voice and unusual eloquence, given his limited capacities, described the government’s brutal ransacking of the headquarters of the Sociedad de la Igualdad: —Some men raided the place, and members who were still inside were beaten with clubs. —Clubs! Echoed the ladies and gentlemen. …

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Chapter Two —What an atrocity! —said an outraged Doña Francisca—; it doesn’t seem that we live in a civilized country anymore. —Woman, woman! —replied don Fidel—. The government knows what it is doing. Stay out of politics! … —The duty of Authority —exclaimed don Simón— is to assure the peace, which is directly threatened by this Society of rebels. … —Well done, well done. I hope they get beaten up —said don Fidel—; why do they poke their noses where they don’t belong? —But this could trigger a revolution —said don Dámaso. —Laugh it off—answered don Simón— this is the way to earn respect. All governments must behave in a strong manner toward their subjects; that is the way of governing. —But this is beating and not governing —replied Martín, whose good sense and generous spirit rebelled against the arguments of authoritarians. [—Entraron unos hombres al salón donde quedaban algunos socios y cargaron a palos con ellos. — ¡A palos! — dijeron hombres y mujeres. … —¡Es una atrocidad! —dijo indignada doña Francisca—; parece que no estuviéramos en un país civilizado. —¡Mujer, mujer! —replicó don Fidel—, el gobierno sabe lo que hace; ¡no te metas en política! … —El deber de la autoridad —exclamó don Simón— es velar por la tranquilidad, y esta asociación de revoltosos la amenazaba directamente. … —Bien hecho, bien hecho que les den duro; —dijo don Fidel—; ¿no les gusta meterse en lo que no deben? —Pero esto puede traer una revolución —dijo don Dámaso. —Ríase de eso —le contestó don Simón—: es la manera de hacerse respetar. Todo gobierno debe manifestarse fuerte ante los pueblos; es el modo de gobernar. —Pero eso es apalear y no gobernar —replicó Martín, cuyo buen sentido y generosos instintos se rebelaban contra la argumentación de los autoritarios (MR 118)].

Frustrated by the stubborn opinions of the tertulia participants, Martín got up and left the discussion, attempting to suppress the disdain he felt for his interlocutors. With empathy, doña Francisca advised the young liberal not to argue with the men anymore, “you will not hear other opinions” [no oirá otras razones (MR 118)].

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Martín’s political-historical circumstances were not isolated, unique or insulated from future events. In fact, they would find an echo in the indefatigable political campaigns of Salvador Allende in Chile’s midtwentieth century, where, perhaps to the amazement of a contemporary Chilean audience—especially a young one—rich and poor sometimes came together. Rafael San Luis, Martín’s best friend, was the principal actor in the Motín de Urriola, an event provoked by ongoing discontent with the conservative government among different sectors of the population. As a member of the Sociedad de la Igualdad, Rafael threw himself with audacity into that historic moment of 20th April 1851 when Chilean intellectuals joined the working class to protest their unfavorable conditions. Rafael instructed his fellow revolutionaries of all social classes to display “Chilean valor” [valor chileno (MR 396)]. He turned them into soldiers and had them march in the best infantry formation to the battlefield where their goal was to save the nation from the barbarians, to emulate Machiavelli’s perspective. Charles Tarlton has delineated how Machiavelli with his Prince, or his character Principe, used indeterminate descriptions accompanied by multiple exempla to sketch a powerful image of a virile individual (2007, 44-45). Most important, an ideal ruler had to eliminate indecisiveness and cowardice. Machiavelli also posed questions that, in economic terms, were pertinent for the future bourgeoisie and middle class. In Blest Gana, masculinity was socially constructed through business deals where bravado influenced purchasing power and decisiveness completed the deal. Wealth itself could make a man an aristocrat; but it could not alone make him a manly man. Perhaps more than anything else, it was don Dámaso Encina’s virtù in business that turned him into what he became, one of the wealthiest men in Santiago. Although he inherited his father’s money, his son Agustín, by contrast, never possessed those same masculine traits. From this, we can infer that Martín would also become involved with managing his brother-in-law’s fortune so that, like his father-in-law, Rafael and his wife Matilde would remain wealthy. Sommer has discussed how the young Martín, by asserting himself in Santiago and marrying successfully, struck a good balance between his high moral standards and his knack for materialistic pursuits (209). In winning the love of Leonor, he was a kind of liberal conqueror of the oligarchy (219). Blest Gana was well acquainted with the mores and the thinking of the santiaguinos and he used this knowledge first to destabilize and then to re-stabilize nineteenth-century Chilean society. While portraying the political subjectivity of Chileans within the space of their homes, the author brought into colorful relief the santiaguinos’ affection

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for material possessions and everything that showcased bourgeois taste. Their children needed to be married exclusively to good prospects. The comfort of capitalistic gains needed to be preserved. Looked at in this light, Agustín Encina’s intention for a sexual relationship with Adelaida Molina made him a social predator, a tertulia goer attempting to obliterate the picholeo. Thinking he was going for a sexual tryst, he found himself trapped by Amador, doña Bernarda, and, to an extent, Adelaida. He was then forced to marry the unfortunate young woman. Later on, embracing his deeply-ingrained beliefs on class and status, and faced with what for him constituted the horror of having been bound to a woman beneath his social station, Agustín became truly despondent. Shocked by this sudden turn of events, and thinking himself irretrievably bound to Adelaida Molina, the young aristocrat felt ruined and could not bring himself to confront his father with the reality of his situation. Showing how weak he was, Agustín persistently postponed confronting his reality and kept asking his father for money to feed Amador’s greed. There was no doubt that the disastrous marriage would engender shame and social ostracism not just for him but also for his family: His love for Adelaida, based on morally elastic ideals, a type professed by the majority of young men, had taken a significant turn once he believed himself to be united to her by the indissoluble ties of matrimony. He found himself with a wife when he had sought a mistress.25 His feelings had stemmed from a passion that he had judged to be sincere, but they had now turned lukewarm because the thought of his marriage presented an imminent danger for him. He constantly dreaded the mockery and dishonor which would arise from the rules of the social codes that govern aristocratic societies. [Su amor a Adelaida, basado sobre las elásticas ideas de moralidad que la mayor parte de los jóvenes profesan, se había modificado singularmente desde que se creía unido a ella por lazos indisolubles. Encontrando una esposa donde él había buscado una querida, sus sentimientos, de una pasión que él consideraba sincera, se entibiaron ante la inminencia del peligro con que su enlace le amenazaba a toda hora. Temiendo siempre la burla y el deshonor, según las leyes del código que rige las sociedades aristocráticas (MR 229)].

Agustín’s wild adventure at the Molina’s home made evident that characters from privileged backgrounds rejected any subversion of their social status, any change in the social order. Triggered by his own 25

See footnote 16.

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intrusion into the picholeo festivities, Agustín’s misadventure made him appear as a young provincial himself—in the style of Martín at the Plaza de Armas. In effect, the story democratized their setbacks, and the man newly arrived from Paris was essentially tricked and put in his place by the working classes. Through this moral lesson, Agustín was temporarily and abruptly removed from his place in the hierarchy of hegemonic power of Santiago. Without the comfort of his household and a posh environment, Agustín longed to return to his rightful place. This was especially true after he was required to commit to a woman with whom he had only wanted to share physical passion. During those tortuous days when he believed himself to be married to Adelaida, the young patrician forgot to speak French or to care for his physical appearance, two features that characterized him. Having married a woman of no social pedigree, he had absolutely ruined any possibility that his family could continue to interact with the other self-selected buenas familias of Santiago. Worse, the dreaded El qué dirán (what will they say!) of his society would surely be expressed during the tertulia gatherings of the affluent, making Agustín and his ill-fated marriage the most talked about case of social decline in Santiago (MR 215). The transatlantic economic practices of colonial times endured and prospered in the nineteenth century, contributing to an exaggerated and obsessive wish to acquire and to keep material goods (Meléndez 63). In Machiavelli’s Mandragola, Ligurio, an intelligent and cunning individual who unfortunately lacked wealth, personified the social vicissitudes of many in Florence. The young man seethed at the thought of Messer Nicia precisely because he was a stupid old man who had been lucky enough to have material goods and a beautiful wife: It seems to me that proverb on marriages which says ‘God makes men and they pair themselves off!’ is rarely proven true. Because one often sees that it’s the lot of a well-qualified man to end up with a beast, and viceversa, of a prudent woman to have a madman (I, 3; 17). [E parmi che rare volte si verifichi quel proverbio ne’ matrimoni che dice: ‘Dio fa gli uomini e’ s’appaiano’; spesso si vede uno uomo ben qualificato sortire una bestia e, per avverso, una prudente donna avere un pazzo (pp. 77-78)].

In the same vein, Martín Rivas passed harsh judgment on the injustice of those who had too much and did not know what to do with their money. The text singled out some particular type of pretentious men, the so-called leones (lions), who put their social status on display through distasteful material possessions (MR 72).

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Rafael’s tragic death symbolized, as Araya has noted, the rancorous struggle between the bourgeoisie, exemplified by Rafael himself, and the medio pelo, exemplified by doña Bernarda, who destroyed Rafael’s happiness (2000, 34). In some ways, Rafael annihilated himself by ruining his reputation among the well-to-do, thus contributing to his own downfall. Although his perception of a faux pas always remained sardonic, Machiavelli himself decried those who destroyed their own reputations. For the inconsolable Rafael, the penalty for his sexual transgression worsened when he realized that having sex with another woman did not make him happy. In spite of his payments to repair his infraction to Adelaida, he lost it all: the woman he loved, his social standing, and finally, his life. In a harrowing passage, Rafael quickly understood that his happiness was in jeopardy. Doña Bernarda was at the steps of his beloved Matilde’s house, eager to reveal his previous relationship with her daughter Adelaida. He froze in his chair. Doña Bernarda’s strike against Rafael was so unexpected and so effectively dealt—she went to Matilde’s house—that the young man did not know what to do as he slowly came to terms with its horrible consequences: “surprise and concern silenced his voice” [la sorpresa y la turbación le embargaban la voz] (MR 318). Like a warrior, however, who has been surprised by an attack on the battlefield, his spirit remained alert, and he acted resourcefully. In spite of his chills, he affected a calm attitude and concealed the sharp anguish he felt upon seeing the old woman in the home of his cherished Matilde. Keeping a Machiavellian frame of mind, the young man needed “to get out of that critical moment by some decisive blow” [salir del trance por medio de algún golpe decisivo (MR 318)]. Although his face had turned pale and he trembled at the sight of such a formidable enemy, he feigned indifference to doña Bernarda’s arrival. Faking a carefree, serene tone, he turned to Matilde and softly suggested that the old lady “should come back another time” [que vuelva otra vez (MR 318)]. In Mandragola, Machiavelli turned Messer Nicia in a cuckolded husband and laughingstock of Florentine society. At the same time, these unfortunate circumstances—allowing his wife to betray him with a younger man—had a redeeming value in that they assured him an heir to continue the family line. In Martín Rivas, Rafael’s transgression had no possible redemption. For Chilean readers, the death of Rafael San Luis remains one of the most tragic occurrences in its national literature. Its tremendous sadness was only relieved by don Fidel Elias whose materialistic views provided comic relief by redirecting us away from the distressful end of Matilde and Rafael’s engagement. Don Fidel had caused Matilde and Rafael’s initial break up out of financial concern, which was

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what sent the young man into a depression so severe that he sought the company of Adelaida. Equally concerned about money in the later circumstances, don Fidel now refused to concede that his daughter had broken off her relationship with Rafael. Fearful that don Pedro’s profitable lease of El Roble would be abruptly ended, don Fidel attempted to soften the blow of Rafael’s past indiscretions. He hoped intensely to keep his El Roble deal. Later, upset that Rafael would not follow his council and force Matilde to become his wife, don Fidel found himself defeated by his daughter’s determination to end her engagement (MR 331). Through her heartbreak, Matilde had acquired agency and overruled the materialistic wishes of her father. Martín emulated Rafael by immersing himself in politics and warfare as part of his effort to recover from a love he felt would never be reciprocated. Understanding the seriousness of his situation, he chose to fight with virtù. In battle, he would dramatically prove his masculinity and thereby conquer Leonor’ heart. Like the arrojo (boldness/ daring) of don Quijote, Martín entered the battlefield knowing that it could be his last day on earth. Fighting governmental forces that were intent on capturing him, the young man became a metaphorical knight: In the precise moment that Eleanor invoked the mercy of heaven for Martín, he, like the ancient knights, threw himself into the harshest part of the battle, bearing on his chest the image and on his lips the name of Leonor. [En el momento en que Leonor invocaba la piedad del cielo para Martín, éste, como los antiguos caballeros, se lanzaba a lo más crudo de la pelea, llevando en su pecho la imagen y en sus labios el nombre de Leonor (MR 405)].

As one of the revolutionaries of the Motín de Urriola, young Martín “looked danger in the face” [miró de frente el peligro (MR 422)]. Through the Sociedad de la Igualdad, he not only enacted a liberal rebellion against Chile’s conservative political system. Martín also adopted a manly attitude toward an uncertain political future. If his decision to face death was a reaction to Leonor’s harsh parting words, enrolling in the Sociedad de la Igualdad evinced a significant socio-political transformation. Martín had not previously thought much about “issues agitating humanity” [cuestiones que agitan a la humanidad (MR 98)]. In less than a year in the capital, however, Martín had become a santiaguino and he would never go back to live in his birthplace in Copiapó. He had learned from Rafael that political movements from the Old Continent had arrived on Chilean soil and that

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these could be used to agitate the nation’s urban areas and that they might trickle down to the rural ones. As he disclosed in Durante la Reconquista, Blest Gana reveled in selecting excruciating details of a society abuzz with citizens who feared the responsibility for building patria and who wished to hide their cowardice. The violent conflict of the Motín de Urriola emphatically demonstrated the courage of some and the cowardice and fear of others. Apart from Martín and Rafael, the men reacted in comical, non-masculine ways. They were all words but no action. Through the Motín de Urriola, the story illustrated the cowardice of the upper classes, which Blest Gana underscored via don Dámaso and his son Agustín’s inaction and profound personal consternation. At the Encina’s, the only one who remained calm was Leonor, exhorting her family “without affectation or fear to remain calm” [sin afectación ni miedo a serenarse (MR 401)]. Upon learning that a revolution had erupted in Santiago, the paterfamilias, with great alarm and amazement, had thrown “his consort’s petticoat” [las enaguas de su consorte (MR 400)] over his shoulders. In true Machiavellian style, and to our great pleasure, Blest Gana’s stripped don Dámaso of his masculinity and made him wear women’s clothing. Agustín’s reaction was no better, as the young aristocrat also made a fool of himself. Like father like son. They loudly prayed the rosary, or devoutly chanted an “Ora pro nobis” (MR 410), each time they heard cries of victory from the Motín de Urriola participants. Amador Molina, a political opportunist, became even more so as the momentum started to swing away from the idealistic liberals to the more heavily armed conservatives. He hid throughout the combat. He defended the revolutionaries at first, and then, later on, when the insurrection was quelled, he was all “for the government” [en favor del gobierno (MR 408)]. David H. J. Morgan has stated that the image of “the warrior still seems to be a key symbol of masculinity. In statues, heroic paintings, comic books and popular films the gendered connotations are inescapable” (166). From this perspective, Blest Gana’s young insurgents were heroic warriors. They fought because part of Chile wanted a new nation, not the rigid and conservative one governed by General Bulnes and his successor, Montt. By rebelling, the young members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad sought an ideal condottiere, to echo the reading of Machiavelli’s ideal ruler by Gramsci. The Motín de Urriola took the story into the streets of Santiago that April of 1851 and recounted the final bittersweet chapter in Martín and Rafael’s noble friendship. After losing the love of his life, Rafael committed himself to pursuing the right type of love, that of his nation. As Araya has argued, Rafael was not consistent in his political

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ambitions; he took part in the Motín de Urriola because he had failed in love (2000, 34). Nonetheless, as he meandered through love and despair, back to love, and finally to tragic loss, Rafael always maintained his strong liberal views. Sensing that Rafael would finally join them, the Sociedad wrote to encourage him to channel his despair into a fight for something constructive, a better nation. Unlike the woman he had loved, the love of patria could be trusted. As Rafael offered his heart to the nation, his compatriots promised him that “la patria no te engañará” [the motherland will not deceive you (MR 377)]. Before the battle, Martín wrote to Leonor to express his passion and devotion for her. In the past, Martín had exchanged letters with Edelmira, his sister, and his friend Rafael. In this most crucial time of his life he found himself writing to a woman he had idolized and idealized. Like don Quijote in Sierra Morena (I, 25), Martín was addressing his own version of Dulcinea, which was part of the business of being a caballero: “for the first time he would talk about his love to the one who dominated his heart” [iba por primera vez a hablar de su amor a la que dominaba en su corazón (MR 393)]. It was no coincidence, then, that his faith in the success of his political mission was intermixed with his hope of having his love repaid. Thinking himself on the verge of defeat and probable death, he took the Machiavellian occasione of that historical circumstances to profess his love. When the fight was over, and all hope was lost for the liberals, Martín made up his mind to return to the Encina mansion. Fearlessly escaping his pursuers, he arrived to find himself face to face with the woman he loved: “The young man, who had just calmly faced the many dangers of three hours of combat, became discomfited in the young lady’s presence” [El joven que acababa de arrostrar con serenidad los mil peligros de tres horas de combate, se turbo en presencia de aquella niña (MR 410)]. Martín entered the bedroom of the young virgin and confessed his absolute love for her. He had already offered up his warrior’s body in battle, and, like his dear friend Rafael, he had accepted that he might die. Martín was a hero of the Motín de Urriola. Blest Gana’s characters had polarizing reactions to Chile’s political turmoil, which highlighted the enmity between the conservative pelucones and the rebellious, contestatory pipiolos. Nobody seemed willing to compromise. During the Motín de Urriola, however, the story told of how the pueblo, which represented the incipient working class, remained noncommittal. Despite the Sociedad’s soaring rhetoric, the pueblo did not share their warrior-like spirit: The revolutionary leader then gave the order to attack the barracks, and the troops started to move, beginning their attack amid the clamor of the

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Wood has argued that part of the failure of the Motín de Urriola stemmed from the incapacity of the wealthy pipiolos to involve the artisans in their revolution. They “blinded themselves” to the fissures of class difference within the membership of the Sociedad de la Igualdad. Wood has characterized the revolutionaries as quixotic men, enamored of the French political processes. Individuals like Bilbao, who had promised Urriola the support of at least five thousand men, displayed “active imaginations,” wanting to provoke change in Chile in order to follow in the footsteps of the French in 1848 (220-221). Finding himself alone with his battalion and deserted by others, Colonel Urriola uttered his last words— which Blest Gana cited directly from the historians of the time— as he was felled by gun powder: “They have deceived me!” [¡Me han engañado! (MR 405)]. To paraphrase Machiavelli, the Sociedad had neither the weapons nor the following to succeed. In their attempt to overthrow the government, they ran straight up against Machiavelli’s warning: that the new prince has “all those who profit from the old system as his enemies and he has only lukewarm allies in all those who might profit from the new system” (P, 6; 94) [lo introductore ha per nimico tutti quegli che degli ordini vechi fanno bene, et ha tiepidi defensori tutti quelli che delli ordini nuovi farebbano bene (p. 382)]. Since they had failed to inspire the pueblo of Santiago to follow them, the young revolutionaries stood no chance for victory. To make matters worse, there were not enough weapons for everyone. The revolutionaries clearly had a heroic spirit but they lacked necessary organization. The young warriors had not fully considered the transition from theory to practice, from the heart to the head. For Machiavelli, access to weapons was necessary to ensure the success of any political project, especially one like the Sociedad’s attempted revolutionary coup d’état. As he said: “All armed prophets were victorious and the unarmed came to ruin” (P, 6; 94) [tutti e profeti armati

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vinsono e gli disarmati ruinorno (p. 383)]. While preparing for combat, Martín and Rafael joked about their “improvised situation as warriors” [improvisada situación de guerreros] (MR 395). Both knew, however, that they had made a solemn choice to fight in the streets of Santiago for a more equal Chilean nation: At eleven p.m. San Luis entered the room. —Everything is going according to plan— he said to Martín, —and I’m bringing our gear for battle. —Saying this, he took out two belts with a pair of pistols and two swords for each that he had hidden under a cape. —Here you are—he continued, passing Rivas a belt and a sword. —I am arming you as defender of the nation, in whose name I give you these weapons to fight for her. [A las once de la noche entró San Luis en el cuarto. —Todo marcha perfectamente— le dijo a Martín, —y aquí traigo nuestros arreos de batalla. —Diciendo esto, sacó dos cintos con un par de pistolas cada uno y dos espadas que traía ocultas bajo una capa. —Aquí tienes—prosiguió, pasando a Rivas un cinto y una espada: —te armo defensor de la patria, en cuyo nombre te entrego estas armas para que combatas por ella (MR 395)].

The young heroes’ time in the Sociedad de la Igualdad was brief, intense, brave and passionate. For Rafael, going to battle for his country was a commitment that would take away the pain and bitterness of his recently broken heart. Rafael died for the love of his nation, succumbing to the overwhelming strength of the conservative troops who wanted to maintain the status quo. Following in the footsteps of his friend, Martín threw himself into the fight with ferocious tenacity and a display of heroism and masculinity. With a sword in one hand and a pistol in the other, he mimicked the heroics of Arturo Prat and galvanized the impromptu troops with a heartfelt “Forward, men!” [¡Adelante, muchachos! (MR 404)]. About to be captured, he became fully aware that Leonor reciprocated his love for her. When asked to justify his own involvement in the revolution, he not only confessed that he had been part of the Motín but he also embraced “the liberal principles that he professed” [los principios liberales que profesaba (MR 424)]. The Motín de Urriola demonstrated, then, a deep commitment on the part of the combatants to social democracy and a challenge to hegemonic power, supported by the eruption of the Sociedad de la Igualdad. Even in defeat, Martín had become a “new leader” of the nation. In this respect, the hero

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of Blest Gana’s text predicted the socio-political challenges and quintessential defeat that would be encountered by the idealists of Allende’s times. Machiavelli had sought to inject a civic spirit through the deeds of the Romans. Blest Gana promoted his vision of patria through the creation of a flawless young man. No male character from Santiago’s financial aristocracy or the medio pelo class rose to Martín’s same heroic level. Like don Quijote, he engaged in armed struggle and kept to his strong principals even after being confronted with death. No other character emulated Martín’s comportment, not even his best friend Rafael San Luis who dishonored penniless Adelaida Molina without a care for repairing his error. In fact, he told Martín that he would not have married her under any circumstances, even after Matilde broke up with him for good. Martín, on the other hand, always performed in a gentleman-like manner. He fell head over heels for Leonor and remained steadfastly faithful, even when she was unattainable. The historic Motín de Urriola caused an irreconcilable animosity between the pelucones and the pipiolos and provided the stage for publicly testing Martín’s courage and determination. Defying the government, he demonstrated to Leonor Encina and her peers that he was a man’s man. Blest Gana gave Martín Rivas and Rafael San Luis a purpose, which was to fight for a society that would do away with exclusivism and suppression by official force, a society that would promote reform and guarantee rights to its citizens (MR 378). The echo in Allende’s quasi mythical Unidad Popular efforts is clear. In Martín, we see a type of nobility that emanated from moral strength, in the style of Dante’s nobility of the heart. From his first tertulia, he used potent rhetorical weapons to fight heroically for liberal ideas. Martín overcame the odds, became a leader, and demonstrated to his fellow countryman how to be a noble citizen-soldier like the Romans. Most of the other characters looked down on him until, like a wise Machiavellian ruler, he made himself indispensable. Intent on creating change and establishing lofty goals for his nation, Martín not only taught others how to behave like a man. He also encouraged young people to fight for the good of the nation. In this we hear an echo of the closing exhortation from Machiavelli’s Prince where he passionately quoted Petrarch: “discipline over rage will take up arms; and the battle will be short, because ancient valor in Italian hearts is not yet dead” (P, 26; 166) [Virtù contro a furore prenderà l’armi, e fia el combatter corto, che l’antico valore nelli italici cor non è ancor morto (pp. 1016-1017)].

CHAPTER THREE FROM DURANTE LA RECONQUISTA TO THE COUP

Chile: Yesterday and Today At the age of sixty-seven, Blest Gana reached further back in time than he had in Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera to narrate the consequences of that memorable 18th September 1810, when Chile formed a Junta de Gobierno to refute Napoleon Bonaparte and to pledge allegiance to the Spanish king Ferdinand VII. This decision, made among criollos with various and mostly differing political views, marked the country’s first step towards independence and represented a remarkable example of civic unity in the far away southern territory. Durante la Reconquista recorded Chile’s attachment to Spain together with the nation’s antagonism toward its original colonizer, noting in the process the passivity of some and the passion and antagonism of others. Writing to Barros Arana on 8th May 1897, Blest Gana commented that he eagerly awaited the public reaction to his latest novel and confessed that “as I wrote, I lived in Chile through my imagination” [me ha hecho vivir en Chile por la imaginación mientras lo componía (Epistolario, 796; 915)]. The reaction of history would not disappoint him. Partly because actual historical figures participate in the novel’s construction of patria, Blest Gana’s accomplishment is understood by Chileans to be the definitive historical account of the country as it was becoming a nation. Not surprisingly, a hundred-and-thirteen years after its publication, Durante la Reconquista was chosen to commemorate Chile’s bicentennial in 2010 with a brand-new release. Edited and with a prologue and notes by Iván Jaksiü and Juan Durán Luzio, Blest Gana’s masterpiece was hailed by Editorial Universitaria as “The historical novel of the Bicentennial” [La novela histórica del Bicentenario]. In the “Preliminary Words” [Liminar] poet and academician Pedro Lastra called it “the most important historical novel of the nineteenth century and perhaps of our entire literary process” [la novela histórica más importante del siglo XIX y tal vez de nuestro entero proceso literario DR 11].

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Machiavelli’s key concepts, particularly the transient nature of fortuna, featured prominently in the characters and events of Durante la Reconquista. One discovers, for instance, that its protagonists were keenly aware of the fact “that war, like fortune, is inconstant” [que la guerra, como la fortuna, es inconstante (DR 177)]. In the political circumstances that preceded “La Reconquista,” Alfredo Jocelyn-Holt has detected a flavor of fortuna, which propelled the criollos to plan and to act “with a curious mixture of prudence and improvisation” [con una curiosa mezcla de prudencia e improvisación (2011, 220)]. In essence, the text distinguished heroes from cowards, patriots from indecisive or royalist criollos. In the midst of these highly unsettling and ambivalent times, stood revolutionary Manuel Rodríguez Erdoíza (1785-1818). Blest Gana called him a tribuno, an allusion both to his work in Chile’s brief government and the work of the Roman tribunes who represented the people. In Machiavelli’s conception, these men of virtù kept people’s inevitable wickedness at bay through measures that curbed personal ambition and thus fostered harmony between the patricians and the plebeians. Because they had prestige, the tribunes acted like intermediaries in the Senate, where they “could curb the insolence of the nobles” (D, I, 3; 29) [obviare alla insolenzia de’ nobili (p.115)]. In La Reconquista, not one man measured up to the patriotic standards of Manuel Rodríguez. In Don Quijote, the knight errant also emphasized to his niece and housekeeper that he followed the example of the most worthy caballeros; so, not all caballeros were equals. Mimicking his discourse on Arms. vs. Letters, he claimed that there were feeble knights who lived at court and there were those, like himself, who dared to face a hostile world. While the courtiers did not risk hunger, thirst or any type of hardship, real knights fought giants with intrepid hearts and fierce dedication. For that reason: it would be right and proper for every prince to esteem more highly the second, or I should say the first kind of knights errant… some among them have been the salvation of not only one kingdom, but many (II, 6; 492). [y sería razón que no hubiese príncipe que no estimase en más esta segunda, o por mejor decir, primera especie de caballeros andantes… tal ha habido entre ellos, que ha sido la salud no sólo de un reino, sino de muchos (pp. 578-579)].

In his Florentine Histories, Machiavelli proclaimed that “civil strife and internal hostilities, and the effects these have produced” (Preface, 1031) [civili discordie e delle intrinseche inimicizie, e degli effetti che da quelle sono nati (p. 280)], were essential topics of history. He had no

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patience for authors who related historic events without including specifics on the irremediable feuds and conflicts involved in achieving political success. For him, what counted were the fine details of history because “if anything in history delights or teaches, it is what is presented in full detail” (Preface, 1031) [se niuna cosa diletta o insegna nella storia è quella che particularmente si descrive (p 281)]. Mark Salber Phillips has asserted that Machiavelli’s historical distance in his Florentine Histories also allowed him to solve the conundrum of how to approach the powerful Medici. Essentially, they had injured him and yet, they were permitting him to return to the world he loved by writing a history of Florence. Indeed, the Medici represented a major dilemma for Machiavelli; they had caused his downfall but they could potentially support a new political career, a challenging circumstance that John Najemy has analyzed (1982, 553). According to Phillips, the farther back that Machiavelli could go as he dug into the roots of Florence, the more he could rewrite and reshape the accounts of earlier humanists to his own theoretical viewpoint (25-26). Durante la Reconquista echoed Machiavelli’s conception of history in its declaration that historical accounts consisted of “The glory or infamy that human actions leave behind that later on take the shape of history” [Las glorias o las infamias, que van dejando tras de sí las acciones humanas con que se forma después la historia (DR 117-118)]. Blest Gana’s probe of the impact and the reasons behind Spain’s second conquest of Chile was a monumental testament to nation building. Jaksiü and Durán Luzio have underscored how Durante la Reconquista, written about a century after the events it recounted, allowed Blest Gana to visualize how the conflicts of that time would anticipate larger historical conflicts and thus lead citizens to contemplate their nation’s past, both its ruptures and its traditions (13). Additionally, on a personal level Blest Gana needed to vindicate himself from unfounded accusations. The magnitude of his project proved to his detractors that he was Chilean at heart and that he had maintained an unrelenting interest in his country’s affairs. He demonstrated not only his pride in his country of birth. He also reinforced his status as a representative of Chile in Paris, on the city’s avenues, at its cultural events. To paraphrase Alone, he had put down roots in Paris, but those grew into a fundamentally Chilean presence (1940, 176). The true patriots of la Reconquista put aside selfish concerns to fight and reconquer Chile from the Spaniards. For that reason, they were the main target of the royalist governmental officials in Santiago; they had the subservient loyalists, they needed to annihilate the rebels. In a tone reminiscent of Machiavelli’s Discourses, the powerful Spaniards were intent on oppressing the Chilean patriots, and they, in turn, were intent on

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not being oppressed (D, I, 4; 30) (pp. 1159-1160). Blest Gana mesmerized his readers by bringing them into close contact with the great risks faced by the patriots as they struggled for a new nation. From Chile’s independence moment in 1810, the patriots were in conflict among themselves and often held irreconcilable opinions about the direction of their territory. A sector of Chileans in fact remained staunch royalists who pledged alligeance to Spain. Blest Gana made abundantly clear that the reconquest was accomplished with their complicity. Speaking as a realist and leaving no room for suppositions, Blest Gana portrayed the selfish materialistic concerns of Chileans who were “patriots” in name only. Overall, the citizens of the Chilean kingdom, in Blest Gana’s view, simply did not conceive of their emerging nation in the same terms. This diversity of opinion cut across all economic sectors. Many of the criollos from the so-called buenas familias of Santiago, along with people from the pueblo, did not put patria first. They chose to pledge allegiance to Spain because, by failing to comply, —and by being loyal to uncertainties—they would have much to lose and, they surmised, little to gain. Related to this, Guillermo Gotschlich has asserted that the ambiguous responses to Chile’s socio-political crisis in Blest Gana created an intimate portrait of daily life and a vibrant background against which the author could portray his characters’ specific circumstances (1991, 31). While the Spaniards stripped the patriots of their lands and confiscated their properties, the lukewarm criollos became willing accomplices of the Reconquista. They did not waver in any way as they abandoned their compatriots to their grim fates and warmly welcomed the oppressor. Machiavelli once said that in Florence, when a potent leader called on the people to rise up in arms in the name of liberty, “he got no reply from anybody” (FH, VIII, 8; 1393) [non gli fu risposto da alcuno (p. 708)]. The years 1814 to 1817 were an anguishing time in Chile. When the Spaniards repositioned themselves in their former colony, there were few if any local heroes to oppose them. Blest Gana’s account of this period and its lack of heroism was masterful. Overall, there was animosity and disunity among the struggling Chilean patriots, which provided a fortuitous Machiavellian occasione for Spaniards to recover a territory that the French had briefly usurped. With the aid of royalist troops from the Americas, Spain in fact successfully reclaimed the Chilean nation and turned it back into the colony it once was. Napoleon’s setbacks in Europe—even before his historical defeat at Waterloo on 18th June 1815—had facilitated the return of Ferdinand VII to power in Spain. Once back in control, the monarch desperately wanted to recuperate his Latin American possessions and in a very calculated fashion sent his troops to those territories that were most

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susceptible to being retaken: New Granada and Chile. Indeed, amid the peninsulares’ clamors for reconquest, Chileans appeared stupefied by the political chaos, unable to coalesce around a unified sentiment that would propel them forward to fight for patria. Jay Kinsbruner has demonstrated that Bernardo O’Higgins, Chile’s first Director Supremo from 1817-1823, was painfully aware of Spain’s advance into Chilean territory in 1814. He was deeply concerned about political strife among the patriots but, above all, he was worried about the sorry state of his own troops. For O’Higgins, “without proper clothing, food, and horses, the army appeared incapable of fighting” (1968, 69). In Durante la Reconquista, Blest Gana drew the heroic image of O’Higgins based on meticulous research into Diego Barros Arana’s Historia Jeneral [General History], which has been discussed at greater length by William Wilson. Elsewhere, he followed La Conquista española [Spanish Conquest] by the Amunátegui brothers, Miguel Luis and Gregorio Víctor, as the basis for some of his descriptions of Rodríguez (102).1 Blest Gana’s chronicle of the Chilean patriots’ defiance of Spain expressed how the nation’s development was highly contentious. The process itself was onerous, it engendered irrevocable divisions among the oligarchic Chilean families that had stood up to Spain. From a Machiavellian perspective, Spain’s recovery of The Captaincy General of Chile (La Capitanía General de Chile), resulted therefore not so much from the fall of Napoleon as it did from the discord within the Chilean oligarchy. This conflict, according to Mary Felstiner, was made more severe by the elite’s obsession with social position, with their concern for economic and social status. It was not enough just to be a prestigious family. Laws of mayorazgo (legacies), dowries, and other economic issues exposed these families to disputes over wealth and land litigations and had a debilitating impact on their notions of patria. As Felstiner has demonstrated, “The archives abound with such disputes over inheritance among family members” (1976, 61).2 Analyzing Barros Arana’s influence 1

W. Wilson details how thoroughly Blest Gana followed Barros Arana’s account of the Spanish reconquering of Chile. In the text, Blest Gana made sure to include, among others, the defeat at Rancagua; the imprisonment in November 1814, and massacre of patriots in February, 1815; and the Chilean ambush in Melipilla, southwest of Santiago, in 1817. 2 Felstiner describes, for instance, the significantly dissimilar destinies of two branches of the Larraín family in Chile: “Through income from the family business, dowries and legacies, Santiago Larraín and his descendants had acquired some of the most valuable properties in Santiago province. He established entails (called mayorazgos) which were passed on inalienable to the next generations. His

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on Chilean historiography, Gertrude Yeager has noted that, with the exception of two fundamental political groups, the rocistas (rozistas)3 and the Carreristas (followers of José Miguel Carrera), the patriots appeared apathetic to ideas of revolution since they were so deeply engrossed in personal and familiar materialistic concerns (107). To be sure, in Durante la Reconquista, the well-to-do families advanced by inheritance and also by trade: “those who did not own a country estate put up a shop. The wealthiest of them had big stores” [el que no tenía fundo ponía tienda. Los más acaudalados tenían almacenes (DR 49)]. At the back of their shops, the narration elaborated, these lackadaisical individuals, uninterested in chivalric causes, but nonetheless “bragging about an imaginary heroism” [jactándose de un heroísmo imaginario (DR 50)], would gather daily to pass the time and gossip, assuring themselves that they would not risk their lives. The novel’s unlikely protagonist was Abel Malsira, a brooding young man who hesitated, perhaps for too long, to show his love for patria. Worse, he fell head over heels in love with the wrong woman, a beautiful goda (a Spanish woman). In patriotic purpose, he stood far apart from his father, don Alejandro Malsira, a lionhearted patrician who became a target for the newly installed Spanish government. Idle and lacking in virtù, during the vulnerable early days of the Spanish Reconquista, Abel preferred to pursue Violante de Alarcón, a gorgeous, intelligent, and materialistic young widow who had arrived in Chile with her then husband, “a descendent of the great poet, the distinguished author of The Truth Can’t Be Trusted” [descendiente del gran poeta, del autor insigne de La verdad sospechosa (DR 87)]. It is no coincidence that the main theme of Juan Ruiz de Alarcón’s 1634 play is mendacity; don García, the protagonist, became a consummate liar, building a network of deceit from which he could no longer escape. Like don García in La verdad sospechosa, Violante devised ways to cope with her unbearable and precarious situation as an attractive, young widow in a foreign land. At various points, the story meticulously described Violante as a donna di grandson solicited a title of Castile, and his great-grandson, at the age of three, became the Marqués de Casa Larraín in 1790. In contrast, the progenitor of the Larraín Salas branch, Martín José, arrived in Chile almost fifty years after Santiago Larraín. He and his sons bought some land, but their fortune, like that of most firstand second-generation Basque immigrants, was based on an import-export business managed jointly by them. The Larraín Salas assets were depleted by familial and external circumstances” (61). 3 These were the followers of Juan Martínez de Rozas (1758-1813), a member of the Junta de Gobierno of 18th September 1810.

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virtù, in the Machiavellian sense, fully in possession of “the grain of Machiavellian intelligence that exists in the brain of every sharp woman” [el grano de inteligencia maquiavélica que existe en el cerebro de toda mujer sagaz (DR 259)]. Abel was finally thrust into the patriotic fold when he took up arms to avenge the unjust death of don Alejandro Malsira, who had been betrayed by envious criollos who themselves aspired to the Malsiras’ social status. As a complement to Abel’s tentative patriotic stances stood the complex and romantic figure of Spanish officer Hermógenes de Laramonte, a former suitor of Violante. Physically, he was as beautiful as El ideal de un calavera’s Abelardo Manríquez, and he certainly wore his uniform as proudly and gallantly as the Chilean húsar. Because Blest Gana conceded angelic looks to a young man only at a very high cost—it usually entailed complete unhappiness and at times certain death for a character—he portrayed the young officer in a rather sympathetic light. Predictably, Laramonte would soon become closely acquainted with tragedy and despair. He was a ruined Spaniard who had understood early on the hardships of loving while being poor. Perhaps due to all the ups and downs in his own life, Laramonte was a remarkably compassionate peninsular. He did not possess the fervor or the hatred of many of his compatriots. Unlike merciless Vicente Bruno, for instance, the handsome officer was a tolerant man. In fact, he was inspired by quixotic ideals: “animated by a chivalric spirit of tolerance, he recognized deep within his soul the justice underneath the aspirations of the patriots” [animado de un caballeresco espíritu de tolerancia, reconocía en el fondo de su alma la justicia de las aspiraciones de los patriotas (DR 88)]. Laramonte had an “affair” with Violante through passionate flirting while her husband was alive. Unexpectedly, a devastating bout of pneumonia took her husband and made Violante recover her senses: “It was not the same thing to sacrifice the descendent of the great poet… as it was to sacrifice her honor, her rank, and her future” [No era lo mismo sacrificar al descendiente del gran poeta… que sacrificar su honra de ella, su rango y su porvenir (DR 87)]. Like tragic Romeo, Laramonte himself fell seriously in love with his own Juliet. In this case, she was Trinidad Malsira, a member of one of the most prominent patriot families. For his love, Laramonte earned the bitter enmity of don Alejandro, Abel and Trinidad’s father. In Durante la Reconquista, the true Chilean spirit was emblematized by Rodríguez and Filiberto Cámara, one an actual historical figure and the other a fictional one. Much more than Abel Malsira, the two Chilean patriots were instrumental in opposing the wishes of Ferdinand VII. According to Jaksiü and Durán Luzio, Blest Gana depicted the bravery of

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Rodríguez and Cámara in order to provide a strong example of how different sectors of society contributed to Chilean independence (14). Manuel Rodríguez, Chile’s first guerrillero, is in fact a mythical figure in Chile. Blest Gana described him in a manner that would instill awe in his readers: handsome, brave, charming, and educated. There is no doubt that Durante la Reconquista greatly contributed to the creation of Rodríguez’ colossal persona, helping his heroics to become permanently enshrined in Chile’s popular culture. Like a genuine nineteenth-century don Quijote, Manuel Rodríguez was ready to do whatever it took to save the Chilean patria: More daring than most of his contemporaries, Rodríguez condemned the official policies of apparent obedience to the king of Spain. For him, people would take up arms, not with the hypocritical pretext that they were doing so to preserve the pearls of the crown of the Indies for the Bourbons, which were coveted by Bonaparte. Instead, people would take up arms to follow a frank and electrifying cry of independence and freedom. The cause of those who oppressed America for centuries would not, in his view, ignite enthusiasm in people. Another cause would inspire people to rise up. Another cause would exalt people’s spirits to the paroxysm of sacrifice, which is necessary to face the dangers of the fight. It would inspire people to abandon their material interests and wholeheartedly and deliberately take up the cause of their patria, family, affection, tranquility and existence. [Más osado que la generalidad de sus contemporáneos, Rodríguez condenaba la política de aparente obediencia al rey de España. Se debían empuñar las armas, no con el pretexto hipócrita de conservar a los Borbones las perlas de su corona de Indias, codiciadas por Bonaparte, sino al grito franco y electrizador de independencia y patria libre. No era la causa de los que habían oprimido a la América durante siglos, lo que podía, a su juicio, encender el entusiasmo, infundir el valor de la resistencia y exaltar los ánimos, hasta el paroxismo del sacrificio, como se necesitaba, para arrostrar los peligros de la lucha, abandonar los intereses materiales y llevar con ánimo entero y corazón sereno a los pies de la patria, familia, afectos, tranquilidad y existencia (DR 135)].

Rodríguez stood out as a discerning, perceptive, and loyal individual who would also enthrall an audience with Machiavellian chameleon-like pirouettes. Machiavelli noted that success was granted to those who could present themselves in spectacular fashion and change according to the variations of time. By contrast, those who remained rigid and unchanging would eventually break under pressure and lose their power. In the case of Rodríguez, he fundamentally changed his persona according to what the

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occasion required. He was a smooth operator who would either seek to be noticed or lost in the crowd. Toward the beginning of the novel, in a dazzling maneuver, with Violante de Alarcón, Luisa Bustos and Abel Malsira standing immobilized, Rodríguez acted with precision and saved their lives. He quickly jumped into the deadly path of stampeding horses that threatened to run down the threesome: “The shouts of horror then became a spontaneous and enthusiastic applause” [Los gritos de terror se convirtieron entonces en aplausos espontáneos y entusiastas (DR 59)]. On another occasion, the young tribuno, finding himself at the Malsiras’ wealthy hacienda, chose to hide in the open when Laramonte and the nefarious royalist captain San Bruno approached the farm house to conduct a search. Pretending to be Pedro Carreño, a drunk peon who supposedly worked for don Alejandro Malsira, Manuel Rodríguez was publicly exposed and lashed to a foot trap so that he could safely recover from his drunken spell, according to the family patriarch’s explanation to the peninsulares. Disempowered by Laramonte, San Bruno could not therefore fulfill his sadistic wishes to physically punish “Carreño” as he would have liked. As everyone else stood by nervously, “Rodríguez had resolved to declare who he was before submitting himself to the infamous test proposed by San Bruno” [Rodríguez estaba resuelto a descubrirse antes que someterse a la prueba infamante propuesta por San Bruno (DR 187)]. Slowly narrated, the unnerving episode eloquently described the arrojo, the living-on-the-edge aspect of Rodríguez and the patriots, traits that Latin America would later see in the likes of El Che Guevara in the twentieth century. Manuel Rodríguez was certain that he was fighting for a burgeoning Chilean nation. He saw it as his patriotic duty “to reconstruct this building that has crumbled before us” [reconstruir el edificio que se nos ha desmoronado (DR 68)]. Rodríguez blamed the patriots for refusing to reconcile their views on the country’s direction. For him, the response to the Reconquista was action not rhetoric. For that reason, before heading to Mendoza, the famous fugitive stated that he had wanted to know “the state of mind in Santiago” [el estado de los ánimos en Santiago (DR 68)]. He told Abel that the Spanish understood the state of disarray in Chile and took advantage of the indecisiveness and disunity of the criollos: “our crazy arguments, our criminal rivalries, prepared their invasion and victory” [nuestras locas discusiones, nuestras rivalidades criminales, le tenían preparada la invasión y la victoria (DR 69)]. As Kinsbruner has noted, while the patriots were sheltered on the other side of the Andes, Rodríguez risked his life by leading the guerrilla struggle against the reconquistadores from Spain (1968, 103). While in action, he became a

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living legend, a dangerous individual, a man Machiavelli would have called an inconveniente. Rodríguez emblematized what Antonio Gramsci, in his reading of Machiavelli’s Prince, considered a hallmark of a leader, the prototype of a mythical, “ideal condottiere” (126).4 Following Gramsci, we can say that Rodríguez, was a prince-ruler who turned himself into “the people whose consciousness and whose expression he becomes and feels himself to be” (126). Keenly aware of the rapid decay in Chile, Rodríguez had to act without hesitation to withstand the effects of fortuna, a term described by J. G. A. Pocock in The Machiavellian Moment as “the force which directs such events and thus symbolizes pure, uncontrolled, and unlegitimated contingency” (156). The mythical hero dealt with, and responded to, the contingencies of unforeseen circumstances with a sheer force of virtù. In fact, he seemed to savor obstacles so that he could better build patria. Cámara was a man of the people, a prototype of the roto, (a member of the Chilean lower classes), and, like Rodríguez, an arrojado (bold/fearless). According to Álvaro Kaempfer, the young man spoke an unintelligible subaltern language that Blest Gana, like a ventriloquist, translated into his historical fiction as an official, hegemonic, language of the patriots. Cámara’s diffuse presence, unusual language, and historiographical discourse provided political legitimacy to his historical representation in Blest Gana’s fiction (149). The narration emphasized that, as a mestizo, Cámara responded to patriotic fervor in the only way he knew, with violence. He did not hesitate to kill if it meant advancing the cause of liberty or settling a score against anyone who shed patriot blood, as when he took vengeance upon an unsuspecting Spanish soldier for an infamous massacre of imprisoned Chilean criollo patriots: Cámara was not an assassin. If by an act of unprecedented daring, he had killed the guard at the square, it was to avenge the infamous murder of his landlord and that of other sad victims, barbarically sacrificed. [Cámara no era un asesino. Si por acto de arrojo inaudito, había dado muerte al centinela de la plaza, eso fue por vengar el infame asesinato de su patrón y de tantos otros infelices, bárbaramente sacrificados en la cárcel (DR 556)].

4

Susan A. Ashley reveals how, in spite of the centuries separating them, the lives of Machiavelli and Gramsci shared many common elements. These include the fact that their philosophical thought developed during chaotic times and the misfortune of being eclipsed politically when government “changed hands” (303).

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All in all, he did not rationalize a way out of conflict when it came to defending Chile against the godos (Spaniards). He understood that patria came first. Cámara acted—or reacted—according to the circumstances that were presented to him. In this regard, his bold, fearless actions made the efforts of spiritless patriots seem pointless. In Machiavellian terms, Cámara understood that, in moments of vulnerability, individuals per force had to use necessary cruelty. In the text, fellow patriots did not consider him a mere assassin, but a justiciero (someone who avenged social injustices). Manuel Rodríguez and Filiberto Cámara acted in Machiavellian fashion but they also struck a quixotic pose when they refused to renounce their ideals or when they risked almost certain death in those instances where they set out to amend what they perceived to be an injustice. Their decisively altruistic view of patria strengthened their resolve to forge ahead and fight for their nation. In stark contrast, there was don Jaime Bustos, Marqués de Peña Parda, a coward who adhered to the reactionary Spanish colonial social structures. Knowing that, against his wishes, his family had helped Cámara to avoid the Spanish officials, don Jaime attempted to convince his female relatives to turn the young man in to the royal authorities. Extremely exasperated that the women in his family would want to protect a roto—a man totally insignificant to him—don Jaime exclaimed: Just keep quiet! Don’t say a word! So long as that caballero Cámara is not disturbed. What do you care if we are all ruined? That I become ruined! Me, an innocent bystander! What great relatives you are! [¡Cállense, no más! ¡No digan nada! Con tal que el caballero Cámara no sea molestado. ¿Qué les importa a ustedes que nos arruinemos todos? ¡Que me arruine yo, que soy en esto inocente como un cordero! ¡Bonitas parientas son ustedes! (DR 558)].

In Suaves cenizas del olvido [Soft Ashes of Oblivion] (2000), Brian Loveman and Elizabeth Lira have analyzed how, during Chile’s formation as a nation, the criollos upheld social order by consciously compromising; that is, by agreeing to forget and let go. As an example, Loveman and Lira have looked at Blest Gana’s Durante la Reconquista from the perspective of an earlier political and national reconciliation, a fact that demonstrates how well the exiled author understood the mores and political behaviors of his Chilean counterparts. They have noted that the Chilean author has become so deeply embedded in Chile’s collective memory that his own persona has almost been forgotten—or rather has become indistinguishable

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from the very history he has helped to narrate. Blest Gana is an integral but somewhat displaced part of Chile’s national heritage, designated as an official “must-read” that the government year after year imposes on its citizens. Although Blest Gana is required reading at school, Loveman and Lira have observed that Chileans do not truly absorb his texts, failing to grasp their deep psychological, historical, and sociological wisdom (9). Using Blest Gana as a source and example, however, Loveman and Lira have extended their analysis of political reconciliation to the level of a national dialogue starting at the country’s inception. Because this conversation had the potential to cause social disorder, something widely feared by Chileans, its purpose of “curing the social body” [para sanar el cuerpo social (9)] required suppressing memories, rationalizing, and achieving balance through the socio-political condition “of apparent oblivion, judicial oblivion, (and) imposed oblivion” [del olvido aparente, del olvido jurídico, (y) del olvido impuesto] (9). Erasing hurtful episodes in their history in an effort to foster harmony among the citizenry, the political establishment, therefore, could not truly confront the Machiavellian verità effettuale of the Chilean experience. On the contrary, government officials became experts in “drawing the curtain of oblivion, creating legal pardons through amnesties and exonerations” [correr el velo del olvido, construyendo el perdón jurídico, mediante amnistías e indultos] (9).5 As the penultimate Spanish governor and Captain General of the Chilean Kingdom, General Mariano Osorio, the Royal Governor, had the massive burden and monumental task of diminishing the impact of the Spanish invasion in the eyes of the population. In Durante la Reconquista, General Osorio followed the rhetoric of conciliation in its supreme form. He was characterized as an august Iago-like figure, with a fixed, prompt, perpetual “generous, conciliatory smile” [sonrisa de conciliación generosa] on his lips (DR 47). He appeared very pleased with himself and with his decisions. After all, he was the unquestionable Spanish hero of the Desastre de Rancagua (Disaster/ Battle of Rancagua) (1814), having triumphed over disorganized patriots who could not resist the disciplined troops under the direction of the peninsulares. Publicly, governor Osorio 5

An egregious case of conscious oblivion took place a few years ago with Martín Rivas. A National Television channel took it upon itself to reproduce Blest Gana’s novel in the form of a telenovela. The screenwriters changed the basic plot of the novel so much that it appeared as if the only part remaining of Blest Gana was the title of the telenovela itself, Martín Rivas. One wonders why the executive producers of the telenovela felt that people could not deal with the verità effettuale of the nineteenth-century novel.

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paid lip service to political reconciliation while privately he maintained a tight grip on the unruly patriots. In point of fact, Durante la Reconquista gave grave evidence of the peninsulares’ hypocritical gesture of rapprochement toward the Chilean elite. The true patriots never once believed Spanish governor Osorio’s outward gestures of armistice toward the politically compromised criollos who had fled Santiago. In a manner similar to the political repression endured by Chileans in the nineteenseventies and eighties, characters in Durante la Reconquista suffered under the Spaniard’s stern civic policies. Asked by Manuel Rodríguez about Osorio’s character, for example, Abel Malsira innocently replied that he seemed like a fine man, one who had solemnly promised that no patriots would be harmed if they returned to Santiago. Rodríguez replied to Abel’s guileless remark in a terse and ironic tone: “And that’s why he will not let anybody leave (Santiago) without a passport. That is one of his methods of conciliation” [Y por eso no deja salir a nadie (de Santiago) sin pasaporte, es una de sus medidas de conciliación (DR 100)]. Osorio’s leadership put a bridle on citizens, imposing a variety of regulations and constraining measures, including reestablishment of the Inquisition and the so-called “tribunales de vindicación” [Vindication tribunals] in which patriots had to account for their past behaviors against the Spanish monarchy (Jocelyn-Holt 2011, 262). Just as Machiavelli had condemned the highly political role of the Church, in dividing his patria, Blest Gana called out the atrophied Spanish and Chilean clergy for fiercely cleaving to religious practices from a bygone era. During the brief and convoluted Patria Vieja, the Church clung tightly to the monarchy and to the royalist agenda. It refused to heed the voices that declared the end of the Spanish reign. The clergy eagerly embraced the return of its allies in 1814. In a mockery of a Thanksgiving mass for the restoration of the Spanish Crown, a fat and eloquent Dominican priest conducted an elaborate service praising the intercession of heaven in Spain’s triumph over Chile: the Virgin of the Rosary had descended from Heaven to inspire the glorious conquerors, crowning the illustrious reconquest of the Chilean kingdom. [la Virgen del Rosario había bajado del cielo a inspirar al glorioso vencedor la insigne hazaña con que había coronado la reconquista del reino (DR 35)].

Juxtaposing the nervousness of the conquerors with the malaise of the conquered, Blest Gana depicted the dispiritedness, the air of sadness that

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permeated the Chilean territory. The portrait of Santiago was painted in somber tones, as if the city itself was mourning Chile’s sense of “inconsolable patriotism” [patriotismo desconsolado (DR 30)]. Describing a mostly passive, fractured, criollo elite, Blest Gana chronicled the Reconquista as the second chapter in Chile’s national drama; the first had been the heroic Desastre de Rancagua, a total defeat considered in a positive light by the author. This was a wretched episode, a blood bath for Chileans who did not have adequate means or expertise to defend their land from oppressors. For the narrator, however, the heroic efforts and the deaths of so many Chileans had an opposite effect, “turning a defeat into one of the most brilliant pages of Chilean history” [convertir una derrota en una de las más brillantes páginas de la historia chilena (DR 30)]. Remarkably, and characteristic of Chilean history, Blest Gana contributed to a narration of national identity that espoused the uniquely Chilean trait of applauding and commemorating defeats, such as the oxymoronically celebrated naval defeat of the Combate Naval de Iquique (Naval Combat in the port of Iquique) that took place on 21st May, 1879.6 From his extensive reading of the ancients and his own experience in contemporary affairs, Machiavelli knew of the vulnerabilities involved in establishing a new government and went to great lengths to comment on what worked and, more important, what did not work when a new ruler became head of state. Following Machiavelli, the fateful Desastre de Rancagua proved that the patriots were unprepared for battle against such a formidable army and also brought out into the open the bitter enmity between O’Higgins and José Miguel Carrera, Chilean head of state from 1810 to 1814, during the tenuous years of the Patria Vieja. Carrera stormed into the first presidency of Chile in 1811, not even attempting to say that he would hold the Capitanía de Chile only until the Spaniards returned to claim it back. On the contrary, he boldly installed a new government for a new nation. Machiavelli would have argued that Carrera was initially favored by fortuna: He was young, handsome, and intrepid, qualities that gave him the impetus to proceed without even calculating the outcomes of his actions ahead of time. Carrera, like a lion, defended his progressive ideals and gained many followers who saw Spain’s control over Chile as socially and politically stifling. As Felstiner’s work has highlighted, most of these criollos were wealthy, but they did not possess nobility titles or own vast amounts of land. With the help of a branch of 6

This naval combat was part of the War of the Pacific, 1879-1883. Captain Arturo Prat, commander of the corvette Esmeralda, fighting on behalf of Chile jumped onto monitor Huáscar, an enemy ship that belonged to Peru. After advancing and killing an enemy officer, Prat was shot and killed.

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the Larraín family, Carrera, by 1811, had done away with conservative sectors of Congress. He found himself, therefore, in a position to institute radical changes without the consent of Spain, a fact that “amounted to undeclared independence” (1976, 70). Carrera and his revolutionary followers, however, did not perceive that strong resistance to political newness was starting to grow among the titled, conservative criollos who themselves had little to gain from a total break with Spain. Machiavelli believed that, to negotiate effectively, successful rulers had to use the maneuvers of the beast. Following classical tradition, the preferred beasts were the fox and the lion: “the lion cannot defend itself from traps and the fox cannot protect itself from wolves” (P, 18; 134) [el Lione non si difende da’ lacci, la volpe non si difende da’ lupi (p. 757)]. During his short tenure as President, Carrera roared like a lion, demonstrating to others that he could take the initiative necessary for breaking away from an archaic colonial heritage. On the other hand, he lacked the skills of the fox, another element necessary for Machiavelli’s ideal ruler. Carrera failed to recognize or to counter the stiff resistance from the elite families who challenged and generated negative press against him and his relatives. Had he taken the time to persuade the conservative elite that their private assets would remain untouched—a must-do for Machiavelli—Carrera would have put himself in a position to promote the enlightened idea that independence was the best option. Machiavelli “stresses the disadvantages of acting only like a lion: ferociously but without the conoscere of foxes,” to quote Erica Benner (199). By behaving only like a lion, Carrera failed to see the snares. Having participated in Rancagua, and having felt its overwhelming vanquishing of patriotic hope, mayor Robles and Cámara narrated the attitudes of O’Higgins and Carrera during the Desastre de Rancagua. As Kaempfer has observed, the defeat in Rancagua allowed Blest Gana to interweave an historical event with an oral epic that was narrated by subaltern groups (146). These two heroes were marginalized but virile and their mere presence inspired patriotism in a dormant society. They had what it took to liberate a conquered land: guts, bravado, and an unconditional love for patria. Robles, in spite of his lack of formal education and intellectual abilities, was a courageous man: His ideas were as scarce as his vocabulary. He had a naïve belief in his own importance, a fanatic cult for his patria, that new goddess of the time, which had come to replace the far away image of the king. [Sus ideas eran escasas como era reducido su vocabulario. Tenía una creencia ingenua en su importancia, un culto fanático por la patria, esa

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In contrast with the elite criollos and the internal enmities of their class, Robles and Cámara were unselfish and their hearts belonged to their country. Their actions were embellished by chance and forcefulness, by instinct and strength, by fortuna and virtù. The two men did anything it took to save the nation; each one of their fearless actions not only dramatized their personal intrepidness and virility but also underscored the indecisiveness of the royalist criollos, torn by social and materialistic concerns. Both Robles and Cámara came into contact with O’Higgins, who was portrayed in the novel in a glorious light. As they described the turbulent atmosphere of the battle, Robles and Cámara emphasized that the patriot troops were completely outnumbered by the royal ones. They also indirectly revealed the animosity and discrepancies between O’Higgins and Carrera’s commands during the crucial Desastre de Rancagua (DR 125). Here, Blest Gana reproduced a historical perspective of two Herculean figures whose legacies still divide Chileans to this day. No matter what strategies O’Higgins or Carrera might have devised to keep the aggressive advance of Spain at bay, however, on that day the Spaniards had fortuna and virtù on their side. In fact, Cámara himself recognized the bravado of royalist San Bruno, who would not allow any Spanish soldier to retreat (DR 223). As told by Carrera in his Diario Militar [Military Journal], the Spaniards also took advantage of the patriots’ numerous tactical errors. For the beleaguered húsar, the criollo troops lost a precious occasione when they allowed Osorio’s royal cavalry to cross without any resistance the Cachapoal river in Rancagua (391). Machiavelli commented in his Art of War on how the Venetians had similarly lost a costly occasione by waiting for the French to cross the Adda river: “they did not take the opportunity of attacking them while they were fording that river” (IV; 125) [non seppono pigliare nel passare delle genti l’occasione del fare la giornata (p. 3546)]. Durante la Reconquista brought Carrera into contact with Cámara through a letter sent by general O’Higgins, an event that referenced an authentic missive that Carrera himself mentioned in his defense in the Diario Militar. In Blest Gana’s text, O’Higgins and his men eagerly awaited Carrera’s troops for an entire night; when O’Higgins’ troops finally saw them arrive, they also saw them retreat. In his Diario account, Carrera claimed that, in the aftermath of Rancagua, O’Higgins went to great lengths to tell his own version of the battle. According to the fallen leader, O’Higgins spoke “so falsely and so irrationally that even today I

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cannot comprehend it” [tanta falsedad i con tanta irracionalidad que hasta hoi no he podido comprender (402)]. Embittered by O’Higgins’ machinations to depose him, Carrera lamented that “O’Higgins, after so many oaths of union and friendship, kept more venom in his dark soul than blood in his body” [O’Higgins, después de tantos juramentos de amistad i unión, encerraba más veneno en su negra alma, que sangre en su cuerpo (376)]. When the Spaniards retook the reins from the short-lived Patria Vieja, and the patriots abandoned Chilean territory, Carrera could not restore the faith of his men. More important, he remained on the wrong side of San Martín, the mythical Argentinean general who helped to liberate the Southern Cone. The first president of Chile thus became the scapegoat of the revolutionary attempt at independence. In 2010, to celebrate Chile’s bicentennial, a long neglected statue of Carrera was moved out of obscurity to the Plaza de la Ciudadanía (Civic Square) in Santiago, near a statue of O’Higgins. From this gesture, Chileans began to recognize Carrera’s place as a co-founder of the nation. A number of historians agree, as Kinsbruner has noted, that O’Higgins never mustered the virtù to advance the “Chilean national movement” (1968, 106) in the way that Carrera had done. After Carrera’s execution in Argentina in 1821, the heroic Manuel Rodríguez became a persona non grata for the newly established O’Higgins’ government. It has been said that at the time of the independence movement Rodríguez “was, perhaps, the most popular man in Chile,” idolized by the masses and respected by the aristocratic patriots. Because of his liberal ideas, however, he was at odds with the direction the country was taking (1968, 106). On O’Higgins’ expressed orders, he was apprehended and assassinated in the vicinity of the town of Til-Til by a guard who had been charged with taking him, Chile’s first bona fide guerrillero, to Quillota, the same town where, years later, Portales himself would be apprehended. In Kinsbruner’s words, “no event of O’Higgins’ entire administration was less popular” (1968, 106), with the Director Supremo steadily attracting the enmity of a critical sector of society. Machiavelli proclaimed that a ruler had to avoid the hatred of his subjects at all costs. Because he was considered responsible for the death of Manuel Rodríguez, an almost mythical figure, O’Higgins became increasingly diminished in stature and he lost the support of many prominent patriots. As a governor of a new territory, General Osorio never ceased to be vulnerable. Durante la Reconquista defined him as losing his compass once in power and misunderstanding people’s fearful acquiescence. He heeded neither the phenomenal obstacles of being a servant of the Spanish Crown, nor the ever-changing political times, nor the challenges of Chile’s

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geography and psyche. Instead, he plowed straight ahead, thinking himself clever. Like the Duke Valentino in Machiavelli’s Prince, Osorio had his own Remirro de Orco in Captain Vicente San Bruno. This sinister captain dealt out cruelty on Osorio’s behalf so that the governor, detached from such savagery, could assure himself a lasting position as representative of the Spanish Monarchy in Chile. Feeling that he was of far superior military stock than bloodthirsty San Bruno, the conceited general was convinced that, with his charm, he could keep Chileans from wanting to rebel. Through Blest Gana’s characters, Loverman and Lira have cast a light on Chile’s conciliatory ways during hard times; in his work, social accommodation was a means to alleviate the effects of Osorio’s repression and its attendant social asphyxiation (50). Osorio’s main task was indeed to erase from the minds of the criollos the memory of the patriots who had fled for the Andes after the Desastre de Rancagua. Using the type of elegant favoritism that only a monarchy could provide, Osorio offered his loyal criollos what they craved, aesthetically pleasing festivities and a plethora of noteworthy events to display their social rank and high birth. In this sense, the more Osorio favored the Chilean royalists, the more he crushed the Chilean rebels. In Loveman and Lira’s account, Blest Gana did not ignore treachery, conspiracies, and other difficult subjects. But he also offered things such as the genuine—and tragic—love story between patriot Trinidad and royalist Laramonte as an alternative to the odious tensions provoked by the Spanish invasion (50). Blest Gana’s elaborate and disdainful depictions of General Osorio were akin to the portrayals of tyrants found in Machiavelli and Cervantes. The governor was exceedingly proud of his military rank but he also believed that he possessed unsurpassed skills at government. He felt aligned with the ideas of The Prince, but was most probably influenced by the anti-Machiavellians’ distorted readings of it. As Foucault has observed, the anti-Machiavellian approach was related to the notion of disposer, which meant to arrange things or use the law tactically to achieve ends (2007, 100): Don Mariano thought about Machiavelli because he already naively attributed to himself the paternity of his luminous idea, and, in his mind, its simple application to his great policies. [Pensaba don Mariano en Maquiavelo, porque se atribuía ya ingenuamente la paternidad de la luminosa idea, simple aplicación, según él, de su gran política (DR 543)].

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Completely deluded, Osorio had persuaded himself that he was endowed with such prowess that he could achieve success through any type of negotiation whatsoever. He adopted a theatrical pose in his interactions with Spaniards or vanquished patriots. Since “Don Mariano could not dispense with dissembling and accommodating” [don Mariano no podía prescindir de disimular y contemporizar (DR 296)], resolving matters in a direct manner was never his objective. Like a court buffoon, in his secretive and seditious desire to punish through a “politics of harmony” [política de concordia (DR 543)], Osorio eagerly bowed to patrician Chileans in an attempt to reverse their opinions and gain the confidence of these individuals who deeply despised him. He persisted at soothing the Chilean patriots with politesse and a rather strange sense of humor, one that he felt would help cover his true intentions. During his first days as governor, Osorio publicly asked Santiago’s leading families to return to the city. Declaring himself their true friend, he simultaneously and secretly planned ahead so that his subordinate San Bruno could dole out “healthy punishments” [castigos saludables] against them (DR 77). He demonstrated himself to be a disappointing Machiavellian manipulator. Notwithstanding Abel’s unsuspicious attitude towards the governor at the beginning of the novel, Osorio’s measures had no effect on patriots’ sentiments; they could no longer conceive their territory as an extension of the Spanish Crown. Blest Gana’s novel showed how socio-political allegiances were formed among the nineteenth-century Chilean elite. As Gabriel Salazar has elucidated, descendants of the criollo elites increasingly transformed Chile from a colonial economy to an industrial and capitalist one (25). These economic changes were initiated by the political executive and, as they tended for privatization of the State—not in writing but in practice—they also modified the State’s identity (219-220). Durante la Reconquista sought to unveil the political conflicts involved in building a Chilean nation and also described the individual reactions of Chileans, rich or poor, as they slowly came to terms with having to fight for their nation and, indeed, with the very notion of having a nation at all. As Jocelyn-Holt has argued, the independence movement should not be perceived as an inevitable, fateful event that would have necessarily happened. On the contrary, it was a confounding and unexpected occasione that fell into the hands of the criollos accidentally; it was not theirs because they were revolutionary. To quote Jocelyn-Holt, The Independence culminates by reinforcing, consolidating and promoting the criollo elite which stemmed from earlier times, from the eighteenth century, as an oligarchic entity capable of becoming hegemonic and

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Even with the disruptions of Independence, the prosperity of the elite absolutely needed to be assured. From the perspective of change and continuity, then, a conservative social order persisted from the eighteenth century to the republican period (Jocelyn-Holt 2011, 51), holding the rigid socio-political walls firmly in place. As Chilean criollos forged a national identity, they reinvented and reinterpreted their European cultural heritage in light of their new national context. At stake, then, was the tug of war that existed among the social classes. As Kaempfer has argued, the contribution of Cámara, symbol of the roto, thirsty for violence and bloodshed, threatened the criollos’ carefully established order even as it helped to disentangle the new nation from Spain’s fairly effortless reconquest (151). With this in mind, the only way for Cámara to function in a socially productive fashion was by acting as the reverse of San Bruno’s coin, that is by performing unorthodox acts in the name of Chilean patriots. Nonetheless, another kind of nationalistic impulse had also been inspired in Rodríguez, O’Higgins and Carrera. Why else would they have fought and risked their lives? Looked at through Gramsci’s lens, the nation freed itself from its colonial power using the resourcefulness of virile Machiavellian men. For Gramsci, these were “concrete individual[s]” who, out of a vehement desire for change, concretized the impetus of “political passions” (125). Fighting for their nation, the patriots acted with virtù to create a “concrete phantasy which act[ed] on a dispersed and shattered people to arouse and organise its collective will” (126). In a similar manner, Martín Rivas and Abelardo Manríquez, at different times in Chilean history, did not hesitate to risk their lives for a just cause. They both took up arms in the name of patria and a more just society. On this, Martín and Abelardo mimicked the civic goals of the Romans: they performed patria. More precisely, they conceptualized what Machiavelli described as a comportment of virtù. Carrera’s legacy demonstrated that Chile could produce quixotic heroes who also behaved like Machiavellian Borgia-like warriors. Effectively the first president of Chile, even if this is still not generally acknowledged, he is an indisputably polarizing political figure. Originating from an old, oligarchic family, Carrera was not motivated by worries over his family’s patrimony. He was more truly and persistently moved by a desire for

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patria. This is what made him defy his social upbringing and become a revolutionary committed to fighting for full emancipation. Recalling one of Contardo’s terms, Carrera was among Chile’s first socio-political abajistas.7 By contrast, O’Higgins, the illegitimate son of an Irish governor and a young woman from Chile’s high society, expressed the desires of an arribista. He understood the political moment. He controlled the passion which had betrayed Carrera and triumphed as Director Supremo until his fortuna ran out. With the advent of the peninsulares, Carrera and O’Higgins both had to depart for refuge on the other side of the Andes, but the impact of their presence is still palpable in Chile today. In the twentieth century, Allende and Augusto Pinochet, a Dantesque Cavalcanti and Farinata, arrogated to themselves the bitter animosity that still surrounds Chile’s two original founders. In a Machiavellian sense of history, Allende and Pinochet also reproduced the ongoing and bitter feuds between Carreristas and O’Higginistas (followers of O’Higgins). Blest Gana’s rendition of the legacies of Carrera and O’Higgins can therefore be said to have uncovered an original and foundational fissure, one that foreshadowed Chile’s current status as a “nation of enemies” living out the consequences of the Reconquista.

The Making of a Siútico Aware that the nation’s conception of itself would be expressed via printed material and local presses (Anderson 63), Blest Gana urged fellow Chileans to develop a national literature as a means to strengthen people’s spirit and direct them toward good moral standards (“La literatura chilena” 81-82). In El ideal de un calavera, he offered a reading of history that celebrated the arrojo of Abelardo Manríquez, a Manuel Rodríguez-type figure. Materialistic interests and mundane goals, in Blest Gana’s view, were discouraging local authors from producing literature, since they were aware that Chileans would not read, i.e. purchase, their works. He also viewed a lack of humanistic education as a barrier to literary creation. In order to attract the favor of intellectuals, as well as the great majority, he proposed a novela de costumbres (novel of manners) that would serve as a reflection of his society. In the world inhabited by Manríquez, the social parameters were established by the Chilean oligarchy. He belonged to the countryside, where the rich agricultural families of Chile, as Collier has 7

From a twenty-first century perspective, Carrera would be considered a cuicoabajista, what Reutter calls an individual with left-wing leanings, who decries the social privileges of his own class, especially the benefits of capitalism (200).

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noted, had staked their bets for prosperity (8). Unlike don Quijote, however, Abelardo did not remain loyal to only one woman. On the contrary, he became involved in scandals and had little regard for the loss of anyone’s honor, including his own. Fundamentally, he was an idealistic rebel whom Blest Gana created as a challenge to Chile’s archaic moralistic views and its severe conservatism, which emanated principally from what he considered to be the outmoded tenets of the church.8 In fact, in his dedication of the novel, Blest Gana betrayed an endearing and personal attachment to its protagonist along with an inclination toward particular readers, writing: to those who anxiously pursue a chimera forged by the imagination and disdain the modest happiness that fortune provides to those who are content with modest things. [á los que persiguen afanosos una quimera forjada por la imaginación y desdeñan la modesta felicidad, que la suerte depara á los que de modestas cosas se contentan (IC, I; 1)].

Blest Gana’s reaction to the revolutionary and intellectual climate of his time was to create literature of such significance that it could fulfill the crucial role of culture in the personal development of citizens and in the formation of national identity. Especially in El ideal de un calavera, he focused on social issues, such as the precarious welfare of war veterans, the vulnerability of poor unmarried women, and the turpitude of degenerate aristocrats. Just as Cervantes had done with the Quijote in the seventeenth century, authors in nineteenth-century Latin American used literature as a platform from which they could examine and interrogate their emerging nations and societies. In Cervantes, Literature, and the Discourse of Politics, Cascardi has analyzed how Cervantes expanded the language of literature and engaged his text in a political dialogue with all literary genres. In this regard, Cascardi has observed how Cervantes turned his novel into a complex, multifaceted “polyphonic text” (2012, 165). Among the thinkers influenced by Cervantes, the Mexican journalist, poet and novelist José Joaquín Fernández de Lizardi stands out prominently (1776-1827). Taking advantage of the social empowerment generated by 8

Silva Castro states: “Blest Gana produces with a fertility that is unusual in Chile, without great concern for the critics, who do not always lavish him with praise: The Catholic Magazine, for example, bitterly censures him” [Blest Gana produce con fecundidad poco usual en Chile, y sin gran cuidado de la crítica, la cual no siempre le prodiga aplausos: La Revista Católica le censura acerbamente, por ejemplo (38)].

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the printing press, Lizardi founded in 1812 El pensador mexicano (Mexican Thinker), a subversive newspaper that satirized the ineptitude of the Mexican colonial government. Lizardi himself became known as El pensador mexicano, and he was duly censured and imprisoned for his biting and farcical caricatures of Mexico’s stagnant political establishment. Jefferson R. Spell has examined Lizardi’s unique perspective on the early stages of the Mexican nation, picturing “the figures which flitted across the Plaza Mayor of Mexico City” (73). It should not be a surprise, then, that Lizardi would author Don Catrín de la fachenda (1832), a novel whose main character displayed distorted and incongruous don Quijotelike features. Don Catrín refused to resign himself to his stark reality and deluded himself into believing that he was living the good life. Roberto González Echevarría has illustrated how Latin American authors, by following Cervantes’s work, expressed a desire for literary continuity even as they wished to break from their colonial past (1999, “Cervantes”).9 From a historical, cultural and literary perspective, Lizardi’s text emphasized the consequences and aftermath of Spanish colonialism (the old order), in the light of new ideas such as the proto-capitalism of the European Enlightenment, the ideals of American Independence and a recent Mexican Independence (the new order) (Vilches 2008, 123). As Lizardi’s choice of title suggests, the author did not relate only to Cervantes’s themes, but also to his economic times, a period when the pícaros roamed in fictions depicting the decay of urban Spain. Specifically, don Catrín narrated and fantazised a life with no ressemblance whatsoever to his crude existence in urban Mexico. Like Lazarillo, in his zeal to make an easy living, the protagonist turned himself into a pícaro, a siútico, who lacked education and family values, but who would fight any which way he could for social advancement (2008, 125). Because of its piercing satire and delicate subject matter, the novel was published posthumously, five years after the death of El pensador mexicano. In El idea de un calavera, Blest Gana pictured a Chile that had defrauded many of its citizens, especially the economically unfortunate. Through the actions of its characters, the story constructed an image of a nation that pulled in opposite directions, looking to the past as well as striving to look into the future. Through its detailed and insightful illustration of the costumbres of different Chilean social sectors, the novel succeeded at portraying the difficulties inherent in becoming a nation, as 9

González Echevarría delineates the authors’ conundrum as they considered allegiance to Cervantes and allegiance to their new nations: “How can a Latin American writer presume to rewrite that which is essentially tied to the nation that his own nation struggled not to be? (1999, “Cervantes”).

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the country passed the threshold of the independence movement and readied itself to be a proper republic. Abelardo Manríquez, a romantic hero, was a figure possessed by an idealistic madness that caused him to tangle with metaphorical windmills which hurt him as much as the real ones hurt don Quijote. By creating a self-destructive gentleman, Blest Gana relied and cast light upon an eroded notion of chivalry and its superannuated expression. As Carroll B. Johnson has observed in Don Quijote, this sort of antagonistic exchange reveals the struggles between an old order and a new one. For Johnson, all characters participated in the creation of socio-political history, pitting feudalistic modes against capitalistic ones and displaying who was in charge of “the means of production” (10). In this light, we can see clearly that Don Quijote’s conversion to knighthood was made within the context of a clash between an aging feudalism and a burgeoning capitalism (1). This political posture allowed him to live with one eye on the world of his books of chivalry while from the other he perceived and judged his society. In a similar fashion, Abelardo’s militaristic codes were being suffocated by Chilean markets, which, according to Salazar, vertiginously changed the nation from a safe and reliable colonial economy into a high-paced and vulnerable capitalist one (87). Additionally, acting the part of a romantic don Quijote, the protagonist was undone by his inability to compromise, a fact which highlighted how grotesque the Chilean heroic figure had become. Just as Cervantes broke seventeenth-century social codes by pairing don Quijote and Sancho Panza with the duke and the duchess, Blest Gana created forlorn Manríquez, a young man who wished to belong in the right places but was incapable of keeping his faith. As a result, he was inevitably vanquished by his own relentless passion. His quixotic quests exposed the social practices and accommodating moral codes of nineteenth-century Chile and, in this way, were also political expressions of the nation’s history. Already in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, the late days of the colony saw material concerns rise to prominence among the criollos, laying the foundation for economic and class issues and preparing Chileans for the emergence of capitalism (Jocelyn-Holt 2011, 311). From Machiavelli, and likewise Montesquieu, the idea of republicanism became meshed with the notion of interest (2011, 311).10 Wealth played a critical 10

Elaborating on the idea of a working republic, Jocelyn-Holt’s words are reminiscent of those of Machiavelli: “Laws must be passed by superior men, those in possession of civic virtue, which allows them to suborn their private interests in order to achieve the ultimate goal which is public interest” [Las leyes deben ser dictadas por hombres superiores, poseedores de virtud cívica, lo cual les permite

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role in the approval of a marriage for the well-to-do in all of Blest Gana’s novels. As Guillermo Araya has argued, for the young characters, money either reinforced or broke a relationship (1981, 44). In Martín’s case, it was his virtuosity, Leonor’s determination, and her power over her father, Dámaso Encina, that provided the necessary conditions for the couple to reach a happy ending (1981, 44). Jaime Concha, analyzing Martín as an imminent burgués (a bourgeois), has remarked that don Dámaso was drawn to Martín’s acumen, his excellent and honest business sense, and his willingness to expand the Encina fortune (1972, 30). As for El Ideal’s protagonist, Abelardo was described as highly ambitious and purposeful, but only for satisfaction in love (IC, I; 46). He never thought of his career goals nor did he ever sincerely aspire to be wealthy. In fact, aside from his thirst for action and passion, he remained detached from material concerns: He felt no temptation toward the type of material possessions that, in our days, young people are taught to worship feverishly. [Muy poco le tentaban los bienes materiales, á los que, en nuestros días se enseña á la juventud á rendir un culto fervoroso (IC, I; 22)].

Like don Quijote, Abelardo was born to a family that had remnants of aristocracy. The young man also found a refuge from his tribulations in literature: “he knew by heart the letters of Héloïse and Abelard” [sabía de memoria las cartas de Heloísa y Abelardo (IC, I; 21)]. Unlike don Quijote, he did not totally create the woman he loved; inevitably, when he met Inés de Arboleda, a pretty, rich and vacuous young lady, he fell for her completely. Abelardo turned the young woman into an idealized literary figure, the “Héloïse of my dreams” [Heloísa de mis ensueños] (IC, II; 54), the perfect Héloïse to his Abelard.11 To retain her love, he fought in vain against the strict social codes of Chile’s aristocracy, relinquishing all postergar sus intereses privados para así alcanzar el fin último que es el interés público (2011, 312)]. 11 From the first time Abelardo heard about Inés, he entertained the idea that he could love the young woman: “Manríquez thought the daughter of Don Calixto Arboleda, which heaven had endowed with the gift of beauty, could very well be destined to his heart. For this idea to emerge in his mind there were very plausible reasons: the girl was beautiful, lived within walking distance, and he was twenty years old.” [Manríquez pensó que la hija de don Calixto Arboleda, la que el cielo había dotado con el don de la hermosura, podía muy bien estar destinada á su corazón. Para que surgiera esta idea en su espíritu había motivos muy plausibles: esa joven era hermosa, vivía á poca distancia, y él tenía veinte años (IC, I; 24)].

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morality when he was rejected by his beloved lady. From the beginning, the novel foreshadowed a tragic ending by its association with Héloïse and Abelard, the couple that scandalized polite society with their passionate love affair. In a farcical twist which removed any hope of a happy ending, the twelfth-century courtship that the young man so wanted to emulate never actually materialized; like don Quijote and Dulcinea, his relationship with Inés existed only in Abelardo’s active imagination. Nature had favorably endowed the young húsar with virility and superbly handsome features. Abelardo was admired throughout the novel because of his extraordinary looks, especially when, like no other, he wore his military uniform in a bella figura fashion. It was not an onerous task for him to bet on the success of his reckless sentimental liaisons which would surely test his abilities to triumph against long odds. Knowing that he possessed superb physical attributes, Abelardo convinced himself that he could naturally conquer Inés’ heart, but he was proven fatally wrong. Unlike don Quijote, Abelardo did not renounce his idealistic persona at the end of his brief life. Ready to be executed, he commended himself to Inés, but not to the rather materialistic young woman that she actually was. Instead, he persisted in conjuring up the image of the woman he had created through reading the letters of Héloïse and Abelard with “the intimate emotion of a poet reading Byron” [la íntima emoción del poeta que lee á Byron] (IC, II; 10). Just as he idealized the woman he loved, he idealized his own life and never came to terms with its progressive negative turns. In other words, Abelardo acted like Lizardi’s don Catrín; he was an outlandish representation of don Quijote. Foucault wrote that don Quijote was “made up of interwoven words; he is writing itself” (1994, 46). Indeed, his whole perception of material culture related to what he had read in the textbooks. Although he conceptualized the world in which he lived, he filtered his perceptions through great deeds. In Abelardo’s case, no matter how hard he tried, he could never make Inés become like Héloïse. When he had an accident and had to be cured in the young woman’s house, he sent a letter to his beloved. She received it, however, not in the spirit of someone who loved and was loved, but rather as someone who was proud to receive an homage to her beauty (IC, I; 124). Worse, the narration remained true to nineteenth-century life in its emphasis on the young woman’s poor formal education. In fact, she hesitated to answer the letter not so much out of fear of parental reprisal but because she felt unsure about her own writing skills: Many lovers have cursed the modesty of a beloved young woman, without realizing that their real enemies have been the rules of orthography.

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[Muchos amantes han maldecido el recato de una querida, sin figurarse que sus verdaderos enemigos han sido las reglas de ortografía (IC, I; 126)].

In spite of her beauty and social advantage, the young socialite did not possess the same intellectual tools that Blest Gana had given to Leonor Encina from Martín Rivas. Instead, Inés was described as egotistical. She was rather a grotesque representation of intellectual Héloïse, hungering for materialistic possessions, wanting to be desired, and, above all, enamored of the power her beauty exerted over others. She lived her life in the type of ocio (leisure, idleness) experienced by courtiers at the court of the duke and the duchess in Cervantes’s text. In spite of her social level, Inés’ demeanor in society made her lack of education clearly apparent. As Collier has remarked, Chilean cities after Independence were not necessarily bastions of educational or cultural opportunities (12).12 As Hosiasson has observed, Abelardo became a revolutionary of sorts, an anti-hero intent on dismantling the established social and political order (264). Unlike Martín Rivas, the beloved hero of the eponymous novel— published only a year earlier than El ideal de un calavera—Abelardo was at best a difficult character, not immediately likable. At his worst, he represented a negative role model and, as such, he had to be destroyed. Blest Gana was forced to defend his hero to Lastarria, when the latter objected to Abelardo’s ways: Let us now go to The Ideal of a Rogue. I do not know why you do not like Manríquez: all of us have in our hearts a grain of that aspiration to which he devoted his life, and those who do not can become friars with impunity. Manríquez has that irresistible instinct that other men frankly moderate for convenience, for hypocrisy or morality. [Vamos ahora al Ideal de un calavera. No sé por qué no le agrada Manríquez: todos llevamos en el pecho un grano de esa aspiración a que consagró su vida, y el que no la lleva puede ser fraile impunemente. Manríquez tiene irresistible el instinto que otros hombres de corazón moderan por conveniencia, por hipocresía o por moralidad (Blest Gana Epistolario, 16; 41)].

12

As the voice of social conscience, Felipe Solama lamented that women did not have true access to a formal education. He exclaimed: “in spite of its pride, modern civilization has neglected the education of women, as if educating women were not the basis of human progress and human happiness” [la civilización moderna, á pesar de su orgullo, ha descuidado la educación de la mujer, como si esa educación no fuese la base del progreso humano y de la humana felicidad (IC, II; 47)].

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In El ideal de un calavera, Blest Gana contemplated and revealed the effects and influences of a European literary inheritance on the social and cultural development of Latin America. His rebellious/ romantic don Quijote-type Abelardo embodied the socio-political stresses, tensions, and ruptures that plagued Chileans during the formation of the republic. In this respect, René Girard has stated that “[n]othing is more quixotic, undoubtedly, than the romantic interpretation of Don Quixote” (144). William Egginton has also claimed that Cervantes “put into prose a kind of world and temper” absorbed by romantic authors. That is, within their present cultural milieu, such authors looked to Cervantes as a forbearer of Romanticism itself (1050). In the same vein, Fernández has described how Don Quijote provided a kind of cultural, historical, and linguistic basis for cohesion as the new nations were being formed on the Latin American continent (969). According to Egginton, Cervantes wrote in a selfreferential mode (1051), creating a dialogue between himself and his avid readers in the Americas, who embraced the hardships of the novel’s hero. In fact, don Quijote’s irrepressible faith in his code of chivalry, in spite of all the evidence against him, moved those who fought for liberty during the independence movement. After all, individuals like Carrera and Rodríguez did not have the certainty of a positive outcome, but they forged ahead, undeterred. Frans De Bruyn, in “Edmund Burke the Political Quixote: Romance, Chivalry, and the Political Imagination” (2004), has characterized Burke’s socio-political representation as that of a latter day don Quijote. A moderate politician who favored the American republic, but who was against the agitation caused by the French revolution, Burke always had to fend off fierce criticism. He was an idealist of sorts, who believed in the benefits of political give and take between ruler and subjects. For De Bruyn, then, satirical portraits of the Irish politician as an eighteenth-century Quijote were an accurate assessment in that they responded to Burke’s mad actions and exposed “a deeply cultural, rather than narrowly clinical, truth” (697-698). Abelardo dreamed big and refused to be limited by the precarious social conditions that life had imposed on him. Like a nineteenth-century Alonso Quijano, he had to content himself with “eggs and abstinence on Saturdays” (DQ, I, 1; 19) [duelos y quebrantos los sábados (p.35)]. Like a masculine prototype of the troubled Madame Bovary, Abelardo conceived of a better life because he adamantly refused to continue his own monotonous one. No matter how much he tried to fit in, however, Abelardo was constantly reminded of his unhappy place in the Chilean nation. He was in an uncomfortable half-way position in society, not rich enough to mingle

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with the wealthy but certainly not destitute—or without some illusion of social rank—to the point that would qualify him as poor: In the social hierarchy, his parents occupied a position of unclear limits, being the same distance from the good families, on a rising scale, as from the families of the medio pelo, on a descending one. They belonged to a class that should be called impoverished. A decent name, one that the dust of poverty tarnishes in the eyes of the world; an inheritance worth a mere seven thousand pesos. [Sus padres ocupaban en la jerarquía social la posición de indecisos límites que se encuentra á la misma distancia de las buenas familias, en escala ascendente, que de las familias de medio pelo, en escala descendente. Eran de una clase que debería llamarse familias empobrecidas. Un nombre decente, que el polvo de la pobreza empaña a los ojos del gran mundo, una hijuela de siete mil pesos de valor (IC, I; 16)].

Abelardo was a veritable siútico; he lacked wealth but was not entirely devoid of some redeeming social currency. For that reason, the young húsar thought that he could be a good suitor for beautiful Inés. Without means, nonetheless, he could not provide for the young woman at the level to which she aspired and for which her family had prepared her all her life. Abelardo was in a terrible social situation: he had the name, the looks, and the social skills, but no money, always exposed and shunned by others. There was always “some social incident (that) would remind him of the inferior social position in which fortune had placed him” [algún incidente (que) le hacía conocer la posición socialmente inferior en que la fortuna le había colocado (IC, I; 21)]. Abelardo had a stubborn nature and was determined to overcome the odds and fulfill his objectives. Regrettably for him, this would never lead to success. His purposeful determination caused him to be unable to ascertain why Inés would not settle for him, a courageous, vital, suitor. Willing to make any attempt to gain her love, Abelardo jumped onto a horse to demonstrate his virility, a daredevil turn that Blest Gana would also later use for Manuel Rodríguez in Durante la Reconquista. Unlike Rodríguez, who fought for patria and gave up his whole being for the development of his nation, Abelardo fought for a banal pursuit, the vacuous Inés. With all his swagger, he could never overcome the social distance that separated him from the rich. More than any other of Blest Gana’s protagonists, Abelardo was endowed with an astoundingly beautiful face and a similarly gorgeous body, which made him resemble a Michelangelo sculpture. As he jumped onto the untamed horse, the young man had the look of a breathtaking, romantic warrior:

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Abelardo would turn heads anywhere he went in Santiago’s society. For a few precious seconds, his beauty would dissipate all the antagonisms members of the oligarchy felt towards those they considered inferior. His ethereal looks, rising to the standards of the Italian Renaissance, gained him entry to the salons of the elite. They were a social permit given to him by fortuna, a concession that allowed him briefly to surpass the ridiculousness of a siútico. Abelardo felt so secure in his good looks that he appropriated the world of the wealthy, only to be made to pay with humiliating suffering on each occasion. His beauty permitted him to destabilize the markers of social identity, “passing” as a wealthy boy in a world of the affluent. Ironically, though, because he suffered so many hardships, the story made clear that he would have led a better life had he been born less good looking. Ultimately, unlike Leonor Encina’s beauty in Martín Rivas, Abelardo’s perfect and delicate features were an exaggeration of nature, or perhaps a fluke. Since the young soldier lacked the essential quality of wealth, his beauty appeared ridiculous, grotesque.13 Using the arts of don Quijote, Abelardo changed himself into a splendid military man and discarded his obscure past existence. He wore his uniform of the húsares (hussars) powerfully while performing heroic deeds and pugnacious acts, laughing at society without wanting or 13

Because Leonor is so beautiful, the narrator in Martín Rivas states that it would have been a pity had she been born poor: “Had anyone encountered this nineteenyear old girl in a poor home they would have accused Fortune of behaving capriciously for not providing a frame corresponding to such beauty” [Cualquiera que hubiese visto a aquella niña de diecinueve años en una pobre habitación habría acusado de caprichosa a la suerte por no haber dado a tanta hermosura un marco correspondiente (MR 66)].

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knowing when to stop. As Edward Bujak has argued, a uniform and a practiced manner helped individuals to promote themselves in society. More specifically, the right uniform played a critical role in enhancing the social lives of soldiers in Britain during the First World War. Like Abelardo, some British officers did not necessarily come from the aristocracy. The Great War, however, became an equalizer and, as Bujak has found, it provided the occasione for a humble mechanic to make a vertical social leap “from the ranks into the Officers’ Mess” (28). The association with the equestrian countryside and with chivalry was emphasized among these “new,” temporary gentlemen, and fighter pilots envisioned themselves like aristocrats riding horseback at the hunt. In the mode of don Quijote, like modern day knights errant, the new technocrats of the air became associated with the prototype of elite officers through their demeanor and their uniforms and they thus freshly acquired old aristocratic traits (11-12). In the same fashion, Abelardo rescued himself from his poor conditions in the countryside by joining the military which converted him into a gentleman who dressed as an elegant lieutenant of the húsares. On most occasions, as the young lieutenant paraded himself in public, women could not refrain from audibly praising his statuesque presence (IC, II; 171). At a dance that assembled the best of Santiago’s society, Manríquez’s sole purpose was to dance with beautiful Inés. As he impatiently awaited her entrance, many of the attendees stared at Abelardo in wonderment, adoring the beautiful and elegant man who was standing so gracefully in his uniform, looking like a veritable Adonis (IC, II; 184). Because of his impetuous nature, the young húsar forgot that his actions could and would hurt others. In the words of Philip Thomson, Manríquez performed the grotesque, an ambivalent meshing of beauty, monstrosity and the comical (5). The grotesque, according to Victor Hugo, was an extremely useful literary tool that could be used to relate crucial aspects of life. According to Gotschlich, Hugo envisioned the grotesque as encompassing ridiculousness, ugliness, and the social ailments of a society. The sublime expressed the sentiments of one’s soul. The grotesque, on the other hand, gave expression to people’s moral flaws and deficiencies (1987, 120-121). These perspectives, as Gotschlich has argued, aided Blest Gana who used the grotesque in a tragi-comic way to present the good and the bad of Chile as it developed into a nation (1987, 119). For the author, therefore, the conspiracy against, and assassination of, Portales—to this day a mythical and polarizing figure—opened an optimal narrative space for the nation’s political and social conflicts. In Blest Gana’s account, once the conspirators were captured, society could return to order and go on again, undisturbed. Critical of Portales’s policies, Abelardo sought to

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redeem himself by ridding Chile of the ministro. El ideal de un calavera thereby used the impudence of a young man not content with his own station to put the nation’s state of disarray into vivid relief. Egginton has stated that, with his Don Quijote, Cervantes inserted the “literary creation into the literary world being created” and broke barriers between what was and what was not (1051). Abelardo, in this regard, was motivated by what he lacked in life and by what he yearned to become, which essentially turned him into a Hamlet-like incomplete man, a madman striking a Quijote-like pose. Abelardo “seemed to intentionally complicate the difficulties that excited his happiness” [parecía complicar intencionalmente las dificultades que excitaban su alegría] (IC, I; 331). Exuberant and romantic, he was more than willing to disrupt the social circle around him (Hosiasson 263). Abelardo eagerly broke society’s strict rules and was equally eager to take up arms to protect his nation from its imminent usurpers. His conception of militarism was archaic; he believed in the codes of chivalry and felt the stir of patria. He was troubled and he bore an extravagant quixotic standard as he took up the fight against the windmills of a stagnant Chilean society. Don Quijote’s fusion of materialistic and idealistic concerns was also explored by Blest Gana. Abelardo was a social outsider, described as tocado (mad) by the most materialistically inclined of Santiago’s high society (IC, I; 14). This was a pressing matter for Blest Gana. Not only did he persistently recount the difficulties of trying to live on the meager wages of a writer. He also scrutinized the corrosive effects of wealth on people and society. In his discourse at the Universidad de Chile, Blest Gana characterized his times as dominated, for the most part, by materialistic concerns (“Literatura chilena” 81). Accordingly, he indicated that El ideal de un calavera belonged to those who resisted shedding tears and instead resorted to laughter as they confronted the bitter sadness of life’s tragi-comic moments. Eventually, unlike the determined Martín Rivas, the young protagonist of El ideal de un calavera lacked the strength of spirit to overcome being rejected by his beloved for his poverty and succumbed to society’s spurning. The young and handsome Abelardo was tocado because he did not understand the limits that confined him to his particular sector of Chile’s society. He appeared tocado to his counterparts because he was driven by passion, exhibiting rash, reckless behavior in the grotesque image of a national hero. He wanted to do well, but, because of his impetuous heart, he lost his honor. An escapist, he turned Inés into Eloísa, an ideal, a dream; what Aldonza / Dulcinea became for don Quijote. Inés responded to the exigencies of the time. She had to make the right social choices in order to survive in the world in which she was born.

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Unlike Abelardo, she had her feet firmly on the ground and only passed the time with the handsome young man to cure her boredom and excite her heart. Inés was the daughter of don Calixto Arboleda, a capitalist who measured people by their monetary value: “you are worth what you own” [tanto vales cuanto tienes] (IC, I; 33). Under the stern and watchful eyes of her parents, who saw in her beauty excellent prospects for a solid alliance, Inés lived in the expectation that good things would come her way. She patiently waited, therefore, for Juan Miguel Sendero, her fiancé apparent, to ask for her hand in marriage. Don Calixto belonged to a slow-paced patriarchal society in which peons acted like medieval serfs to their masters, to paraphrase Collier’s description of nineteenth-century Chile (7). As the nation advanced, social injustice and capitalist markets were ever present in people’s lives. So, Abelardo’s precarious situation was not far removed from that of don Quijote’s times. Undaunted by his lack of means, he recklessly pursued his ideal, risking his reputation, his career, and purpose in life for the young lady’s love. Abandoning the guidance of books, he dealt with the loss of his love by turning himself into a libertine which resulted in his becoming an abhorrent shell of a man with chivalric ideals. Whereas don Quijote had been inaccessible to Maritornes or Altisidora, Abelardo experienced one adventure after another, even as he continued to worship his ideal lady, which in truth was not Inés but what he desired Inés to be. He told his only true friend, Felipe Solama, that he was considered a mad man because he struggled with a capricious appetite for physical contact with women while he also kept his spiritual ideal of one inaccessible woman intact (IC, II; 51-52). Anthony Cascardi has observed that, through other voices, Cervantes cleverly dissembled his own political views (2012, 12). This can be easily perceived at the duke’s court in Don Quijote where servants were actors and the aristocrats were spectators watching the traps they had set for don Quijote and Sancho Panza. At court, then, chivalric acts revealed rigid social divisions and triggered the grotesque, all of which combined the preposterous with the tragic and pathetic (Thomson 15).14 In this manner, 14

Philip Thomson conceives the grotesque “as a fundamentally ambivalent thing, as a violent clash of opposites” that produces a disjointed discourse (11). Originally, the term “grotesque” derives from exuberant and disproportionate painted murals discovered in Roman “grotte” (caves), in the 16th century. The artistic depictions generated the adjective “grottesco” and the noun “la grottesca” (Thomsom 12-13). It was this sense that Frederick De Armas explored in the Quijote, Part II, which entailed a Renaissance view of Roman convoluted art (143). The grotesque has evolved to include mismatched and irreconcilable meanings which, for instance, simultaneously provide readers with a setting for comicalness

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Don Quijote attempted to change societal rules by entering the aristocracy via the resurrection of an old, imagined, order. His stance was thus political. Don Quijote “spent his times of leisure—which meant most of the year—reading books of chivalry” (I, 1; 20) [los ratos que estaba ocioso—que eran los más del año— , se daba a leer libros de caballería (p. 36)], refusing to live the somber existence of an impoverished hidalgo. Instead, Alonso Quijano inspired himself to perform the part of an illustrious caballero who lived according to bygone tenets of chivalry. According to Johnson, his idealistic transformation was also kindled by materialistic commercial transactions that produced an investment in himself as a literary figure (6). As the old man became don Quijote, he sold his few remaining lands to acquire books of chivalry, an economically suspect idea that, given his circumstances, made him even poorer (6). He had faith that he could take care of all the ills of Spanish society through vigorous enactment of the gentleman-like codes of past times. In fact, by virtue of being himself, as Angelo Di Salvo has argued, don Quijote convinced others and, most important of all, himself that people could live again in an age of harmony (50). As Estrada Herrero has remarked, in Cervantes’s brilliant work it is quite evident that there is present the reality of two distinct worlds: that of knights errant and that of ‘down here’ [en la genial obra cervantina es bien patente la realidad de dos mundos bien distintos: el de la caballería andante y el de la realidad de ‘aquí abajo’ (573)].

On their third sally, among fantastically suspended literary figures in the Cueva de Montesinos, don Quijote and Sancho encountered individuals who were fueled by a thirst for fantasy and driven by a desire for wealth. At the duke’s court, don Quijote and Sancho appeared to be bona fide unpaid actors who kept the court at a spectacular level. Likewise, according to Pina Palma, materialistic concerns were expressed in various ways, including a desire for food as a demonstration of “power and wealth” (60). Utilizing what is concrete in the world, Cervantes made acute observations about the social divide in seventeenth-century Spain (59) and used the fantastically theatrical exploits of don Quijote as a and monstrosity (Thomson 14). In his meandering journeys, don Quijote, modulates between reality and fiction, and the types of his encounters, according to Eduardo Urbina, rightfully describe the ambivalent nature of the grotesque (674). To an extent, De Armas’ artistic, and Urbina’s psychological, conceptions of the grotesque appear as compatible; they serve to underscore disproportionate and conflicting actions of individuals in Don Quijote and El Ideal de un calavera.

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counterpoint to the realities of Spanish life. Indeed, in the constant journeying of his own private life, either as a purveyor of the Spanish Armada or as a government tax collector, Cervantes had had ample opportunity to observe and validate the malaise of Spanish society. The monarchy, as Donald McCrory has discussed, was intent on collecting taxes to prevent financial distress but it remained oblivious to the exigencies that taxation imposed upon wealthy landowners and to the exploitation of peasants. Fighting a malignant fortuna, Cervantes had his own run-ins with the law due to irregularities in his tax accounts (155156). Just as Machiavelli had used Florence as a social stage, Cervantes perceived that Spanish society could be like a theater for examining people’s loyalties and perfidies. Don Quijote’s love for Dulcinea became a focus of derision for the duke and the duchess. The pathetic knight thrived through his beloved Dulcinea and remained forever faithful to his ideal, stating that no other lady could be her equal; she would always be his and he would always be hers (II, 48; 765) (p. 879). Following González Echevarría, we know that the appearance of the enchanted Dulcinea to don Quijote and Sancho at court was strikingly similar to Beatrice’s demeanor towards Dante when she approached him in Canto 30 of Purgatorio (2005, 52). Altisidora, on the other hand, was like a seductress akin to the women encountered by Dante in canto 5 of the Inferno. Like Francesca da Rimini’s love for Paolo, Altisidora’s “love” for the knight errant became progressively lustful. Instructed by the duke and the duchess to play the role of a temptress, she endeavored by all means possible to win the heart of the knight errant, unfortunately to no avail. She could not break the old man’s will, not even through verse: “— O you, who lie in your bed, / between sheets of Holland linen” (II, 44; 743) [Oh, tú que estás en tu lecho / entre sábanas de holanda (p. 855)]. Altisidora wished she could change places with Dulcinea. She was willing to part with her most precious possessions so that she, Altisidora, could have don Quijote. Finally, for the punch line, Altisidora became audacious and proposed to don Quijote that she would like to be in his arms, “beside your bed, / where I could scratch your dear head / and shake dandruff from your hair!” (II, 44; 744) [junto a tu cama, / rascándote la cabeza y matándote la caspa! (p.855)]. Perhaps scandalized, the knight errant remained unmoved by his seductress, which humiliated Altisidora in the same manner that the defeat of the Caballero de los Espejos (Knight of the Mirrors) had humiliated Bachiller (Bachelor) Sansón Carrasco. Later, when don Quijote lectured her on her fruitless fixation, she no longer cared to play a part and angrily stepped out of character. Like a spoiled child, she confronted the knight errant: “Do you

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think by any chance, Don Defeated, Don Battered, that I died for you?” (II, 70; 916) [¿Pensáis, por ventura, don vencido y don molido a palos, que yo me he muerto por vos? (p.1044)]. Sancho and don Quijote remained passive in the face of her abrupt delivery, speculating on the young woman’s obsession. Although in love with an ideal himself, Don Quijote told the duke and duchess that Altisidora thought herself in love with him because she did not have much else to do. Altisidora’s problems, then, stemmed from too much leisure time, but also from being a young woman in a society that stifled her. According to the knight, Altisidora could be remedied with honest and continuous education (II, 70; 917) [p. 1045]. Something else would be needed to change the whole of society. In a similar fashion, Blest Gana created characters who laid bare the good and the bad of the young nation. In 1968, Cedomil Goic caused a controversy among academicians when he observed that, in Martín Rivas, many characters were depicted with a clever and dissembling critical acerbity (193). They were separated by age; the young ones, like Martín, suffered the travails of the heart, while the old ones, heavily satirized, were characterized as mere “ridiculous old men” [viejos ridículos (193)]. Here, Blest Gana followed a classical tradition that was much favored by Machiavelli in his own fiction. In El ideal de un calavera, older men were either to be pitied or scorned. In the wealthy don Lino Alcunza, Blest Gana reconfigured a nineteenth-century version of Lysidamus—reenacted by Machiavelli in the Clizia in the sixteenth century. The old aristocrat perversely convinced himself that he could procure the love, or rather the sexual favors, of a much younger woman.15 In the Clizia, Nicomaco lusted for young Clizia, saying of old age “Oh God, This old age comes with every affliction! But, I’m not yet so old that I can’t break a lance with Clizia (II, 1; 15) [O Dio, questa vecchiaia ne viene con ogni mal mendo! Ma io non sono ancora sí vecchio, ch’io non rompessi una lancia con Clizia (p. 137)]. In El ideal de un calavera, the narrator presented don Lino as a ludicrous citizen with deteriorating or rather deformed social manners, as Goic has demonstrated (194). An old man who wished to stay young, the flamboyant aristocrat wore a wig, which also clearly manifested his conservative views, and he used his wealth to impose his desires on others, especially upon those without means. Using his wealth as a “powerful monetary agent” [poderoso agente monetario (IC, I; 160)], don Lino effectively bribed “the consciousness of maids” [la conciencia de las criadas (IC, I; 228)] to gain access to the humble home of Candelaria, 15 In “The Mask in the Mirror” I argue that Nicomaco, the protagonist of Clizia failed as a ruler-prince in his own household (2007, 220).

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the daughter of poverty-stricken don Raimundo Basquiñuelas. The aristocrat hoped futilely that, through the radiance of Candelaria’s youth, he could make himself virile and young again. The actions of men like don Lino and libertines like Manríquez had a high social cost for women’s honor and that of their families: the young women from the medio pelo class, sacrificed with little scruple, will always live under an illusion that will give them hope of a desired equality, while it only introduces disorder and dishonor in their homes. [las jóvenes, con poco escrúpulo sacrificadas, de la clase de medio pelo, será siempre para esta clase una ilusión que le dará la esperanza de la deseada igualdad, mientras que sólo introduce el desorden y la deshonra en sus hogares (IC, I; 229)].

Aware of the social risks of penniless young women, don Quijote proclaimed at the home of the poor Basilio that a destitute woman was always in danger of being surrounded by “crows, kites, and other birds of prey” (II, 22; 598) [los cuervos, los milanos y las otras aves de rapiña (p. 695)]. In Abelardo’s case, he did not stop to consider the ramifications of his actions when he became involved with young and vivacious Candelaria. The young woman’s elopement was a grave blow to the honor of her father and her family, however destitute, one which emphasized her vulnerability. On this, don Quijote has said that “the honorable poor man, if a poor man can be honorable, possesses a jewel when he has a beautiful wife, and when that is taken from him, his honor is taken away and destroyed” (II, 22; 597) [El pobre honrado, si es que puede ser honrado el pobre, tiene prenda en tener mujer hermosa, que cuando se la quitan, le quitan la honra y se la matan (pp. 694-695)]. Subjugated by love, Candelaria acted impulsively and did not take her father or her sisters into consideration when she ran away with the handsome Abelardo. Once abandoned by the young húsar, however, she became easy prey for vile don Lino and his lasciviousness. As for her father, the old military man could never forgive Candelaria for taking away his honor. The only thing that saved him from further social rejection after his daughter’s scandal was the family’s obscure social conditions. As a private citizen the only social asset that remained don Raimundo’s own was his heroic participation in Chile’s struggle against the Spaniards: —Well, señor! The things that happen nowadays! ... Had (Manríquez) dared to do what he did during the times of Supreme Director O’Higgins, he would have suffered the consequences! he added with visible exasperation.

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Chapter Three —But we are living in different times, my friend, replied don Lino; and I assure you that with don Diego Portales officers cannot play around either: that is indeed the right man to be a minister, with him all have to behave! — What do we gain from that? asked don Raimundo dejectedly. Don’t you see that I will not denounce (Manríquez) when my honor is at stake? [— ¡Vaya señor! las cosas que suceden ahora! … Que se hubiese atrevido á hacerlo (Manríquez) en tiempo del Supremo Director O’Higgins, y hubiera visto como le iba! añadió con muestras de exasperación. —Pero ahora no estamos en esos tiempos, mi amigo, replicó don Lino; y yo le aseguro que con don Diego Portales no se juegan tampoco los militares: ¡ese sí que es hombre para ministro, con él todos tienen que andar derechitos! —¿Y qué sacamos con eso? preguntó con desaliento don Raimundo, ¿no ve que yo no he de ir á denunciar (a Manríquez) cuando se trata de mi honor? (IC, II; 63-64)].

Don Raimundo, a sort of protégé of the aristocratic don Lino, symbolized a preposterous, antiquated military man who looked back with nostalgia on the socio-political conditions of O’Higgins’s age. A pathetic character, don Raimundo embodied a forgotten past; he had fought during the glorious wars of Independence but nobody seemed to care any longer. His poverty and his mere presence caused people to reject him, which was a sign of a progressive erosion of values from don Raimundo’s era to contemporary times. He viewed citizenship according to the codes of a forgotten chivalry, akin to don Quijote. He spoke of being on the battlefield and recollected the heroic deeds of bygone battles that did not interest his audience. With the eclipse of don Raimundo, Portales’s government was the only alternative between a forgotten, idealized system and the political unknown. Favored by the powerful, the Ministro was instrumental in defining the socio-political direction of the new nation. A businessman, Portales pursued a no-nonsense agenda which did not concern itself with the lower strata of society. On the contrary, it reached towards the proto-business class emblematized by don Lino. All in all, as a poor, elderly, former soldier don Raimundo was forsaken by Chilean society and left with a pension that was insufficient to provide for him or his family. The monetary concerns of the Basquiñuelas family were on the mind of Abelardo, who was himself well aware that he had hurt the family deeply. During his final days, as he prepared for his execution, he pondered Candelaria’s fate as a dishonored woman. Remorseful, he wrote to Felipe about Candelaria and her sisters, wondering whether she had been able to return home to be with her father. Despondent, Felipe replied to his unfortunate friend that the fate of the young woman’s family was

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bleak; sadly, don Raimundo did not have long to live, a fact which made Felipe wonder: “What will become of that family once he dies?” [¿Qué será de esa familia cuando él muera? (IC, II; 339)]. The young húsar’s indecorous behavior toward Candelaria Basquiñuelas was presented in stark contrast to Martín’s chivalrous relationship with Edelmira Molina. The oversized love which Martín and Abelardo felt toward their idealized young women, however, inspired both young men to lead lives with tragicomic dimensions. Not even Martín was free from ridicule and distressfully laughable adventures, as we know from his infamous fight with a boot seller in the Plaza de Armas, an episode that completely embarrassed and humiliated the poor but proud student. As Goic has noted, in Martín Rivas the opposition between a young man from the provinces and the city of Santiago underscored the superiority and elegance of the citizens of the big city (197). The episode also called attention to Martín’s innate impulse to dress and appear like the wealthy family in whose house he had been allowed to live. Finally, the Plaza de Armas episode placed an abrupt, metaphorical obstacle in the path of Martín’s social ambitions. As a member of the working class—perhaps also of the Sociedad de la Igualdad—, the bootmaker literally stopped the young provincial in his tracks. Whereas Martín humbly waited for a miracle, Abelardo, accustomed to conquering ladies, could not understand the impediment to his quest. As if describing Leonor Encina, the narration spoke of “his beauty, his disdainful air and the admirable power of his beautiful eyes… (which) reflected his imperious will” [su belleza, su aire desdeñoso y el poder admirable de sus hermosos ojos… reflejaban su voluntad imperiosa (IC, I; 228)].16 A slave of his passions, Abelardo was 16

Abelardo felt so confident about his persona that he told Inés that she could not possibly love her intended Miguel Sendero. In fact, by telling her what Miguel was not, Abelardo was describing to her who he was or rather, what he wished himself to be: “If they had told me you were in love with someone, Abelardo continued without waiting for an answer, I would have believed it to be so; but on other conditions. — What conditions? The young woman asked him, looking at him with less shyness and more curiosity. — I would have thought him to be a highly attractive man, endowed with intelligence and vigor in his soul. He would have been always ready to respond with grace, with brilliant speech and manners. He would have possessed that little fire that we called a soul and that can communicate its flames to a woman. Instead, I came here and saw that young man: in a quarter of an hour I became convinced that you cannot love him. I would have given in to the one I described, bowing to his superiority, but I would never bow to don Juan Miguel [Si me hubiesen contado que Vd. quería á alguien, prosiguió Abelardo sin hacer alto en esa

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blind to Chile’s social requirements which did not abide the marriage of a rich girl to a young suitor of no means. Abelardo pressed on in his frustrated objectives to obtain the love of Inés and found pleasure in describing the alienation of his spirit. Significantly, though, Abelardo was also addressing and contesting social conservative forces, pushing for an extraordinary transgression of Chile’s rigid establishment rules: my ideal is fanciful, but it’s mine! I want the love of one of those divinities of the great world; but not one conquered by patient gallantry. I want it to be spontaneous and natural, not fixed by the boundaries of social laws, which asks permission from the world and from the church to not be ashamed of itself. I want it to be spontaneous and frank, a submissive slave of the present, relying on the strength of its force and not on legal oaths, when it looks into the future. [¡mi ideal es antojadizo, pero es mío! Quiero el amor de una de esas divinidades del gran mundo; pero no conquistado á fuerza de un paciente galanteo, sino espontáneo y natural; no arreglado al respeto de las leyes sociales, que pide permiso al mundo y á la iglesia para no avergonzarse de existir, sino espontáneo y franco, sumiso esclavo del presente, confiando en el vigor de su fuerza y no en juramentos legales, cuando mire al porvenir (IC, II; 54)].

Martín Rivas delighted in describing a materialistic Chilean society that was obsessed by economic and mercantile exchanges which had the potential to increase people’s wealth. Through Don Quijote’s episode of Camacho the Rich and Quiteria the Beautiful, we can see how Blest Gana explored preoccupations with wealth in El ideal de un calavera. In don Quijote, the devilish Basilio tricked Quiteria—who might have been a willing participant—into marrying him as he laid “dying” from a selfinflicted wound. He had been in love with her ever since he was young. In spite of the young couple’s affection for each other, Basilio had lost out to the wealthy Camacho, who had his possessions to recommend him to contestación, lo habría creído; pero con otras condiciones. — ¿Con qué condiciones? le preguntó la joven, mirándole con menos timidez y más curiosidad. — Me habría figurado á un hombre lleno de atractivos dominando en todas partes por su inteligencia y por el vigor de su alma, pronto siempre á responder con gracia, brillante de palabra y de maneras, con ese algo de fuego que se llama alma y que puede comunicar sus llamas al corazón de la mujer; pero llego aquí y veo á ese mozo: en un cuarto de hora me he convencido de que Vd. no puede amarle. Al primero le habría cedido el puesto, inclinándome ante su superioridad, y á don Juan Miguel no (IC, I; 77-78)].

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Quiteria’s parents. For González Echevarría, the skillful Basilio was not only a good actor but also an excellent student of canon law. Confronting death, he refused last rites until Quiteria married him. For his part, Camacho felt pressured to acquiesce because, if he denied the unfortunate young man’s request, he would condemn Basilio to eternal damnation (2005, 139). With tricks here, there, and everywhere Abelardo acted like a nineteenth-century Basilio but failed to get the same astounding results.17 Camacho used his wealth to procure vast quantities of food and an army of cooks and attendants (DQ, II, 20), which gave Cervantes the opportunity to examine the excesses and “flaws of the privileged” (Palma 59). Food and theatre—bread and circus—were tools that Camacho employed to secure the loyalty of those less fortunate around him. In El ideal de un calavera, Felipe Solama was described as a young idealist who mimicked Don Quijote’s Basilio. He was witty, with lots of love to offer but, like his friend Abelardo, he also lacked Camacho’s wealth: even though my banquet could not be mistaken for the one that the disappointed Camacho offered for his nuptials, I recommend it to you kindly. [si bien mi mesa no podría equivocarse con las que el chasqueado Camacho preparaba para sus bodas, se recomienda por un aire simpático (IC, II; 294)].

If Felipe had any wealth, it was to be found in his humanistic concerns and fervent pursuit of knowledge from books. Predictably, don Quijote and Sancho did not agree about Basilio and Camacho. Sancho initially favored the rich Camacho, stating that a poor man had no business interfering in the designs of a rich one: “I think a poor man should be content with whatever he finds and not go asking for the moon” (II, 20; 583) [yo soy de parecer que el pobre debe de contentarse con lo que hallare, y no pedir cotufas en el golfo (p. 679)]. Eagerly, Sancho claimed that “the best foundation and groundwork in the world is money” (II, 20; 584) [el mayor cimiento y zanja del mundo es el dinero (p. 697)]. In the same manner that Camacho used food to impose his authority, don Lino used his wealth to control others in Blest Gana’s text. The dazzling power of money created its own laws in the Basquiñuelas family. As for Manríquez, he enchanted Candelaria with the looks which fortuna had given him. 17 In spite of Basilio’s cleverness, Don Quijote leaves us with the perception that without means, in good time Basilio and Quiteria will encounter difficulties in life.

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Martín was a true role model for Chile and, as the epitome of service to others, he was compared early on to don Quijote by don Dámaso; in fact, the capitalist could not comprehend how the young man could refuse a salary (MR 98). Martín’s own object of affection, the gorgeous and proud Leonor, was at first utterly unimpressed by the humble young man. Although he had access to speak to Leonor at her “court” (when she permitted him to do so), deep within himself he considered the young woman to be way out of his league. As an authentic knight, he reacted sternly toward those who were aggressive and demeaning, but with his lady he behaved himself impeccably. With phenomenal determination, intellectual prowess, and a thirst to complete an education at the Instituto Nacional, Martín made a name for himself and vanquished Leonor’s heart. Leonor became conspicuously jealous when Martín went to rescue the distressed Edelmira Molina who was despondent at the thought of marrying Ricardo Castaños, a man she did not love. Leonor refused to accept that Martín’s desire to help Edelmira proceeded from the spirit of a caballero, exclaiming that nobody in Chile behaved like don Quijote any longer (MR 365). Blest Gana did, however, conceptualize Martín as a true caballero. In his actions, he mimicked the intentions and the actions of the Knight of the Sorrowful Face (Caballero de la Triste Figura) (Vilches 2010, “Rocín-Antes”). Don Quijote, described by Foucault as a sign proper, “a letter that has just escaped from the open pages of a book” (1994, 46), met famous chivalric characters in the Cueva de Montesinos. At court, he and Sancho continued their contact with fiction, including wizards and nymphs, which created a stupendous theatrical farce for the court’s amusement. In this drama, a sense of social crisis and laughter intertwined as don Quijote oscillated between his own fiction and a permanently fictionalized reality, which resulted in intense moments of ridicule for him. From the moment he and Sancho met the duchess, the glorious knight felt he might be “found out” through association with his squire: Do you not realize, limited as you are, and unfortunate as I am, that if they see that you are a crude peasant or a comical fool, they will think that I am an imposter or a fraudulent knight? … the man who stumbles into being a talkative fool, at the first obstacle plunges into being an unfortunate buffoon (II, 31; 660-661). [¿No adviertes, angustiado de ti y malaventurado de mí, que si veen que tú eres un grosero villano, o un mentecato gracioso, pensarán que yo soy algún echacuervos o algún caballero de mohatra… quien tropieza en hablador y en gracioso, al primer puntapié cae y da en truhan desgraciado (p. 764)].

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When he realized that Sancho could be detrimental for him, Don Quijote experienced the profound social fear of being considered a siútico. According to Elías Rivers, Don Quijote constructed a utopian literary space in which the duchess set the stage for an improbable dialogue among the social classes (38). Rivers has emphasized that the privilege bestowed upon Sancho, specifically to hold a private meeting with the duchess, would have been highly unlikely outside of a fictional account. After all, she symbolized the ruling class, and Sancho was a member of the oppressed class, someone who would never have become personally acquainted with the aristocracy. As it was, Sancho felt extremely proud and could not believe the privilege the duchess had granted him: a private conversation with a member of Spain’s highest social spheres (37, 41). The selfish duchess’ main purpose was to entertain herself and her court; she falsely and cruelly raised Sancho’s hopes for upward social mobility, as Rivers has claimed (39). In her dialogue with the squire, she sought information from the gullible Sancho that she might use to play further tricks on the pair. Besides, she wanted to convince Sancho that his new position as governor of the Insula was real. Once declared the “real” governor, Sancho wrote to his wife Teresa Panza in euphoric terms, feeling that he had reached a never imagined zenith in his life. In his new position, he was driven by “a real desire to make money” (II, 36; 699) [grandísimo deseo de hacer dineros (p. 806)]. Ultimately, the duke and duchess had convinced Sancho that the fiction was not a fiction. Doña Rodríguez, an unfortunate woman who had lost her wealth and was forced to live as the duchess’ lady-in-waiting, believed in don Quijote’s chivalric claims and begged him to restore her daughter’s honor, which had been lost at the hand of a rich young lad who was protected by the duke. An exemplum of classical humanistic quests, don Quijote provided protection to two women who had been abandoned by society and scorned by the aristocracy. For Johnson, this revealed the framework of a society in crisis, one that placed material concerns above chivalry (15). In fact, the conversation between the caballero and his neighbors in chapter one of part two sharply delineated what mattered at the duke’s court. Don Quijote condemned the lazy courtiers who, according to Di Salvo, behaved as if they were impervious to the corruption, dissoluteness and near collapse of their nation (51-52). Through don Quijote, the past was resurrected in a present where the wealthy heirs of the glamorous hidalgos of the past had become ociosos (people of leisure), unwilling to invest in their land or work for a living (Johnson 18-19). Referring to part two of Cervantes’s text, Jorge Luis Borges stated that

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“Don Quijote is the only solitude that exists in world literature” [Don Quijote es la única soledad que ocurre en la literatura del mundo (26)]. In truth, even Sancho left the knight to govern the Insula Barataria, a wellcrafted hoax that Palma has described as having one sole purpose: to make him look like a ridiculous and laughable social puppet (67). Nonetheless, through the humble Sancho, Cervantes took authority away from the aristocracy and gave it to a new man, one who, according to Rosilie Hernández, ruled a secular state without the input of the church or monarchy (21). In fact, for José Toribio Medina, the Insula Barataria episode empowered Sancho to such an extent that his presence completely dominated the subsequent interwoven chapters (567). Indeed, Sancho managed temporarily to overpower the presence of don Quijote, who had to endure critical moments in his life as a knight errant. Pondering Sancho’s newly acquired power, we are tempted to imagine Cervantes collecting taxes in the countryside, thinking of how a governor like Sancho, unspoiled by the courts, might cure what ailed the Spanish government. In the text, the diminutive squire exceeded all expectations, which underscored the change of political power between the duke and squire. The duke and the duchess, of course, had plotted from the beginning of Sancho’s tenure. They took delight when his political term was over, laughing about the coup d’état which had been orchestrated by the court’s servants. They even had a steward who noted what took place at Barataria: “he elaborated for them the attack on the ínsula, and Sancho’s fear, and his departure, giving them no small pleasure” (II, 56; 823) [les encareció el asalto de la ínsula, y el miedo de Sancho, y su salida, de que no pequeño gusto recibieron (p. 943)]. Bachiller Sansón Carrasco did not understand chivalry, which for don Quijote entailed empathy. Before leaving for his governorship, Sancho was told by don Quijote that he should never abandon or betray his heart: “If you happen to bend the staff of justice, let it be with the weight not of a gift, but of mercy” (II, 42; 731) [Si acaso doblares la vara de la justicia, no sea con el peso de la dádiva, sino con el de la misericordia (pp. 841-842)]. According to Juan Avalle-Arce, the Bachiller turned into a traitor. He broke his promise and violated his vows as a clergyman to keep don Quijote’s sally a secret (21). Actually, Avalle-Arce has established that every time Sansón appeared to interrupt the caballero’s travels, more and more new tricks were played on the readers, a fact that increased the narration’s unreliability and emulated Sansón’s surreptitious ways (23). As the Caballero de la Blanca Luna, Sansón played his final treacherous trick and eclipsed the last remaining hope of poor old don Quijote: “Wield your lance, knight, and take my life, for you have already taken my honor” (II,

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64; 887) [Aprieta, caballero, la lanza, y quítame la vida, pues me has quitado la honra (p. 1012)], said the caballero when the traitor Sansón defeated him with excessive, vindictive force. Concha has noted that Blest Gana set his novel before the crucial year 1857, when liberals and conservatives made an unexpected alliance based on common interests and clearly non-altruistic political concerns (1972, 15).18 By situating El Ideal in the 1830s, he avoided contending with what he perhaps considered a frightful and disingenuous political affair. Always the romantic warrior, the frustrated lover Abelardo dedicated his life to his nation when he chose to follow Colonel José Antonio Vidaurre, a pipiolo military man who conspired to liberate Chile from Minister Portales. Diego Portales represented the pelucones, those in power; that is, he was akin to the duke in Don Quijote. The mythical heroes of Chilean independence had already been eliminated: Miguel Carrera was executed in 1821, and Bernardo O’Higgins was ousted in 1823. Portales symbolized the new man, the new face of Chile, an individual who imposed his strong measures through weak, puppet-like presidents. The period after independence from Spain witnessed a gradual solidification of republican Chile. For Kinsbruner, Portales was a key figure in this development precisely because he began to shape Chile as a nation ruled by businessmen (1967, 10), a social model that was imitated in the twentieth century during the reign of Augusto Pinochet and the efforts of the so-called “Chicago boys,” generally understood to be graduates from the Ph.D. program in Economics at the University of Chicago. Don Lino Alcunza, for example, not only claimed to be on good terms with Portales, but he also boasted of having private access to high levels of government. In his narration of the dramatic events leading up to the assassination of Portales, Blest Gana commented that the Ministro had cunningly established his power through the military, an institution that would later, in the name of justice, betray him. In the words of Machiavelli, Portales became too trusting in the military and did not heed the changes in people’s perception of him. He thereby demonstrated how “the man who sets his course of action out of tune with the times will come to grief” (P, 25; 160) [sia infelice quello che con il procedere suo si discordano e tempi (p. 964)]. He understood that fame could be acquired through heroic deeds, but he failed to realize that he no longer had the entire nation’s support:

18 Concha calls 1857, “a veritable key date in Blest Gana’s literary production” [verdadera fecha clave en la producción literaria de Blest Gana (1972, 15)].

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Chapter Three When Don Diego Portales reached the apogee of his omnipotence, the deaf rumble of discontent circulated from one village to another, from one political circle to another, from one family to another ... the power of the dictator began to unravel with the army, which was the foundation of his strength, as it is for those who base their greatness on force and not on the love of the people. Don Diego Portales needed to silence those who voiced sinister predictions and to secure his absolute domination, dazzling the people he oppressed with bursts of glory. Giving them freedom would have amounted to turning over the reins of power. He anxiously searched the distant horizons for what he had been unable to reach within the borders of his patria, and found that Peru had been invaded by a foreign usurper, a protector that wanted to shake the political foundations of America. [El sordo rumor del descontento circulaba de un pueblo á otro pueblo, de un círculo político á otro círculo, de una familia á otra, cuando don Diego Portales había llegado al apogeo de su omnipotencia… el poder del dictador debía principiar á desmoronarse por el ejército, que era la base de su poder, como lo es de todos los que buscan en la fuerza, y no en el amor de los pueblos, su grandeza (IC, II; 319)]. [Don Diego Portales necesitaba acallar esas voces de siniestras predicciones y afianzar su dominación absoluta, deslumbrando con los destellos de 1a gloria á los pueblos que oprimía, ya que el darles libertad habría sido entregar las riendas del poder. Su vista buscó ansiosa en lejanos horizontes lo que en los límites de la patria era imposible alcanzar, y halló al Perú invadido por un usurpador extranjero, que desde su silla protectoral quería conmover las bases políticas de la América (IC, II; 319320)].

Machiavelli stated that rulers lost their lives more often through conspiracies than “open warfare” (D, III, 6; 257) [guerra aperta (p. 2538)]. He added that there could be many reasons for a conspiracy, but hatred of a ruler was the main one, compounded by any injuries the conspirators might have suffered. Following through, however, was not an easy task; there were many variables to consider. For that reason, Machiavelli concluded, “many conspiracies are attempted but very few reach their desired goal” (D, III, 6; 257) [molte se ne tentano e pochissime hanno il fine desiderato (p. 2538)]. As the Chilean republic was forming, a number of conspiracies were attempted by injured subjects. General Freire executed a thoughtless, doomed expedition that took him from exile in Peru to the perennially contested territory of Chiloe. He was not well armed but thought that by his mere presence he could cause a rebellion among the people who were discontented with the Ministro (Villalobos 1989, 175-176). On the contrary, the government allies prevailed over his

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forces and he was betrayed by his own people. From liberator he became a man incarcerated. In the conspiracy against Portales, Colonel Vidaurre wrongly overestimated the antagonism that people felt toward the enigmatic leader. Additionally, after the Motín de Quillota, the mutineers were not supported by other sectors of the Armed Forces, as they had expected to be. The troops in the port of Valparaíso, for instance, remained steadfastly loyal to the Ministro and, guided by Admiral Manuel Blanco Encalada, vanquished the rogue forces. Soon after, mimicking the reversal of Freire’s combatants, Vidaurre’s conspiring troops quickly switched their alliance to the conservative side.19 Abelardo arrived at the Cantón of Quillota on 2nd June, 1837 and immediately impressed Colonel Vidaurre and his counterparts with his sangfroid, his aplomb, and strong opinions on Portales’s erroneous ways. His credentials said that the young húsar was a daredevil and “foolproof brave” [valiente a toda prueba (IC, II; 324)]. He quickly won the approval of the conspirators. When asked about the Ministro, Abelardo replied that he did not approve of the statesman’s mandate to send an expedition to Peru, echoing the mutineers’ belief that “don Diego sends it to consolidate his power and because he fears revolutions” [don Diego la envía para afianzar su poder y porque teme las revoluciones (IC, II; 325)]. In Machiavellian terms, Diego Portales became vulnerable to a conspiracy because he was considered a tyrant by a majority. He had lost perspective on how his actions would be received in non-aristocratic sectors. The actions of the conspirators were futile, however, and the death of Portales riled up the troops who suffocated the insurrection of the Maipo Battalion. When all was lost, Vidaurre and his associates came to terms with Portales’s political influence. The failure of el Motín de Quillota assured that the Ministro’s plan of attack against Peru and Bolivia would eventually be carried out. His death also made evident to the conspirators that they could never take lightly the goodwill and reassurance that a ruler instilled in people (D, III, 6; 257) (p. 2540). In Blest Gana’s version of Portales’s death, anarchy pervaded the insurrected company and many soldiers deserted the battlefield. Abelardo Manríquez was one of the few stalwart men to remain, stoically awaiting capture. He was immediately imprisoned and later in spite of his lower rank sentenced to death. Under these severe circumstances, Felipe, a lawyer, wrote to his friend Abelardo in the hope that the young húsar might have his life spared since he had only followed orders from his superior Vidaurre. Felipe warned him, though: 19

Manuel Blanco Encalada was an uncle of Blest Gana.

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Chapter Three Beware of compromising your situation with quixotic statements! Remember that don Quijote was so ridiculous because he was so exaggerated in his valor. [¡Cuidado con que vayas á comprometer tu situación con declaraciones quijotescas! “¡Acuérdate que don Quijote fué tan ridículo porque fué tan exagerado en su valor! (IC, II; 240)].

Don Quijote indeed mourned the lack of brave men in his own time: “it grieves my very soul that I have taken up the profession of knight errant in an age as despicable as the one we live in now” (I, 38; 333) [en el alma me pesa de haber tomado este ejercicio de caballero andante en edad tan detestable como es esta en que ahora vivimos (pp. 393-394)]. Alluding to a mythical Golden Age, don Quijote also referred to the destructive power of artillery, powder and tin. Abelardo, for his part, was not spared the fate of other higher ranked mutineers. His punishment highlighted the futility of idealistic men, whom Blest Gana portrayed as not fully aware of the precipitous events that had been triggered by the arrest of the Ministro, killed by the “alcoholic cloud” [humos alcohólicos] of Captain Florín (IC, II; 335). Vidaurre and his subordinates from the Maipo Regiment thus became counterfeit patriots, serving “as a kind of negative example, the other side of the coin to the beautiful and sublime” (Thomson 15). Underscoring don Quijote’s statement that a brave soldier “hears his enemies mining their way toward him, and he cannot leave for any reason or flee the danger that threatens him” (I, 38; 332) [siente que los enemigos están minando hacia la parte donde él está, y no puede apartarse de allí por ningún caso ni huir del peligro que de tan cerca le amenaza (p. 393)], Abelardo faced the stark reality of Vidaurre’s disbanded troops the only way he knew how. He waited heroically for the governmental army to arrive, an act of courage that only a turbulent spirit could have performed. Indeed, as Machiavelli said “no one can be found who wants to go to certain death” (D, III, 6; 259) [non si truova chi voglia andare ad una certa morte (p. 2544)]. A complicated political figure during his lifetime, Portales became mythical after his cruel death and was mourned by the whole nation. As for Abelardo and his group, they became a grotesque theatrical spectacle for society: Everyone wanted to see how the paladins of that brief epic faced death. In the name of liberty, they had sacrificed their burgeoning youth, the people they love, and the tranquility of their families. Their historic legacy would be the bloody imprint of their atonement.

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[Cada cual quería ver cómo arrostraban la muerte los paladines de aquella rápida epopeya, que habían ofrecido á la libertad, su juventud henchida de esperanzas, sus amores y el reposo de sus familias, y que iban á dejar en la historia la sangrienta huella de su expiación (IC, II; 346)].

During his stay at court, don Quijote saw his social vulnerabilities become accentuated. He evolved into an amusing, laughably obsolete puppet for the aristocracy, being ridiculed and injured, as in his sorrowful and alarming cats and bells adventure, which left don Quijote badly scratched. The members of the court, in this sense, clawed apart the old values of the knight errant while they shredded his vision of the chivalric social fabric. Notwithstanding his discomfiture, don Quijote was a treasure trove of literary entertainment for the duke and the duchess who made him the protagonist of their elaborate fiction. They eagerly staged spectacles to play tricks on don Quijote and laugh at him with their courtiers. In a sense, they upped the ante and refused to allow the caballero to create his own fictionalized world. They were the puppeteers controlling don Quijote’s strings and Sancho’s scripted stories. Their behavior presaged Marie Antoinette and her coterie at Versailles. Understandably, Cide Hamete felt compelled to say that he believed “the deceivers [to be] as mad as the deceived” (II, 70; 914) [ser tan locos los burladores como los burlados (p. 1041)]. The duke and the duchess ridiculed themselves and appeared as a flagrant spectacle of the aristocracy. The villain Sansón Carrasco, who was finally responsible for vanquishing the mythical don Quijote, discovered early on that don Quijote took risks that others were not willing to take. He took a chivalric approach to life that the priest, the barber, and especially Sansón, could not comprehend. He was up for anything and did not shy away from physical pain, especially if the honor of his lady was at stake. For the caballero, as Max Ubelaker has said, no quest was undoable, and no matter how high the degree of pain he never once thought of giving up (89). Indeed, he stood up to any affront, be it to his persona or to his deeply held beliefs. As don Quijote told the canon, books of chivalry spoke the truth about the lives of knights errant. From there, he proceeded to narrate the story of El Caballero del Lago (Knight of the Lake), a brave caballero who did not hesitate to jump into a lake filled with serpents and other menacing beasts. His valiant gestures were rewarded, though, as he subsequently entered a world in which the sun shone with clarity and nature brought joy to the caballero’s eyes. Foucault contended that, since don Quijote wanted to resemble his beloved books, he needed to provide proof that they told the truth (1994, 47). When El Caballero del Lago discovered a brook with a fountain in the shape of a grotto, don Quijote reflected himself into his

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own creation. As he said to the canon, “art, imitating nature, here seems to surpass it” (I, 50; 429) [el arte, imitando a la naturaleza, parece que allí la vence (p. 500)]. As a narrator, Blest Gana felt differently toward his separate creations, Martín and Abelardo. He was completely proud of the former and had a soft spot for the latter—whom he considered his black sheep— proclaiming that the young fellow inspired “a feeling of profound affection” [un sentimiento de profunda simpatía] (IC, I; 11). Blest Gana gave Chile a markedly flawed hero. Nonetheless, in his rebelliousness, Abelardo Manríquez appeared revolutionary for his time as he expressed his dislike of stifling cultural practices. In conversation with Felipe, he argued against the notion of traditional marriage and instead advocated for free love. Abelardo was penniless, impetuous, and idealistic, and his impressionable heart drove his actions and beliefs. When he channeled his passion, he was able to focus on the hardships of his nation and, thus, he became politicized. Toward the end of his life, though, Abelardo began to better understand himself and his circumstances. He considered himself the heir of other men who had also tried and failed. In this regard, Blest Gana endowed Abelardo Manríquez with a tremendous capacity to reason about his bad ways even as he stubbornly carried on, undeterred by his fleeting misgivings. He was a perfect combination of the villainous and heroic. Indeed, Abelardo was a deeply complex individual, part angel and part devil, with unexpected displays of sweetness or mercilessness. With a cantankerous attitude towards society’s laws, Abelardo stirred disharmony wherever he went. His beautiful and elegant uniform, and his regal presence, permitted him access to the high echelons of society without difficulty. Like the knight errant, the young húsar gravitated between reality and fiction, believing himself to be the Abelardo of fiction. Yet, he could not escape from the gravest of dangers, that is, he could not escape from himself. He could not stop the impulses that pushed him to become a libertine; he did not acknowledge that he was destroying his life. Resembling Rafael San Luis from Martín Rivas, Abelardo did not pause to think before he took Candelaria from her house. Their elopement not only ruined Candelaria Basquiñuelas’s reputation, but it caused the sudden illness and premature death of her father. Regardless of his incautious behavior, his major weakness was his never-ending pursuit of a nonexistent woman. The raison d’être of his endeavors, his worshipping of Inés associated the young húsar closely to don Quijote. Without any profound faith in Abelardo’s sense of moral duty, Blest Gana constructed a fallen hero in a Chilean literary landscape and imbued him with a critical spirit. When not preoccupied with, and distracted by, his impossible love,

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Abelardo was capable of immersing himself in the social and political concerns of an emerging nation, a Chile that was advancing toward independence while still entangled in its colonial past.

Innovators and Irreconcilable Ideologies Few historical figures have penetrated Chile’s narrative of national identity like Allende and Portales. Both were concerned with social order. Allende focused on social and institutional practices that would benefit all, and Portales’s aim was to aggressively deter political change and thereby to prevent the inevitable ensuing chaos and disorder. Jocelyn-Holt has argued that both Portales and Allende left an indelible imprint in Chile’s historical registry. Portales left a letter before he was assassinated, and Allende gave a final speech before he took his own life in La Moneda. Both of them were well aware “of the power of words” [el poder de las palabras (2014, 293)].20 Allende has been conceived in many different subjective ways and was certainly a figure as enigmatic as Portales. Many visual and written texts have been produced about Allende and his times, among them Fernando Alegría’s Allende: Mi vecino el presidente (1989) —translated as Allende: A Novel—, Patricio Guzmán’s Salvador Allende: A Film (2004), and Roberto Ampuero’s El último tango de Salvador Allende [The Last Tango of Salvador Allende] (2012). Using Gramsci’s reading of Machiavelli, we can see in Allende’s ongoing candidacy for the presidency all the relentlessness, the emotion, and the passion of a man of action. As a candidate, he turned himself into a “new prince” of the peoples, purporting to radically depart from previous political modes and to put in place a government of the people for the people. At first glance, it 20 Jocelyn-Holt emphasizes the long-lasting legacy of Portales, Balmaceda, and Allende: “Portales wrote for the historical record, fully aware that his last words would be in a letter. (He knew) that he could be read, postmortem, which guaranteed him some control over the situation. Balmaceda thought as much. And in the case of Allende, thanks to the advances of radiotelephony, he even left us the courageous tone of his voice amidst the din. All of them, of course, knew very well about the power of words, perhaps the only thing that survives with dignity.” [Portales escribe para el registro histórico, plenamente consciente de que sus últimas palabras serían epistolares. (Supo) que lo podrían llegar a leer, post mórtem, lo cual le garantizaba cierto control de la situación. Balmaceda pensó otro tanto, y lo que es Allende, gracias a los avances de la radiofonía, nos dejó incluso el timbre corajudo de su voz en medio de la sonajera. Todos, por supuesto, sabían muy bien cuál era el poder de las palabras, quizá lo único que sobrevive dignamente (2014, 293)].

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appeared as if Machiavelli would have placed his prince against the people, but, as Charles D. Tarlton has analyzed, for Machiavelli the ruler gained the most stability by siding with the people and asking for their loyalty (2007, 55). A political innovator, Allende was fighting against a seemingly oxymoronic bourgeois aristocracy, two groups which, according to Alberto Edwards, became a united front during the formative years of the republic. Edwards has argued that this upper-class bourgeois sector had been formed out of the triumph of money and that, in turn, it promoted a spirit of mercantilism (9). From the perspective of J. G. A. Pocock’s The Machiavellian Moment, Allende’s candidacy responded to the socio-political decay of a stagnant government establishment. His election, therefore, shook the very foundations of Chile’s lethargic and dormant republican institutions. As a trailblazer, however, Allende found himself highly vulnerable. Pocock has contended that novel political power, in Machiavelli’s conception, had to be exercised with extreme caution because it was by nature dissimilar from what had been in place before. Like the fox and the lion, the new prince had to overcome his enemies with cunning and force. As Pocock has specified, the new prince had much going against him: The newness of his rule means that the has performed an innovation, overthrowing or replacing some form of government which preceded him. In doing this he must have injured many people, who are not reconciled to his rule, while those who welcomed his arrival now expect more from him that he is able to provide (160).

As a candidate, Allende was a true innovator. His presence, like that of Portales, grew to mythical proportions after his spectacular death by a selfinflicted gunshot wound, a sign that he was determined not to be vanquished by the mutinous Armed Forces. Using Foucault’s notion of museums as heterotopia, we can see how post-Pinochet human geography is obliged continuously to contend with Allende and his unique legacy as an outsider. Contemporary politicians, the willing or unwilling inheritors of his quixotic dreams, cannot avoid dealing, therefore, with Allende’s political otherness. He was motivated by grand ideals and social movements for equality, which he did not consider “a utopic dream but an eminent possibility” (Figueroa Clark 11). His democratic visions, like “counter-sites, a kind of effectively enacted utopia” (Foucault 1986, 24), contested and mirrored the real sites of deeply faltering contemporary democratic spaces in Chile. In the film Salvador Allende, Guzmán has asserted that when he began to document the history of the people of Chile, he did not intend to have Allende as a main focus. He soon realized,

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however, that without Allende as a central theme “there was no history” [no había historia] (“Who Was Allende?” Salvador Allende). Indeed, however implausible and unlikely ever to be reproduced, Allende’s nonhegemonic social space relates, one way or another, to all political spaces in the nation. From a Foucauldian perspective of power discourses, Allende is Chile’s museum of political history, a heterotopia that explains the nation’s history and one with which all Chileans have to come to grips. Allende the candidate was successful at taking a heuristic approach to politics. He continued this practice unwisely as president. He was a selfprofessed Marxist but his own political agenda and professional motivations revealed this to be not necessarily true. Rather than a Marxist, he has been associated with bourgeois socialist and libertarian ideas.21 According to Nathaniel Davis, U.S. ambassador during the Allende years, the socialist president was a true democrat who eschewed any deprivation of human liberties (50). During his long political trajectory, he co-founded the Socialist party and became the nation’s first democratically elected Socialist president. He showed himself to be a shrewd Machiavellian negotiator. He was a savvy congressman who relied on charisma and his unmatched skills as an orator to successfully negotiate difficult agreements with a very conservative opposition via his famous “flexible political wrist” [el muñequeo de Allende].22 In other words, before the presidency Allende was Machiavelli’s prototype of a man and a beast. He understood that a man of power “cannot and should not keep his word when such an observance of faith would be to his disadvantage” (P, 18; 134) [né debbe 21

Sergio Vuskovic, former mayor of Valparaíso, birthplace of Allende, notes that Allende was familiar with Marx. For Vuskovic, however, Allende’s beliefs were rooted in the French Revolution, along the lines of libertarian ideas absorbed from an Italian shoemaker anarchist. He adds that one could not exactly say that Allende was a Marxist or not. Vuskovic argues that as a highly cultivated man, Allende did not rely on one source for his ideas, but his ideology was infused with the philosophy of many thinkers. In fact, he quotes Allende as saying that “a dictatorship of the proletariat is not part of the government’s program. We will not come to that” [en el programa de gobierno no está la dictadura del proletariado. Nosotros no vamos a llegar a eso]. Vuskovic is absolutely certain that the president did not follow Lenin’s ideas, adding that Allende took vital elements from Marx, such as “his concern for workers and the poor and his notion of equality” [la preocupación por los trabajadores y los pobres y la idea de la igualdad] “Who Was Allende”? Salvador Allende. 22 For instance, as Nathaniel Davis notes, Allende was quoted saying that to be able to get to power before his ratification in Congress in November 1970, he had to sign “as a tactical necessity” democratic guarantees forced upon him by the Christian democrats (15).

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observare la fede, quando tale observanzia gli torni contro (p. 757)]. In fact, Allende was a man who could make political deals and later undo them with ease (Davis 50). His formidable presence as a candidate frightened the opposition as he got closer to winning. At the dawn of the seventies, he became a candidate for a fourth time. During the campaign, it became clear that Allende would finally win a substantial number of votes, which ignited a crisis among the oligarchic sectors. One of Allende’s most remarkable features was his ability to use what Castiglione called sprezzatura on every socio-political stage. Having been just a few inches away from him at an impromptu rally as a young girl, I can attest to his charisma. He made people feel comfortable and at ease with him, which certainly contributed to his unprecedented election and presidency. He was so strong in fact by the time of the 1970 election that not even the CIA or the Nixon administration could stop him.23 Once in power at the presidential palace of La Moneda, El Chicho, as he was known, set out to radically change Chile’s traditional social order. While his pre-presidential political abilities have been celebrated by many, his tenure as president has often been criticized. For Jonathan Haslam, for instance, Allende was “an accomplished parliamentary tactician rather than an adept administrator” (101). Peter Kornbluh, quoting a CIA Intelligence agent, has described Allende as “one of the most astute politicians and parliamentarians in a nation whose favorite pastime is kaffeeklatsch politics” (1). In truth, as president, Allende could not or rather would not roar like a lion. During his mandate, thus, his traditional views on the polis got the best of him. Believing, as Gramsci did, that a 23

According to Peter Kornbluh, U.S. intervention in Latin America was a common procedure at the time of Allende’s election: “presidents frequently authorized overt military efforts to remove governments deemed undesirable to U.S. economic and political interests” (2-3). On election day, ambassador Edward Korry sent numerous reports to the U.S., blaming the Christian Democrats and a blind-sided right-wing upper class for losing its candidate to Allende. He wrote: “Leadership depends upon, if I may use Spanish cabeza, corazon, and cojones (brains, heart, and balls)” (p. 11). Much has been written about Allende’s narrow majority on 4th September 1970. Because of the number of candidates vying for the presidency, his narrow margin of votes over Jorge Alessandri would have been understood more as a norm than an exception. In the twentieth century, there were four instances in which a candidate for the presidency received a relative majority, in 1946, 1952, 1958, and 1970. The Constitution of 1925 required candidates to be ratified by Congress. On each occasion, Congress voted to ratify the candidate that had received the relative majority. These candidates were Gabriel González Videla, Carlos Ibañez del Campo, Jorge Alessandri, and Salvador Allende, respectively.

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prince/ president symbolized the people’s collective will (129), Allende’s political views were idealistic and were broad enough to capture the inclinations of previously underrepresented Chileans. After all, he had faith in politicians’ integrity and favored give-and-take political dialogue among trustworthy individuals. Unequivocally, Machiavelli himself had indicated that “there can be no success if one is hated or condemned by the populace” (Tarlton 2007, 57). Within this framework, Allende was eager to engage in dialogue and negotiation with everyone, no matter how far to the left or to the right they were. He believed that democracy was the only alternative. In other words, he acted in a way that was diametrically opposed to Portales who desired a government of a few for a few. For El Chicho, anyone could stand on the podium and have a discussion with the compañero presidente (comrade president). Predictably, his democratic principles allowed the opposition to hold the podium, too; otherwise, he would have betrayed his own fundamental democratic beliefs. In Diario del general de ejército Carlos Prats [Diary of the General of the Army Carlos Prats] (1984), general Carlos Prats González (1915-1975), head of the Army from 1970-August 1973, often expressed his frustration with Allende’s unwillingness to take drastic measures against an increasingly vitriolic opposition. For Allende, democracy was always the answer. Nearing the end of his mandate, he agreed to, and prepared for, a plebiscite that would decide his fate. During his cold and lonely moments, specifically on 11th August 1973, one month before the coup, Prats doubted that Allende would take the steps necessary to stop the sabotage inflicted upon his government, especially the ferocious and Americansupported transport strike that had paralyzed the nation: I let the president know that I support presenting an ultimatum to the transport strikers, but that it must contain the indispensable conditions of any ultimatum: that once the deadline is passed, without hesitation, with the greatest energy, without a single step back, appropriate measures will be taken against transgressors. The president said he agreed to that. Let’s hope he goes through with it. [Le expresé al presidente que estoy de acuerdo con el ultimátum a los trasportistas, pero siempre que cumpla una condición indispensable de todo ultimátum: que cumplido el plazo se apliquen las medidas correspondientes en contra de los infractores, sin vacilación alguna, con la mayor energía, y sin un solo paso atrás. El presidente dijo estar de acuerdo. Ojalá sea así (29)].

From a Machiavellian perspective, Allende behaved like gonfaloniere Piero Soderini, the chief officer of the Florentine republic during

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Machiavelli’s years as its secretary and ambassador. Described sternly and at times bitterly, Soderini was perceived by the Florentine Secretary as too patient and too prudent to force political events in his favor. His inaction allowed for grave misconduct among the opposition parties, who ceased to respect him. The gonfaloniere, Machiavelli contended, was fearful that if he implemented sanctions he would appear unjust to his fellow citizens. Soderini should have exerted his authority, even if he would have been perceived as unjust or cruel, because “one should never allow an evil to continue on for the sake of a good, when that good can easily be destroyed by that evil” (D, III, 3; 353) [non si debbe mai lasciare scorrere un male rispetto ad uno bene quando quel bene facilmente possa essere da quel male opressato (p. 2512)]. Like Soderini, Allende stoically took hits from all sides of the political spectrum, thinking that he could convince them with his charm, his soaring rhetoric, and by negotiation alone. Ultimately for him, democracy had to be able to endure the confrontation of differing points of view, a fact which complicated matters for his allies. As Figueroa Clark has noted, this exchange for Allende underlined the necessary confrontation of “two concepts of social order and human coexistence” (117). As it was, politics during the Allende years was put on dramatic display not only through print culture but increasingly through visual culture. Colorful graffiti on the city’s walls democratically illuminated the views of his supporters and his detractors.24 Allende’s final confrontation with the coup plotters was a face-off between his government’s desire for a new social order and the plotters’ urge to regain “the world that ‘has existed’” (Figueroa Clark 117). The junta conspirators restored for the elite a world that the Socialist president had fought in vain to change. Having been an expert at maneuvering like the fox as a candidate, Allende found that he could not become a lion as president, which slowly diminished his strength. His rhetoric was beautiful and elegant, but society was no longer interested in intellectual political conversation. As a consequence, opposition at the highest levels trickled down into the more popular sectors (117). An unreasonable left wing of his government pressured him constantly. At a loss, Allende persisted at attempting to establish a dialogue about a revolution through democracy. But his efforts fell on the deaf ears of both a virulent opposition and left wing

24 As a young girl in the first days after the coup d’état, I remember having the perception that my city had gone from a film in color to black-and-white. That is, erasing of color from the city’s walls, along with the dark-painted faces of the soldiers, cast a dark shadow over my city. In a sense, the “No” propaganda of the late eighties brought back the color that had faded away following the coup.

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extremists.25 According to Davis, in the long run Allende’s flexible wrist, his skills as a fox, turned out to hurt him as president. Perhaps it had been a strategic mistake to invite Fidel Castro to Chile during his first year as commander-in-chief. Had he waited, Chileans might have better understood the differences in the visions of the two heads of state. But Allende’s government only lasted three years. After arriving on 10th November 1971, the Cuban head of state stayed for twenty-three days and stirred vitriolic passion among the opposition. As history has shown, Castro’s visit fed the worst fears of opposition and conservative politicians, even after he toned down his rhetoric. They viewed Castro’s presence in Chile as a visceral attack against their nation and sovereignty. In fact, without the old world of chivalry and politics, a conversation with the opposition was impossible since their only purpose had become to remove Allende from power. Machiavelli had warned rulers that, between being loved and feared, the latter would allow them to maintain their power: “fear is held together by a dread of punishment that will never abandon you” (P, 17; 131) [il timore è tenuto da una paura di pena che non ti abandona mai (p. 732)]. Allende was motivated by an intrinsic desire to persuade people, a weapon that had worked well for him in the past. His granddaughter Marcia Tambutti, author of Allende mi abuelo Allende [Beyond My Grandfather Allende] (2015), won for best documentary at Cannes. She has demonstrated that her grandfather, a great conversationalist and social machine, seduced and affected people deeply. For her, Chicho was greatly tolerant; he was keen to find points of convergence and related to others with what Tambutti has described as warm empathy. She has also articulated how Allende followed in the footsteps of his own father as a “fun loving, bon-vivant, womanizer” [gozador, vividor, mujeriego] (Bazán). He carried on an extra marital relationship with Miria Contreras, “La Payita,” who accompanied him on his last day in La Moneda. In love and in politics, then, he took risks and did not change with the times, as Machiavelli urged rulers to do. He continued behaving in the same elegant and polite manner of older times. Pot-banging protests and the perfidy of print culture, especially the political propaganda of El Mercurio— a pioneer of America’s Fox News Channel—demanded that Allende leave the presidency. For Prats, Allende’s government was already gravely weakened (37). Overwhelmed, Allende made the catastrophic choice of 25

Figueroa Clark notes that the claims of the MIR to raise a popular army were for the most part rhetorical. However, since they were gifted at oratory, their longwinded arguments at rallies were exploited by the opposition and the CIAsponsored media (118).

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naming general Gustavo Leigh as commander-in-chief of the Air Force on 18th August 1973, visibly demonstrating that he had lost the scent of the fox. Prats chided the president saying that he had gotten rid of a mediocre general and installed, instead, an intelligent and fanatical adversary (37). Allende thought that, by keeping his enemies close, he could convert them to his side. He lost the Arms vs. Letters debate. In the final weeks of his presidency, Allende’s words had ceased to exert power over those who possessed and controlled the weapons. They were more than ready and willing to reinstate the social order that Allende had sought to renew and reshape in his beloved nation. In Chile’s narrative of national identity, Allende’s historical legacy and political purposes echoed the efforts of nineteenth-century Chilean liberal intellectuals, especially the members of the Sociedad de la Igualdad. From this perspective, Allende’s political goals reached all the way back to independence and the emergence of the republic, a fact that demonstrates that he had pursued Machiavellian outcomes as Gramsci understood them.26 Indeed, as Susan A. Ashley has argued, for Gramsci Machiavelli wrote The Prince as “a rescue mission” of some sort, as a heroic attempt at “finding ways of winning over the people and mobilizing the popular will” (311). In this sense, the prince acted for the people and by the people. According to Patricia Verdugo, while La Moneda was under attack by heavy artillery, Allende felt more than ever that he was an innovator with respect to past elected presidents. After a tumultuous year and several vain attempts to negotiate with the opposition and with the extreme left, he finally felt free to express his political purposes as he would have wanted. Facing La Moneda’s gallery of busts of his presidential predecessors, Allende proceeded literally and physically to break them down. He knocked them all over, sparing only the bust of Balmaceda, from the nineteenth century, and Pedro Aguirre Cerda, from the twentieth (113). In other words, on his last day of existence, Allende finally made a resounding and conscientious historical break from Chile’s conservative past. Notwithstanding the constant negative response to his policies, for 26

Jocelyn-Holt asserts that Allende’s political thought tied him to the ideology of the likes of Mateo de Toro y Zambrano and to the republican legacy in general: “Allende ends up being —in 1973— if not clearly ‘the last Republican,’ in my opinion, one of the best exponents of liberal ideology, in a reformist version (‘the Chilean road to republicanism’), one that ‘we had been considering for some 160 years and until this day’” [Allende termina siendo —en 1973— si no ‘el último republicano’ claramente, a mi juicio, uno de los mejores exponentes del ideario liberal, versión reformista (‘la vía chilena al republicanismo’), que ‘veníamos barajando desde hacía 160 años a la fecha’ (2011, 17-18)].

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instance, Allende’s presidency succeeded in defending “the sovereignty of our national resources” [la soberanía de las riquezas nacionales], to quote Luis Vitale. He recovered the collective memory of Chile’s early republic for his contemporaries and was like an extant representation of Bilbao and Balmaceda (226). As an abajista, Allende reluctantly admitted that he came from a well-off family and bourgeois roots (Debray and Allende 65). Like Allende, Bilbao too was a patrician abajista who had used his intellectual abilities and education to fight against the oligarchic system that had formed him, as Andrew Kirkendall has observed (108). In February 2005, during construction of a new crypt in the Catedral de Santiago, originally built by Roman architect Gioacchino Toesca (17451799), archeologists unearthed the remains of Diego Portales, the bellwether for nineteenth-century conservative political action. During his brief tenure, Portales held numerous ministerial appointments, among them Secretary of State and Foreign Relations. Known for his idiosyncratic lifestyle, Portales is ubiquitous in Chile’s national sentiment. Like Allende, he attracts opposite views of his historical significance. Juan Carlos Arellano’s Entre la virtud y la fortuna: Portales en los ojos de Maquiavelo (2012), which follows the perspective of Pocock’s Machiavellian moment, has contended that Portales deployed the qualities of a “new prince,” and turned himself into “one of the most visible innovators in the history of the Chilean republic, in those decades when politics was dominated by fortuna” [uno de los innovadores más visibles de la historia republicana chilena en aquellas décadas, en que la política era dominada por la fortuna (19)]. Pocock has astutely perceived how fortuna wreaked havoc in a republic when individuals did not fulfill their duties as citizens (156). In the face of such absence, turbulence and unforeseen contingencies inevitably ruled the day. Introducing a new edition of Portales’s Epistolario [Correspondence], Carmen Fariña Vicuña has pondered the difficulties of assessing the real Portales for a twentyfirst century audience. According to Kinsbruner, Portales displayed “a nationalistic economic sentiment” from early on (1967, 3). This reverberated in his political approach and informed his practical conceptualization of nation and his views on the maintenance of a necessarily restricted social order. Kinsbruner has contended that the Ministro never truly engaged intellectually. He never voiced a desire to learn economic theory, not even to improve his commercial skills. On the contrary, there was “much to indicate that he never understood it” (1967, 4). As a man of virtù, Portales did not spend much of his time thinking about issues, but instead reacted assertively to what fortuna brought his way. In this regard, for Chilean anti-poet Nicanor Parra, Portales symbolized the anti-Hamlet:

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A man of action and faction, he never permitted any artist to reproduce his likeness. A polarizing political figure, Portales has been interpreted from radically different viewpoints in Chile. Praising Portales, Edwards has argued that the Ministro was instrumental in shaping what came to be known as an authoritarian state and thus can be credited for positively transforming the Chilean nation. According to Edwards, under the firm grasp of Portales, and with the assent of the aristocracy, Chile changed from a disorderly territory to a place of public order. This prompted the Chilean historiographer to elevate the Ministro to the status of a “man of genius” [hombre de genio (41)], capable of repairing the ills of the nation. For Villalobos, however, Portales’s policies were useful principally for mercantile purposes. Portales was also driven by ideals of socio-political order, but those were substantially subordinate to other pressing, materialistic concerns (1989, 81). Using Portales’s many epistles, Villalobos has portrayed the Ministro as someone with intolerant views and “a domineering spirit that did not admit the slightest deviation” [espíritu dominante que no admitía la menor desviación (1989, 87)]. The powerful few had fought to put O’Higgins in power, but once there he gradually and steadily diminished their grip on the government. As a result, Chile’s most prominent families slowly but increasingly started to conspire against the Director Supremo. Supported by the aristocracy and the Church, Portales ruled with an iron fist and attempted to recover the status and power of the former criollo elite. For Villalobos, Portales was not a subjective or autonomous protagonist in Chile’s socio-political history. He was rather a conservative interpreter of its national processes; he was not an actor but a reactor (1989, 82). Jocelyn-Holt has asserted that the diametrically opposed historical representations of Portales abate or even nullify our ability to make a moral judgment on him (2014, 162, 288). Viewed through this prism, Portales was neither a man of genius nor an entirely selfish businessman, but a product of his times. As an upper-class individual, he acted

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politically in the best interest of his social class.27 Opposing Villalobos’ political perception of the Ministro, Jocelyn-Holt has argued that Portales was not a conservative, but “a liberal politician even though he belonged to a traditional order” [un político liberal aunque todavía propio de un orden tradicional (2014, 15)]. Kinsbruner has also contended that Portales did not necessarily represent conservative views but liberal ones; he was not exactly a supporter of a progressive democratic system, but of one rooted in the tradition of Locke and Montesquieu (1967, 6). Kinsbruner and Jocelyn-Holt have both concluded that Portales’s actions did not arise from a well-defined political ideology but rather from a pragmatic sense that it was necessary to contain disorder in the republic (1967, 22). Portales took the national reins after a military takeover and civil coup d’état in 1829, one which successfully restored a formerly threatened conservative and oligarchic military-civic alliance (Jocelyn-Holt 2014, 175-176). A businessman by trade, he became known as a strong man who would not hesitate to take energetic measures. Interestingly, he modelled himself after the likes of Cosimo de’ Medici, the de facto ruler of Florence in the fifteenth-century. Portales never allowed himself to become the official head of the state of Chile. Maurizio Viroli has underscored that, in his native city, Cosimo made sure that his associates, his “friends,” were protected, honored and generally granted benefits and wealth (2010, xvii). The Ministro also knew that, to accomplish his goals, he would need to pursue policies that would per force benefit only a few, the ones that mattered. Like Cosimo in Florence, Portales had a very clear vision for Chile. In a pivotal epistle, arguably one of Chile’s most famous nineteenth-century letters, he addressed the delicate issue of maintaining social order. On 16th July 1832, Portales wrote to minister Joaquín Tocornal to advise him on governmental procedures and to comment on the disorder of Chile’s statutory laws. Here is how he described the nation and Chileans: In Chile, social order is maintained by the weight of night and because we do not have subtle, clever, and energetic men: the almost general tendency of the masses to rest guarantees our public tranquility. If that went

27 For Jocelyn-Holt, Portales represents a dictator in the classical sense (2014, 172). Praised by Machiavelli, dictators, of the type of Lucius Quinctius Cincinnatus, symbolized for the Florentine Secretary selfless individuals whose sole purpose was to fix the ills of the republic (D, III, 25; 317). Because he concentrated on putting out political fires, Portales consistently dealt with what the current situation was, without allowing himself to prescribe a specific ideology (2014, 173).

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Chapter Three missing, we would be in the dark, unable to contain the unruly except by measures dictated by reason, or by what experience has taught us to be useful; but in the meanwhile, neither in this line nor in any other can we find officials who know how, or are able, to rule, because they ignore what is required. If today you ask the wisest Mayor, what he is supposed to do, he will respond that he is to comply with and enforce Government orders and to oversee the civic guards in their respective provinces. The country is in such a state of barbarism that even the Mayors believe that all legislation is contained in our fundamental law, and this is why they believe they have no more power than what they read, badly explained, in the Constitution. [El orden social se mantiene en Chile por el peso de la noche y porque no tenemos hombres sutiles, hábiles y cosquillosos: la tendencia casi general de la masa al reposo es la garantía de la tranquilidad pública. Si ella faltase, nos encontraríamos a obscuras y sin poder contener a los díscolos más que con medidas dictadas por la razón, o que la experiencia ha enseñado ser útiles; pero, entre tanto, ni en esta línea ni en ninguna otra encontramos funcionarios que sepan ni puedan expedirse, porque ignoran sus atribuciones. Si hoy pregunta usted al Intendente más avisado, cuáles son las suyas, le responderá que cumplir y hacer cumplir las órdenes del Gobierno y ejercer la sub-inspección de las guardias cívicas en su respectiva provincia. El país está en un estado de barbarie que hasta los Intendentes creen que toda legislación está contenida en la ley fundamental, y por esto se creen sin más atribuciones que las que leen mal explicadas en la Constitución (Fariña 287)].

Portales understood perfectly well that he had to curtail disobedient, unruly citizens who might create the type of political chaos that could rattle and wake the people up from “el peso de la noche.” In the Discourses, Machiavelli reflected that a city “furthest from order is… more unfortunate” (I, 2; 23) [è… infelice quella che è più discosto da l’ordine (p. 1111)]. Wanting order, then, Portales aimed to construct a republic, but he did not include a wide spectrum of citizens in his work. In the twentieth century, one of those restless individuals mentioned by Portales was Salvador Allende, a “cosquilloso” who learned about social anarchism as a school boy from an Italian shoemaker who settled in Valparaíso. In his words to Tocornal, Portales congratulated the minister for his effectiveness. Others in government, he added, did nothing at all but pretended to do a lot (Fariña 286). He alluded to an ongoing antagonism between men of action, of virtù—such as Tocornal and himself—and other clueless and passive bureaucrats who relied on fortuna, fearing any type of initiative or action. It was indispensable, however, that men of action remained at the highest levels only. His

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conception of order required categorical subservience and inaction among the masses. Unconcerned with political theory or intellectual justification, Portales believed in action and thought it was essential that power be exerted through an orderly society. In this respect, Ana María Stuven has asserted that, for the governing elite, the maintenance of order did not truly rely on general public assent. There was no simultaneous equality between civil rights and political rights and “a political society was perceived as an artificial creation” [la sociedad política era percibida como creación artificial (37)]. According to Jocelyn-Holt, Portales did not propose any theories of social order or explain what order really meant for him. He merely asserted that social order existed and, accordingly, it was to be maintained through authority. Portales considered “el peso de la noche,” —people’s tendency to be at rest, to be passive, obedient—, as an alternative quasi-order to counterbalance an inefficient, systemic, and institutionalized social order brought upon by the Enlightenment (2014, 190-191, 193). In 1994, only four years after Chile had restored its democracy, the new Congress felt compelled to commemorate Allende as a legitimate president. In 2000, therefore, he returned to La Moneda in the form of a statue. Described by its sculptor as a statue of “a president of the people” [un presidente del pueblo] (Délano, El País), the cast figure of Allende was inaugurated by Ricardo Lagos, commander in-chief from 2000-2006, and the first Socialist president after Allende. The placement of Allende’s effigy in the precinct of the reconstructed Moneda, along with the 2003 reopening of the entrance of Morandé 80,28 ignited a spirited debate in Chile. Mimicking one of Daedalus’ shackled statues, Allende’s image caused citizens to confront his legacy, to challenge their opinions and to reassess their knowledge of his times. They had to face up to their own unsettling condition as socio-political enemies living within the same nation. Even today, the statue stirs our collective memory of Allende’s legacy and the coup itself, which had been masterfully conceived and executed by the Armed Forces, in conjunction with a paranoid Nixon administration and an eager Chilean contingency. Present since the founding of the nation, Chile’s profound political fragmentation was exposed in a spectacular manner during the 1973 coup. On a macro level, a conservative civic and military alliance brutally disrupted a legitimate 28 The reconstructed entrance was reopened after thirty years. In place of the original door, built in the early twentieth century during the administration of Pedro Montt, an ornate period replica was constructed. It was through the door of Morandé 80 that the body of Salvador Allende was taken from La Moneda on 11th September, 1973.

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government whose socialist leader claimed to represent everyone, including the outsiders. On a micro-level, the coup traumatized a vast sector of Chileans who were old enough to understand the ramifications of the unprecedented violence of 11th September 1973. It meant tears of joy or utter despair, with no middle ground. Tragically, on that very same day, the Act of Independence, bearing O’Higgins’ original signature, was destroyed along with other precious national artifacts.29 La Moneda itself, together with the Catedral de Santiago, is one of the most visible emblems of nationhood for Chileans. Begun by Toesca in 29

J.C. Peña comments that Pinochet, with the acquiescence of a library administrator, took from the Sala Medina of Chile’s Biblioteca Nacional a bronze plaque that had the Act of Independence engraved on it. It was a historical piece that somehow soothed the loss of the Act of Independence, which was symbolically signed in 1832 by O’Higgins in Peru, a precious document that burned during the bombing of La Moneda (200). Per Verdugo’s account, the parchment containing the Act of Independence, located in the Carrera Room of La Moneda, was rescued and given to Allende when the room caught on fire. The president kept it with him until he could no longer guarantee its safety (149). Then, it was given to his friend and lover, Payita. As she exited La Moneda, Payita took the parchment with her to protect it: “Next to the door of Morandé 80, soldiers are pushing La Moneda survivors with their rifle butts and blows. Hands on your head! The military orders resonate in the street. All against the wall, legs apart! Faster Faster! A soldier demands that Payita remove the man’s jacket she is wearing. It doesn’t belong to her, obviously. He finds a piece of parchment inside the jacket’s sleeve. Inspector Seoane, who is very close to her, hears her cry. No, soldier, no! It is the Declaration of Independence. Soldier, do not tear it! exclaims Miria Contreras, whom everyone called Paya or Payita. It’s already torn up. The pieces of parchment fall to the ground, to the sidewalk that is covered with broken glass and rubble from the wall.” [Junto a la puerta de Morandé 80, los soldados van empujando a culatazos y golpes a los sobrevivientes de La Moneda. ¡Manos en la nuca! Las órdenes militares resuenan en la calle. ¡Pegados a la pared, abran las piernas! ¡Rápido, rápido! Un soldado exige a la Payita sacarse la chaqueta de hombre. Obviamente no es suya. Encuentra el pergamino dentro de la manga. El inspector Seoane, que está muy cerca, escucha su grito. —¡No, soldado, no! Es el Acta de la Independencia, soldado, ¡no la rompa! — exclama Miria Contreras, a quien todos llamaban Paya o Payita. Ya está rota. Los trozos de pergamino caen al suelo, a la vereda cubierta de vidrios rotos y cascotes de los muros (Verdugo 163)]

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1784—who remained in charge of the project until his death in 1799—, and finished by one of his disciples in 1802, the superb neoclassical structure was on 11th September turned into a literal firewall protecting democracy from despotism. The colonial construction had stoically withstood ferocious earthquakes throughout its history, as Leslie Maitland has explained (5), but on this day it fell under the bombing of Chile’s own Air Force. The sacrifice of the prestigious building was justified in the minds of those who initiated the coup. They considered it a last resort as they forcibly restored the conservative establishment. It is remarkable that neither Leigh nor Pinochet hesitated at all to bomb the grandiose, historical building.30 Per Verdugo’s account—which is substantiated today on multiple YouTube sites—the distinctive voices of Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal and General Pinochet were heard very clearly at the time. The former spoke with the refinement of an upper-class upbringing while the latter, sounding uneducated, was audibly giddy about the bombing. The unguarded voices of a cuico and a siútico conspiring to decide the fate of Allende, La Moneda, and the nation were recorded by a witness who seized the occasione in a display of historical virtù: General Pinochet: So, that means that at eleven o’clock, when the guys arrive, you are gonna see what happens. At eleven o’clock we bomb it! Vice Admiral Carvajal: (Once) La Moneda is evacuated it will be easy to assault it. General Pinochet: Once we bomb it we can assault it with the Buin (Regiment) and the Infantry School. You have to tell (Herman) Brady. [General Pinochet: O sea, quiere decir que a las once, cuando lleguen los primeros pericos, vai a ver lo que va a pasar. ¡A las once en punto se bombardea! Vicealmirante Carvajal: (cuando) se evacue La Moneda va a ser más fácil asaltarla.

30 In an interview from 1998, general Leigh spoke with pride of his decision to bomb the presidential palace, speaking in terms that convey the idea that on that day he had been at war with his own compatriots: “I have never doubted that the bombing of La Moneda was the best decision we could have taken to make the process short and save lives, because the movement ended up being bloody and lives were being lost on both sides.” [Nunca he dudado de que el bombardeo a La Moneda fue la mejor decisión que se podía tomar para hacer el proceso breve y ahorrar vidas, porque el movimiento resultó cruento y se estaban perdiendo vidas por los dos lados] (Sepúlveda, “Gustavo Leigh”).

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Chapter Three General Pinochet: ¡Una vez bombardeada la asaltamos con el (Regimiento) Buin y con la Escuela de Infantería. Hay que decirle a (Herman) Brady (75)].

Pinochet did not hesitate to destroy Toesca’s marvelous monument. Over the airwaves, the newly installed chief of the Army was recorded exclaiming: “And now, attack La Moneda, hard!” [Pero ahora, ataque a la Moneda, ¡fuerte!] (Verdugo 104). Ten years after his order to bomb Chile’s presidential palace, Pinochet expressed no regret when he wrote the foreword for a compilation of visual history on the colonial building, appropriately entitled Palacio de la Moneda (1983). In fact, his foreword favored the volume’s editors because it allowed their book to feature the endorsement of a man who by then had been elevated to Captain General and President of the Republic (Capitán General y Presidente de la República). They included a glossy color photo of the general in his regal attire, which gave him the aura of a monarch. Pinochet praised the editors for their effort “to share, in appropriate hierarchical order, the cultural testimonies which constitute the visible and permanent expression of the soul of our patria” [a divulgar, con la debida jerarquía, los testimonios culturales que constituyen la expresión visible y permanente del alma de nuestra patria]. Adorned with photos of First Lady Lucia Hiriart and a portrait of Pinochet, the beautiful and historical spaces of La Moneda appeared completely conquered by the egregious couple. In sum, the text helped Chileans to come to terms with Pinochet’s formidable power over them. In 1973, with impunity the Armed Forces defiled one of Chile’s finest representations of history and culture. Cowardly and unpatriotic, members of its highest echelons uprooted and suppressed every aspect of Allende’s legacy, starting with La Moneda and concluding with Allende’s home residence in Tomás Moro, which was also heavily attacked. The Armed Forces also rapidly and secretly disposed of the president’s body so that no shrines could be erected by his devastated followers. Machiavelli embraced pagan morality for its reliance on “courage, vigor, and the strength to withstand adversity” (Viroli 2010, 3). On the most important day of his life, which was also his last, Allende exemplified the behavior of the caballeros of antiquity. He emulated Cato of Utica—made famous by Dante as the warden of Purgatorio—a prominent Roman leader who in the name of liberty resorted to death by suicide. From the time he arrived at La Moneda that morning, Allende never wavered in his decision not to leave the premises alive. He knew that only his dead body would be taken from the presidential palace, and he resolved to fight until the bitter end. Throughout the exchange between Pinochet and Carvajal, the former insulted the president in every way

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possible. He was seemingly obsessed with seeing him depart Chile on a plane. Pinochet insisted on Allende’s “unconditional surrender” [rendición incondicional] (Verdugo 112), and joked that, once out of sight, Allende’s plane could go down in midair (112). For his part, Allende was busy convincing his two daughters, his companion, and his peers to abandon the palace. Augusto Olivares, of journalistic fame, and one of Allende’s closest friends and allies, understood the severity of the situation and chose to take his own life with dignity (Verdugo 150). According to eyewitnesses, the sadness of the president was wrenching when he saw dear “Perro” Olivares dead. During the last minutes of his life, as the palace was under assault by ground and air strikes, and as Pinochet proclaimed that Allende would go “from La Moneda to a plane” [de La Moneda al avión], the president secured an isolated space for his final shot (Verdugo 153). Javier Palacios, the general in charge of the attack on La Moneda, was the first military person to find Allende’s body. He told his superiors that Allende had killed himself: “Mission accomplished. Moneda taken. President is dead” [Misión cumplida. Moneda tomada, presidente muerto] (General (r) Javier Palacios). Years later, within the safe confines of post-dictatorship Chile, Palacios would publicly proclaim that “Allende did his duty. Nobody can argue with that. His gesture was an act of manliness, that of a brave man” [Allende cumplió con su deber. Eso no lo puede discutir nadie. Su gesto fue un acto de hombría, el de un valiente] (Verdugo 170).31 The U.S. ambassador Davis has said that Allende’s body was taken out of La Moneda not wrapped in the Chilean flag but in a Bolivian poncho, one of the cultural artifacts from the palace’s Independence Room, where he had taken his life. Pinochet had wanted Allende’s body taken out of the country to avoid pilgrimages. His remains, however, were flown by helicopter to the resort city of Viña del Mar—about seventy-six miles northwest of Santiago—and buried in the tomb of the Grove family at the Santa Inés Cemetery. To prevent the vault of the Grove family from becoming a shrine “apparently the military did not permit Allende’s own name to be chiseled” on the stone, as Davis has observed (274). The attempt to hide Allende’s remains failed in the end. Thousands of people visited his tomb during the seventeen years that Allende was buried in Viña del Mar.

31 In 2003, Palacios declared that the bombing of La Moneda was unnecessary, that a ground assault would have sufficed. Again, he praised Allende’s decision not to be vanquished: “the attitude he had was very manly because one must have guts to commit suicide!” [la actitud que tuvo fue muy de hombre, porque ¡puchas que hay que tener agallas para suicidarse!] (General (r) Javier Palacios).

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The historical impact of Diego Portales on the construction of the Chilean nation cannot be denied. As Fariña has asserted, Nicanor Parra rallied the academic troops at Universidad Diego Portales to create an animita (roadside shrine)—a venerated public space—for Portales. The end result, however, was not what the poet expected. Parra had conceived an animita that would be perceived as huachaca (popular) for the benefit of the people. Instead, Isabel Klotz, the designer, made an animita that the poet felt was too cuica, refined, and oriented toward the benefit of the aristocracy (xiv). In other words, the raising of an animita did not turn the Ministro into a man of the people. For his part, Allende represented a truncation of Chilean history and his death marked the opening of a long constitutional parenthesis and a suspension of civil rights. Ironically, because each man had entrusted his personal security to the wrong individuals, both Portales and Allende contributed unknowingly to their untimely deaths. Indeed, they each had blind faith and implicitly trusted their respective executioners, Colonel Vidaurre and general Augusto Pinochet. Vidaurre and Pinochet had different political perspectives, but they each turned against their superiors. Such subversive actions generated everlasting political division in Chile. Vidaurre himself has remained an historic enigma.32 We do not know what he believed or what motivated him. Historian Rafael Sagredo has noted that, in spite of the plethora of works on nineteenth-century Chile, there is yet to be a biography of Vidaurre (2015, 305). According to El ideal de un calavera, “Vidaurre opened his ears to the voice of his patria, closing them to the support that Portales bestowed upon him” [Vidaurre abrió á la voz de la patria sus oídos, cerrándolos á los del favor que Portales le brindaba (IC, II; 321)]. 32

In El ideal de un calavera, the members of the Canton of Maipo acquainted Abelardo Manríquez with their plans to mutiny by telling him about Portales and Vidaurre and loyalty: — Do you know what the colonel replied to the minister, once he informed him that there was a rumor that he was going to revolt? — No, Manríquez said. — Señor ministro, when I do a revolt, Your Honor will be the first to know, said Captain Ramos, giving to these words, which later on acquired historical importance, the emphasis of a threatening prediction. [— ¿Sabe lo que el coronel le contestó al ministro, una vez que éste le contó que andaban corriendo que él iba á hacer revolución? — No, dijo Manríquez. — Señor ministro, cuando yo le haga revolución, su señoría será el primero en saberlo, dijo el capitán Ramos, dando á estas palabras, que cobraron después la importancia histórica que tienen, la acentuación de un vaticinio amenazador (IC, II; 326)].͒

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Regarding Portales’s connection to Vidaurre, we are told by Barros Arana that Vidaurre was a role model because he had been a hero in many glorious battles for independence. The Ministro trusted him wholeheartedly, therefore, to promote and advance Chile’s civic goals (285). As described by Blest Gana, the colonel had the ear of Portales but not of those associated with the government.

Allende and Pinochet Allende was a candidate for the presidency a record four times, 1952, 1958, 1964, and 1970. As Machiavelli proclaimed, people’s destinies rarely become what they would have hoped because of the fickleness of fortuna. As early as 1958, Allende’s path to the presidency was blocked by Antonio Zamorano, a curiously independent, self-proclaimed left-wing candidate who became known as El cura de Catapilco (The priest from Catapilco). Mimicking the influence of populism in contemporary American culture, the notorious cura split the vote of the gullible popular sectors on the left and thereby reduced Allende’s percentage. As a result, the conservative candidate Jorge Alessandri Rodríguez (1896-1986) narrowly won the election and became president from 1958-1964.33 In 1970, the Unidad Popular, a strong and unique coalition that combined the extreme left with conservative centrists, gave Allende the victory that he had sought so passionately and unrelentingly for eighteen years. Unlike Portales, Allende was a man of reflection who was stubbornly attached to the constitutional machinery of government. In a hard-hitting interview with the French philosopher and journalist Régis Debray, Allende spoke of his total faith in the nation’s political system, and especially in the loyalty and the constitutional role of the Armed Forces: Debray: Can the same court that yesterday dictated a law in favor of the landlords dictate today in favor of the peasants without changing the court, the Army, or the carabineros (police forces), who yesterday

33

As a candidate in 1958, El cura de Catapilco presented himself as a candidate from the left; however, it has increasingly been suspected that he became a candidate to prevent Allende from becoming president. For instance, El cura became a vehement supporter of the Pinochet regime, which demonstrated where his true political affiliations stood. Overall, his candidacy was an effective move on the part of conservative sectors, one that cleverly ensured the defeat of a “cosquilloso” candidate like Allende. It was a strategic ottimati ploy to uphold the social order and to crush the courage of the pleb.

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Chapter Three expelled people from the farms, invaded their places? Do you really believe that they can now become defenders of the oppressed? Allende: Firstly, you have to accept that you are in a different reality. Judges justify their decisions by saying that they are applying the current law. If there is a new law they will apply that new legislation. And we are going to dictate new legislation through a constitutional reform or through laws that we will present in Congress. As I said to you before, if there is a rejection of some fundamental issue, we will go to a plebiscite. Régis, you cannot compare the Chilean Armed Forces with the Armed Forces of other Latin American countries. They have never intervened, as a whole, in a repressive fashion against the Chilean people. They have acted only occasionally, very occasionally, when the government has requested the use of the Armed Forces. Debray: And do you believe that they will fight against reaction if reaction starts? Allende: Obviously yes, Obviously yes. And we will prove that. Obviously yes. [Debray: ¿El mismo tribunal que ayer dictaba una ley en favor de latifundistas hoy la puede dictar en favor del campesino sin que cambie el tribunal y el ejército o los carabineros que ayer expulsaban de los fundos, que invadían? ¿Ud. cree que pueden ponerse de defensores de los oprimidos? Allende: En primer lugar, tienes que ubicarte en una realidad distinta. Los jueces justifican su actitud diciendo que ellos aplican la legislación vigente. Si hay una nueva legislación aplicarán la nueva legislación y esa la vamos a dictar nosotros a través de la reforma constitucional o las leyes que vamos a plantear al congreso. Y ya te he dicho que si hay un rechazo de algo fundamental, iremos al plebiscito. Las Fuerzas Armadas chilenas tú no las puedes comparar, Régis, con las Fuerzas Armadas de otros países latinoamericanos. Ellos nunca han intervenido, propiamente tal, en una actitud represiva al pueblo sino cuando ocasionalmente, el gobierno y muy ocasionalmente, no, que el gobierno ha solicitado la utilización de las Fuerzas Armadas Debray: ¿Y podrán combatir la reacción si la reacción comienza? Allende: Evidentemente que sí, evidentemente que sí. Y eso lo vamos a probar. Evidentemente que sí] (Debray “Compañero presidente”).

Allende knew Régis Debray well and was acquainted with the French journalist’s groundbreaking interviews with sixties revolutionaries, especially his famous one with Fidel Castro in Cuba. Allende wanted the renowned journalist to be aware that Chile was not Cuba, and that democracy would be the route that he would always take. For Allende, Chile was on a different plane from totalitarian regimes. Debray probed Allende about the feasibility of the Unidad Popular’s socialist project for

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Chile, but Allende would not allow him to ruin his ideologically utopian dream. Like don Quijote, unfortunately, he held a peripheral view of his nation. He unequivocally made errors in judgment. His views on judicial matters were sometimes mistaken, and he was completely wrong in his assessment of the Chilean Armed Forces and their commitment to follow and uphold the constitution under all circumstances. In other words, he was a quixotic figure who saw loyal subjects where there were none. After four decades, it is hard not to cringe when revisiting Debray’s skepticism about, and hard questioning of, Allende’s so-called Chilean Way to Socialism. The French journalist perceived already in 1971 that animosity was thinly concealed by a forced “appearance of cordial urbanity” in Chile. For him, what remained certain was that “the path from polite hatred to open hostilities” was not a long one (Debray and Allende 14). Chile’s political factions had slowly started down that damaging road as soon as Allende became president-elect of Chile. To make matters worse, Allende remained loyal to allegiances he had made in the past. Looked at through a Machiavellian lens, his loyalty to the undeserving blinded him to conspiracies against him, which he could no longer prevent or even recognize. As commander in chief for most of the Allende period, Prats came into close contact with the president. Elected by outgoing president Eduardo Frei Montalva (1911-1982), who ruled from 1964-1970, Prats followed the constitutionalist tradition of general René Schneider (1913-1970), head of the Army from 1969-1970, who had himself been ambushed, shot, and killed by forces seeking to prevent Allende’s ratification as president of Chile (Kornbluh 28).34 In his diary, Prats recounted his frustration with Allende who did not heed his warning that there was deep disloyalty among the military men in his government, such as in the persona of General Herman Brady. In Verdugo’s account, on the day before the coup, intelligence sources 34 General Schneider was assassinated because he refused to obstruct Allende’s access to the presidency. As a constitutionalist military man, he felt that the people had spoken through a democratic process and expressed themselves through the ballot. According to Kornbluh, the assassination of Schneider did not accomplish what it intended: “Far from fostering a coup climate, the Schneider shooting produced an overwhelming public and political repudiation of violence and a clear reaffirmation of Chile’s civil, constitutional tradition. The CIA’s self-serving predictions of an unavoidable Allende assassination or military move to take power proved to be quite incorrect,” pp. 29-30. From a Machiavellian perspective, the horror of the bleeding body of Schneider stuck in the heads of civic-minded Chileans, assuring that Allende would be ratified as president by an overwhelming majority in the Senate.

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informed Allende of the imminent danger. He ordered Minister of Defense Orlando Letelier to call general Brady to find out more. Back from his call, Letelier told Allende that nothing seemed amiss: “General Brady has no idea. He told me he will investigate. I told him I would call him in fifteen minutes” [El general Brady no tiene idea. Va a averiguar y quedé en llamarlo en quince minutos (33)]. Verdugo has surmised that Brady “must have rehearsed many times what he was going to say” [debió ensayar varias veces lo que iba a decir (33)]. Brady and Allende were fellow masons. This may have been critically important to Allende’s judgment of the situation. He simply was not inclined to believe Brady’s supposed treason. For reasons of personal allegiance, the president did not remove the general from office, as he most definitely should have done. According to general Prats, Brady’s removal would have helped Allende to better secure his fragile government. As Davis has commented, “Allende apparently let his Masonic loyalties cloud his judgment” (52). Besides deep-set divisions in the coalition that had brought him to power and constant caustic propaganda from a staunch opposition, Allende faced the invisible but penetrating economic blockade of the United States (Kornbluh 82). He was alone amidst all the chaos. In his diary, general Prats declared that the end of his career and his stepping aside removed the only remaining obstacles for a coup d’état against Allende (32). Against this bleak backdrop, Allende felt politically secure with the military candidate whom Prats proposed as his replacement. According to Prats, Pinochet reassured him that, besides general Óscar Bonilla, and a small group that was conspiring with former president Frei, the men of the Armed Forces were united with him against a coup (32).35 Pinochet also stated the following to the president: Mr. President, please know that I am willing to give my life to defend the constitutional government that you represent. [Presidente, sepa que estoy dispuesto a dar la vida en defensa del gobierno constitucional que Ud. encarna (32)].

Allende installed Pinochet as head of the Army on 23rd August 1973, nineteen days before the most violent military uprising in twentieth35 Bonilla died in a mysterious helicopter crash in 1975. There is mounting evidence to support the theory that general Bonilla was killed because of his popularity among Chileans and his opposition to the egregious human rights violations perpetrated on the expressed orders of infamous Colonel Manuel Contreras, Pinochet’s Remirro de Orco.

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century Chile. Juan Cristóbal Peña, in La secreta vida literaria de Augusto Pinochet [Secret Literary Life of Augusto Pinochet] (2013), has examined general Prats’ decision to recommend Pinochet, an obscure and mediocre man, as head of the Chilean Army during a most critical time for Allende. According to J.C. Peña, Pinochet was considered by Prats to be a loyal and constitutional soldier, even if he possessed other deficiencies. Prats and Pinochet were categorically not on the same intellectual or professional level. Just as Prats had had a brilliant career in the Army, and had been admired by all, Pinochet’s school record had been one of chiaroscuros (J.C. Peña 32). For Prats, Pinochet appeared to be a safe replacement who would continue to maintain the constitutional standards that he himself had stoically upheld. The fact that Pinochet had never made a name for himself during his Escuela Militar years also led Prats to believe that Pinochet would not engender unruly behavior among his future subordinates. Prats’ historically bad reading of his subordinate’s secret purposes and wishes proved that, in Machiavelli’s words: “Everyone sees what you seem to be, few perceive what you are” (P, 18; 135) [ogniuno vede quello che tu pari, pochi sentono quello che tu se’ (p. 760)]. Using gross misjudgment, Prats willfully helped Pinochet to reach the top military rank. Instead of gratitude, Pinochet felt animosity, spitefulness and resentment towards Prats because the general’s outstanding career made Pinochet’s look all the more obviously mediocre (J.C. Peña 32). Obsessed with the idea of erasing the legacy of his former superior, Pinochet lived up to Machiavelli’s assertion that “anyone who is the cause of another becoming powerful comes to ruin himself” (P, 3; 88) [chi è cagione che uno diventi potente, ruina (p. 283)]. As for Prats, he was completely disappointed by his fundamentally wrong appraisal of Pinochet. Once he came to terms with his egregious mistake and learned who Pinochet really was, he called him a “scoundrel with limited intelligence but disproportionate ambition” [bellaco de luces limitadas y ambición desmedida (39)]. From exile in Buenos Aires, the retired general acerbically described his former subordinate in a letter to Moy de Tohá, the widow of José Tohá, who had been Allende’s Minister of Defense. In his missive, Prats emphasized the intellectual limitations of Chile’s new ruler: In his personality—as in the case of Duvalier—an exceptional narrow mindedness conspires together admirably with a large dose of spiritual wickedness, as he has demonstrated in his unprecedented recent statements.

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José Tohá was one of Allende’s closest political allies and a personal friend of the president. Ignacio González Camus, in fact, has stated that Tohá knew Pinochet and felt reassured by his presence, believing that the president had at least half of the Armed Forces with him (84). In a blog post of 9th November 2001, the former minister of the Unidad Popular government was described as a quixotic figure by Rodi Oñate: “This don Quixote originally from Chillán, came to ride with morality, honor, solidarity, openness; all the vital weapons of a true caballero with dreams to open the roads of politics for the people [De Chillan surgió este don Quijote a cabalgar con la moral, el honor, la solidaridad, la franqueza, todas las vitales armas de un verdadero caballero y los sueños de abrir los caminos del pueblo en la política] (“Un quijote de mente, pluma y corazón”). Indeed, González Camus has said that the ex-minister possessed a remarkable physical resemblance to don Quijote. He had a “quixotic beard” [barba quijotesca (79)] and, in his actions and demeanor, he bore an uncanny resemblance to the drawings of don Quijote: “his way of dressing, and even the way he walked, demonstrated that he was conscious of his own dignity. His eyes were dark and intelligent” [su manera de vestirse, e incluso de caminar, demostraban una conciencia sobre su propia dignidad. Sus ojos eran oscuros e inteligentes (236-237)]. Tohá famously decided to join Allende in La Moneda on the day of the coup. He had been forced to step down from his ministerial duties, and being with Allende was the gesture of a friend. As he entered the palace, he was asked by journalists, mostly foreign correspondents, why he had decided to expose himself in such an obvious way. Like heroic don Quijote, his defiant gesture showed that he was not afraid to enter a doomed building. As Allende convinced his associates—including his two daughters—to leave the historical building, the ex-minister entered without hesitation, a true quixotic figure. His reply to the journalists was that he was absolutely certain that Allende would not leave the premises. He added that it was his duty to enter and to support the president (175). Right after he uttered these words, the dramatic and alarming noise of military tanks retreating from the palace was heard (175), which meant that the bombarding of Chile’s national symbol would soon commence. Later on, Tohá futilely attempted to negotiate with the Armed Forces from La Moneda. Verdugo has remarked that, on 11th September 1973, the president did not enter the governmental palace of La Moneda through the usual,

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“informal,” side door, the Morandé 80 entrance. Instead, he used the principal, official, presidential entry. This symbolic act makes us speculate on Allende’s awareness of his imminent death. Verdugo has considered Allende’s motives. Did he want everyone to see him enter the palace as the bona fide president of Chile? Or, essentially, did he want people to become aware that this could be the last time he entered the premises at all (41)? No matter his intentions, he behaved like don Quijote. In his extremely public and official entrance to the palace, the president performed like “a single knight errant vanquishing an army of two hundred thousand men” (DQ, II, 1; 461) [deshacer un solo caballero andante un ejército de docientos mil hombres (p. 544)]. In Verdugo’s account, then, when offered a plane to leave Chile with his family for the safety of a new country, he replied in the manner of a proud caballero: Yes… I can hear… Tell general Van Schowen that the president of Chile does not rush away on a plane!... and tell him that he should learn to behave like a soldier, that I will fulfill my duty as president… Did you hear that? [Sí... escucho... ¡dígale al general Van Schowen que el Presidente de Chile no arranca en avión!... ¡Y que él sepa comportarse como un soldado, que yo sabré cumplir como Presidente de la República!... ¿Entendió bien? (44)].

Learning that Pinochet was also among the plotters, a fact he had hoped all morning would not be the case, Allende prepared himself to deliver his last speech to the Chilean nation. As we know from Verdugo, Allende renounced any possibility to escape alive from the presidential palace. He had pursued aesthetics and ethics his entire life and would end it courageously with a self-inflicted gunshot to the head (169). Before dying, he made his celebrated address to the nation. In the words of Figueroa Clark, this speech became “the greatest words of farewell ever uttered by a political leader” (1). Allende’s inspiring testament, his clear and serene voice rising over the sound of heavy gunfire and bombs, has been included in Simon Maier and Jeremy Kourdi’s The 100: Insights and Lessons from 100 of the Greatest Speakers and Speeches Ever Delivered (2011). According to Maier and Kourdi, besides its oratorical power, and its array of beautifully placed rhetorical figures, the speech makes listeners acutely aware that Allende was near the end of his life. Delivered with ease and assuredness, Allende’s remarks feel “moving and enormously poetic” (18). The vitality of Allende’s speech is truly remarkable. Undaunted by the imminence of death, Allende exposed his beliefs and his

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high hopes for the future of Chile. Most important, he emphasized that his sacrifice would not be in vain: “it will be a moral lesson that will punish felony, cowardice, and treason” [será una lección moral que castigará la felonía, la cobardía y la traición] (González Camus 201).36 Exuding virility, as he confronted his certain death, he put the chivalric codes of don Quijote into practice and performed like a valiant knight errant. Like the caballero that he was, Allende fought like a soldier, and, once all was lost, he prepared to die in the only way that he considered dignifying. Much has been written about Pinochet’s so-called eleventh hour decision to join the coup against Allende. Following Verdugo, the conspiracy was complicated by Pinochet’s involvement in Allende’s administration. Having been chosen head of the Chilean Army in such troubled times, Pinochet behaved in a way that told the plotters that he was a man of trust for Allende (13-14). According to General Leigh, Pinochet did not wish to be involved in the coup, and made a show of fearing for his life. In fact, when Leigh went to Pinochet’s house to have him sign a paper that had been handwritten by Merino—that he had signed with his nickname, “Pepe”—, one that would commit them all to the conspiracy, Pinochet demurred. He took his time but he did finally add his name (Sepúlveda, “Gustavo Leigh”). Verdugo has transcribed the whole conversation (also available on numerous YouTube sites) between Vice Admiral Patricio Carvajal and General Pinochet in which the two were recorded communicating vigorously about the fate of Chile—an exchange that at times turned into banter—and about the fate of the man who had elevated Pinochet to the highest level of the Chilean Army. In his last speech, Allende clearly referred to two of the principal traitors: General César Mendoza and Admiral José Toribio Merino. The former was the head of Carabineros, whom Allende called “general rastrero” [despicable/servile general].37 The latter he called a self-appointed 36

On 23rd September 1973, Prats pondered the events that had taken place twelve days earlier. Prats was a soldier and had been a stellar professor at Chile’s most prestigious Military Academy. Thinking about the role of Allende on that fateful day, he stated: “The combat in La Moneda was a suicidal struggle, comparable to the most heroic gestures in our history” [El combate de La Moneda fue una lucha suicida, comparable a los más grandes gestos heroicos de la historia (39)]. 37 General César Mendoza had been with Allende at a dinner party shortly before the coup. Verdugo speculates on Mendoza and his betrayal toward Allende: “When the carabinero stamped his signature, did he by chance remember the dinner on Saturday 8th (of September), at the School of Carabineros? Did he perhaps hear the echo of his own voice lifting his glass in honor of President Allende to praise his courage and leadership of the people down paths toward greater social justice? What ideas or feelings crossed the mind of general Mendoza when he signed the

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admiral. But, he made no mention of either Pinochet or Leigh. Perhaps it was too painful for him—after all, Allende had been directly involved in promoting the two generals to the top of their ranks. If Pinochet, however implausibly, had joined the military uprising by some unlikely accident, he went immediately all in on 11th September. We have his vile words against Allende and his associates in his “secret” exchange with Carvajal as indisputable evidence. He had to have known, too, how much he would lose if he intimated any loyalty whatsoever to Allende. Machiavelli, in this regard, has said that in a conspiracy, “anyone who is threatened and forced by necessity either to act or to suffer will become a very dangerous man to the prince” (D, III, 6; 257) [ma colui che è minacciato e che si vede costretto da una necessità o di fare o di patire, diventa uno uomo pericolosissimo per il principe (p. 2541)]. Unmasked, Pinochet demonstrated how much he abhorred the popular government. We have heard this in his own distinctive voice, in his own virulent words; his attitude could not possibly be mistaken. Nonetheless, he had to perform the role of his life. He was being carefully observed by his co-conspirators. Fittingly, then, Pinochet’s first words to Chile as its leader were completely opposite to the positive ones that Allende had uttered on his last day as president. In El día decisivo [The Decisive Day] (1979), Pinochet gave his own account of the conspiracy against the elected president. The general claimed that, as the Armed Forces prepared for the coup, he meditated on Allende’s choice to promote him as head of the Chilean Army: “many times I have wondered why I was designated as Commander-in-Chief by Allende” [muchas veces he pensado por qué fui yo el designado como Comandante en Jefe (102)]. From a Machiavellian perspective, the general knew how to perform the role of an obscure military man for political purposes. Dismissing other accounts, Pinochet gave himself a starring role in the coup and deliberately diminished his fellow conspirators in El día decisivo. This especially irked general Leigh, who had been a zealot and a fundamental participant in the preparations for the coup. Verdugo has argued that the struggle for power between Pinochet and Leigh started on 11th September 1973, as Leigh began to realize that Pinochet had asserted his preeminence (93). Like a Machiavellian prince-in-waiting, the general spoke with gusto in El día document?” [Cuando el carabinero estampó su rúbrica, ¿habrá recordado la comida del sábado 8 (de septiembre), en la Escuela de Carabineros? ¿Habrá escuchado el eco de su propia voz alzando la copa en honor del presidente Allende y alabando su coraje como estadista para conducir a su pueblo por sendas de mayor justicia social? ¿Qué ideas y sentimientos se le habrán cruzado al general Mendoza cuando firmó el documento? (26)].

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decisivo of how, during Allende’s tenure, he had been obliged to dramatically dissemble his intentions as he juggled his leadership of the conspiracy and his duties as head of the Army. By his own account, Pinochet betrayed his oath to serve the nation and his president. His commitment of faith to the constitution was completely hypocritical. Hoping to impress and to convey a sense of wonder and awe to his readers, Pinochet boasted of always being available to Allende for his daily reports even as he meticulously prepared for the coup (106). J.C. Peña has asserted that Pinochet hired a large retinue, among them Álvaro Puga Cappa, to help him project the image of an intellectual. In other words, “he was determined to make people believe that he was not a moron” [estaba empeñado en hacer creer que no era ningún burro] (102). While in the Escuela Militar, according to J.C. Peña, Pinochet had to deal with a few setbacks. He struggled in some subjects and he was considered only satisfactory as a thinker. As expected, his teachers urged him to work on improving his diction (47). Once in power, it was hard to understand everything he said in meandering, long speeches. The sound of his voice was disconcerting and filled with dissonant guttural noises. Chileans had never heard a public figure who sounded like Pinochet. Indeed, the general could not articulate his sentences like a well-trained political leader. At times, he would hesitate as he struggled to correctly pronounce the elaborate, erudite words which no doubt had been provided by his team of speech writers. For this reason, Allende’s elegant rhetoric would inevitably come to the mind of his sympathizers whenever Pinochet spoke to the nation. Perhaps because of his deficiencies, Pinochet continued to belittle Allende, in spite of his unquestioned personal power. In El día decisivo, for instance, he bitterly commented that “undoubtedly Allende believed that he was going to keep me under his control with his game of tall tales and flattery” [sin duda Allende creyó que él me iba a manejar con su juego de embustes y halagos (102)]. What for Pinochet were unnecessary political preambles—which his mind turned into lies—were for Allende basic necessities for polite, political conversation. In fact, Prats was well aware that Allende loved to converse too much and did not take decisions hastily. The president always opted to heed the path of civic tradition, even with respect to his revolutionary ideas. In his conversations with Debray, Allende not only spoke passionately of the loyalty of the Armed Forces, he expanded his thoughts to other conservative sectors. Sensing that Chile was envisioning a new Catholic church, he spoke of priests helping people to fight estate owners in Cautín, in the south of Chile (Debray and Allende 96). Allende thus believed he had the support, or that he could initiate a dialogue to build the support, for his Chilean

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way to Socialism. Reinforcing Prats’ characterization of the president, Allende spoke of his unique approach to making things happen. He declared that he would emulate Augustus Caesar, who executed his ideas “festina lente;” that is, hastily but slowly, methodically (96). It is no surprise, then, that Allende has been portrayed as a man who did not rest much. He was in love with contemplation, conversation, and the exchange of ideas in general, no matter the political spectrum. He believed fiercely in Chile’s democratic tradition and the path of legal reform. Allende commented that, while other countries called the Armed Forces in to end disputes, a lawyer was good enough for Chile and its citizens (97). The discovery of Portales’s remains immediately conjured up the Pinochet era in Chileans’ minds. Indeed, the public and private space of the Junta Government proudly displayed the Ministro’s name, the Edificio Diego Portales (Diego Portales Building), which had been changed from the Centro Cultural Metropolitano Gabriela Mistral (Metropolitan Cultural Center Gabriela Mistral). Now known as the GAM, the building was first known as the UNCTAD III and was constructed in record time between 1971-1972. The remarkable discovery of Portales’s remains after onehundred and sixty-eight years predictably engaged Chileans in a vigorous debate about the assassinated minister’s legacy, a fact which is discussed in the documentary Portales: La última carta [Portales: The Last Letter] (2010), directed by Paula Leonvendagar. People became so agitated about Portales and his obvious association with the Pinochet years, that some of the arguments about him, according to Villalobos, combined historical disinformation with legendary tales (“Mitos y enigmas de Portales”). Twenty-first-century Chileans are emotional and polarized about their own history. Allende’s statue and Portales’s remains have reopened old sociopolitical wounds that have yet to heal. They remind us painfully of Pamela Constable and Arturo Valenzuela’s assertion that Chile has come to be perceived by the international community as a “nation of enemies” (10). The power of a statue (Allende), and human remains (Portales), illustrated how Chilean national identity was associated with masculine warriors who sacrificed their lives for the values they believed in and the country they loved. In Blest Gana’s texts, men went to battle and spoke their minds in exclusive social settings in an effort to establish a good republic. The aim was social order through the exercise of political power, famously known in Chile as authoritarianism. Faced with what they ought to do and what they hesitated to do, members of the ruling class sought to establish a state as a means of resisting a reactionary monarchy. But they also feared the effect this would have on social order, especially their privileged place in it (Stuven 29). In time, a deep-rooted fear of the spread

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of an undesirable anarchy brought people of different beliefs together, proving that politics makes strange bedfellows. As Stuven has observed, progressive republicans and the ruling class were friends and foes: opposition parties shook hands but they also challenged themselves to a duel (41). In essence, these types of political dealings constituted the backdrop for Blest Gana’s engagement with his nation’s history. In contemporary Chile, the socio-political issues from Blest Gana’s literary texts still persist. In spite of social advances, the country’s social wounds remain open. For instance, Chile has a troubled educational system and an extremely exclusive ottimati class which maintains staunchly conservative societal views. Basically, the privileged classes are the beneficiaries of Portales’s nineteenth-century effort to concentrate Chile’s wealth and institutional access in the hands of a selected few and thereby to impose and maintain a rigid social order. In this regard, Martín Rivas and El ideal de un calavera told the story of two penniless young men in the hostile environment of a nascent capitalist society. The two characters approached life in drastically different ways. They were each quixotic and Machiavellian. Both of Blest Gana’s novels portrayed capitalists who did not hesitate to oppress others for money and the means to secure their place in society. Machiavelli gave examples of rulers that flourished temporarily because they oppressed. At times, the Florentine Secretary declared, a wise man had to assure a good fit between “his plan of action” and “the times” (Bondanella and Musa 63), and this could require tyrannical behavior in specific circumstances. He understood, however, that Florence would be politically free only once the city had rid itself permanently of its selfish tyrants (FH, II, 38; 1133) (p. 405). Machiavelli was categorical that tyrannical rulers, because of the nature of their ways, would not sustain their power. In the long run, they would inevitably be overthrown. Machiavelli’s assertions foreshadowed Pinochet’s own predictable demise after seventeen years of totalitarian regime. For a long time, Chileans, and Pinochet himself, thought that he would stay in power permanently. For the Florentine Secretary, a despot in government was cruel in a way that caused fear and hatred in his subjects. For Machiavelli, although an absolute ruler could achieve significant power and control over his subjects, he could not force them to admire him. He could never achieve the prestige awarded by glory: It cannot be called skill to kill one’s fellow citizens, to betray friends, to be without faith, without mercy, without religion; by these means one can acquire power but not glory (P, 8; 104).

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[Non si può ancora chiamare virtù amazare gli suoi ciptadini, tradire gli amici, essere sanza fede, sanza piatà, sanza relligione: e quali modi possono fare aquistare imperio ma non gloria (p. 481)].

Allende’s last days were tumultuous, and he had few options left. Machiavelli wrote, “the opportunity that Occasion brings you is fleeting; when she has escaped, one seeks in vain to catch her again” (FH, III, 13; 1161) [La opportunità che dalla occasione ci è porta, vola; e invano, quando ella è fuggita, si cerca poi di ripigliarla (p. 438)]. Allende saw this in the last months of his presidency. He had indeed once seized the occasione of the political times to attain the presidency on an unprecedented Socialist ticket. But now, after so much pounding—by money, ideology, and in print—he was a vanquished man. Members of Allende’s own political circle promoted open revolution and thus eroded his government. His precious dream of socialism through democracy was violently threatened. Ferocious propaganda was directed against the Unidad Popular. Significant numbers of supporters of the coup believed they were facing a radical threat to their way of life and feared a reversal of their concept of the nation.38 To make matters worse, seditious groups continuously fostered socio-political chaos. Afterwards, perhaps because they considered their opponents enemies—and not fellow citizens—, Chileans who had encouraged the coup turned a blind eye or even supported Pinochet’s human rights abuses for years. As for the dictator’s legacy, he pulled the carpet not only out from under Allende but also the other coup conspirators.39 Just as Allende had caused his own downfall by providing the occasione for Pinochet to come to power on that critical 23rd of August 1973—so close to the designated day of the coup—General Leigh succumbed to the weight of Pinochet himself when he entrusted him with 38 General Prats alludes to the general malaise at the high levels of Allende’s government: “We can see that in the government there is no unity. The Socialist Party, the MIR (Revolutionary Left Movement) and other groups do not cease to insist that the time has come to throw themselves into the fight, to battle to liquidate the capitalist regime, to destroy the ‘bourgeois’ organizations of power and establish the people’s power, the dictatorship of the workers” [Se ve que en el gobierno no hay unidad. El Partido Socialista, el MIR (Movimiento Izquierda Revolucionaria) y otros grupos no dejan de insistir en que ha llegado el momento de lanzarse a la lucha, al enfrentamiento para liquidar el régimen capitalista, destruir los órganos ‘burgueses’ de poder e implantar el poder popular, la dictadura de los trabajadores (23)]. 39 According J.C. Peña, in El día decisivo, Pinochet turned his participation in the coup into a predetermined divine intervention that made it his destiny to be the savior of Chile (136-137).

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a featured role in the coup. Eventually, Pinochet, with support from the other conspirators, branded Leigh a traitor and ousted him from the Junta de Gobierno in July, 1978: “For repeated failure to adhere to the principles and tenets that inspired the movement of 11th September 1973” [por faltar reiteradamente a los principios y postulados que inspiraron el movimiento del 11 de septiembre de 1973] (“El País archivo”). Over the long run, Pinochet’s most profound legacy was his return of the wealth to the inheritors of the criollos. Members of the most degenerate social order in Chile wholly and blindly adhered to his tenets—or at least they judged his socio-political maneuvers useful for them. Pinochet’s choice was to be cremated when he died. He was deeply aware that a tomb marking his final resting place would inspire protests over his decaying body and lead to desecration. Nonetheless, there is still support for him in Chile. It is mostly hidden but at times is unabashed, as in the case of singer and popular celebrity Patricia Maldonado, who was proud to count the general as a compadre. Still, during the dictatorship, Chileans did become aware of how their fellow citizens were suffering. Some of those who had favored the coup began to feel the consequences of being left out of the free-market economy. All the same, steadfast support for Pinochet continued, especially in the sectors—usually the upper-class ones—who had been highly advantaged by the regime’s neoliberal policies. Constable and Valenzuela, having examined the country’s political divide, spoke of deep, seemingly insurmountable gaps that favored one group over another (10). The journalist and the historian assessed the climate of the 1988 plebiscite with accuracy and insight. At that time, many Chileans, even those untouched by the state’s authoritarian violence, had become disenchanted with the dictatorship. Nonetheless, an astonishing forty-two percent voted “yes” to keep Pinochet in power (11)—other sources have him at a forty-four percent. Martín Rivas or El ideal de un calavera provides a key to understanding this twisted situation. From the dawning of the nation, the socio-political conditions in Chile have fostered a mutual and fundamental hostility. Peace has only been possible when the subordinates have upheld, rather than resisted, a social order imposed on them from the top, from an exclusive few who, in the guise of Martín Rivas’s don Fidel Elías and don Simón Arenal, have predominated and been in charge. Machiavelli learned from the experiences of gli antichi to formulate a cure for what ailed his contemporary Florence. In the same light, reading Blest Gana expand upon the conversations held at the tertulias in 1850 helps us to understand the clashes that took place in the 1970s. During Allende’s presidency, Chile became embroiled in constant political turmoil because people’s perceptions of the country’s direction differed so

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severely. Chileans aligned themselves only with those who shared their same political views, unwilling to entertain any dissent. This state of the nation has been reproduced in the documentary La Batalla de Chile (released 1975, 1976, 1979), Guzmán’s remarkable work. In scene after scene, interview after interview, the documentary forcefully exposed the ramifications of Chile’s intense political feuding. Guzmán and his crew filmed interviews and some live events. They documented Allende’s massive following as well as the solid socio-political wall that his opponents erected against him and his followers. With eloquence, Guzmán declared that “for the first time in Chile a considerable number of students is influenced by the most privileged sectors. The opposition parties, professionals, the trade guilds support the political disorder in the streets” [por primera vez en Chile, una cantidad apreciable de estudiantes se deja arrastrar por los sectores más privilegiados. Los partidos opositores, los profesionales, los gremios de comerciantes respaldan el desorden callejero (39:39-39:55)]. All in all, the film detailed how a substantial number of the interviewees, above all those from affluent areas, reacted bitterly and at times violently against the Allende government and his policies. Those on the Allende side struggled to remain united and argued, innocently, about the best way forward. Similar clashes existed among the characters in Blest Gana’s novels. Their foundational inability to endorse a shared perception of the nation and national identity provided an early sociopolitical road map that pointed straight in the direction of the Allende years. In the Presidential election of 1970, when the winds of fortuna began to turn in Allende’s favor, Chileans from different sectors started to believe in the hope of a more egalitarian society. He hypnotized the young abajistas from the buenas familias who sided with him because, to an extent, he symbolized the counterculture that had been brewing in Europe and the United States. Allende’s so-called socialist experiment was an ambitious plan that broke with all previous schemes and naturally attracted fear— most of all—, but also the disparagement and derision of his rivals. Allende sought an idealist socio-political revolution through the democratic vote, a feat that has not been attempted again in Chile. In Machiavellian terms, he was, however, a prophet without arms. In a perfect world, Allende’s ideals would have received ample support, especially from the popular classes. But materialistic concerns divided Chile into two, as they had done since the times of Cámara, Abelardo and Martín. In a sense, Allende had finally lifted Portales’s “peso de la noche,” and disorder was the result. During the Allende era, political allegiances and antagonisms were, with some few exceptions, mostly related to social

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class, a fact that made wealthy conservatives flee the nation in droves when Allende was elected. For those who stayed, it became a mission to protect their turf, ignite revolt, and—perhaps unwittingly—support the Nixon administration’s obsession with sinking the Allende presidency. In fact, Nixon was intervening in Chile at the same time that administration officials—allegedly with his consent—were spying on the Democratic party and fellow Americans, an egregious abuse of power that would later lead to the Watergate scandal. In Chile, dialogue had ceased among the rival political parties; friends of different political stripes became foes; family members stopped talking to each other if their politics did not align. The beleaguered president struggled subsequently to maintain any sense of unity even within the Unidad Popular. He was told by leftists that the Armed Forces were plotting, and that he was taking it lying down. For those radicals, the situation was dire and Allende was on a collision course with a blow from which it would be hard to recover. In many respects, then, Chile reproduced the disorderly atmosphere narrated by Blest Gana in Martín Rivas. The opposition increasingly retreated toward a nineteenth-century authoritarian impulse which, from the time of the Reconquista, favored anti-democratic intervention in support of a conservative and capitalist social order. Pinochet intentionally undermined his fellow junta members and in 1974 proclaimed himself Supreme Leader of the nation (Jefe Supremo de la Nación). Later, because he could, he arrogated the title President of Chile to himself and falsely claimed an aura of legitimacy that only a democratic election could confer. He took the occasione and profited from the military coup. General Leigh came to fear Pinochet’s ambition during and especially after the coup, as he saw him reveal his thirst for prestige and power (Sepúlveda, “Gustavo Leigh”). In his reconstruction of historical events, published in Pinochet, patria y democracia [Pinochet, Patria, and Democracy] (1983, 1988), the Supreme Leader of the nation said the following about his mandate: the crack was so deep that we as men of the Armed Forces had a mission to go beyond a mere restoration of the nation’s broken institutions. It was necessary to go further, to create a new system with a deep humanistic content and a clear democratic character. [era tan profunda la grieta, que la misión que debimos asumir los hombres de armas no podía limitarse a una mera restauración de la institucionalidad quebrantada. Era necesario ir más allá, creando un nuevo sistema de profundo contenido humanista y de claro carácter democrático (1988, 261)].

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Decades later, we know that Pinochet’s attempt at self-justification was completely ineffective. This frightening and insincere political testament resembles the fabricated and alternate reality of a contemporary politician who behaves in the manner of Tom Buchanan from The Great Gatsby (1925). For the Chilean general, the human rights violations and the suppression of civic liberties carried out in his name spoke louder and more forcefully than Pinochet ever could. It makes one wonder: why? At the apogee of his power, why was it that the general felt he had to justify himself at all? Who were his intended readers? A mediocre author, why was he compelled to write at all? Ultimately, one could conclude that he wrote partly because he was vain and cared deeply about his image and his legacy—and partly because he had full freedom to express himself any which way he liked. He could fashion himself in the guise of a true warrior. Looked at through Foucault’s lens on Machiavelli’s new prince, Pinochet was a ruler who was not truly linked to his principality (2007, 91). He wrote because he needed continuously to assert his power. His gangsters and his military men, such as General Contreras, could not assure it for him. From a Machiavellian perspective, a leader who wished to maintain a good reputation could not rely solely on power at all costs. The Florentine Secretary felt that emulating the deeds of great men was the surest way to live on for posterity. Blinded by ambition, Pinochet’s destiny was to be the prototypical dictator of the twentieth century—or any century. He eliminated civic privileges. His strong men suppressed freedom of expression. He was an arribista, a siútico who favored the wealthy, famously saying that, “we must take care of the rich so they produce more” [hay que cuidar a los ricos para que den más]. Financially, the gap between Chile’s rich and poor became insurmountable as the benefits of a neoliberal market economy flowed mainly to the privileged. The international community eventually denounced Pinochet for systematic violations of human rights. Say what he might, he left no other legacy. Machiavelli contended that politics was a concerted effort to build community. For this reason, civitas implied a profound attachment among citizens. In Machiavelli’s humanistic understanding of politics, then, “[t]he civitas is much more than a source of protection and a supplier of material needs, it is the humane community where the citizens have in common laws, magistracies, and religious and public ceremonies” (Viroli 1990, 147). In contemporary Chile, Machiavelli’s theories clearly illuminate Allende’s aborted presidency (1970–1973) and Pinochet’s seventeen-year dictatorship (1973–1990). Allende, a perennial candidate who had shown himself capable of utilizing the Machiavellian combination of the man and the beast, behaved in a quixotic manner as president. He perceived that

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Chileans would help him build a more socially equal society. Allende had the support of the young, the humble, the dispossessed, but he lacked the backing of “la gente que cuenta” [the people who matter], as his opponents used to say. In the case of Pinochet, he never reached the prominence of Portales or O’Higgins, as much as he had wished to do so. While O’Higgins had had to struggle to reach the top, and had been heroic on the battlefield, Pinochet participated in a coup d’état that was guaranteed to succeed by a power base that was already clearly behind him. His opponents, the Allende sympathizers, did not even have the same weapons. Neither Allende nor his followers stood a chance. The battle was unequal from the outset. In hindsight, Allende and Prats were guilty in that they created an idealistic image of Pinochet, one that did not match the future dictator’s reality. In their error, they saw in Pinochet a loyal, suitable, obedient individual who had the capacity to safeguard the nation against sedition. Crucially, Pinochet was already an injured man; his superiors in the Armed Forces did not think highly of him.40 In fact, Pinochet despised Prats because the general was illustrious in the eyes of his equals and his subordinates. J.C. Peña has compared Pinochet’s envy of Prats’ intelligence and popularity to that of Tiberius for his talented general Germanicus (31, 33). Dogged by the perception that he was intellectually limited, Pinochet strove to highlight his accomplishments as an author during his political reign. His reputation as ordinary, however, initially served him effectively. After all, it was why Prats decided it would be a safe bet to name him Commander-in-chief of the Army. The beleaguered ex-commander was looking for safety in mediocrity. Prats fatefully erred in his appreciation of Pinochet. He did not foresee the true nature of the man he considered to be dull and manageable. To his chagrin, Prats brought into the limelight a siútico, a resentido social, a social misfit, with an enormous thirst for power and recognition. As self-proclaimed president, he sought acknowledgment of his legitimacy from the international community. He was incensed by Prats’ cordial relationship with Juan Doming Perón, president of Argentina, which developed after the ex-commander of the Military relocated to Argentina with his wife Sofía Cuthbert. As J.C. Peña has demonstrated, Pinochet ordered the assassination of Prats not only as a political settling of accounts but also out of a deep sense of envy and because he was motivated by passion (2023). The general wanted literally to erase Prats from the face of the earth. Pinochet was well aware that his former superior knew intimately the real 40

J.C. Peña recounts that Pinochet confessed one day that general René Schneider had considered him “a general with little intellectual acumen” [un general de poco vuelo intelectual (33)].

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social “hilaza” [threat] —the type we saw don Quijote describe to Sancho at court—that lurked at the core of Pinochet’s feigned superiority. Citing a letter from Prats to Pinochet, where the former asked to be left in peace because he had never interfered in the work of his successor, J.C. Peña has concluded that Pinochet perceived Prats’ remarks as directly and personally offensive, a fact that sealed the fate of the former Commanderin-chief of the Chilean Army (30). Allende and Pinochet will forever be joined in the Chilean psyche. Their historical imprint is a continuation of the legacy of the Reconquista and can be viewed as part of the ongoing process of nation building. We can clearly see the connections today. In 2011, student strikes challenged the government of Miguel Piñera, the first right-wing president since the military coup of 1973. Students rebelled again in 2012, adding to their protests support for the region of Aysén, a place that turned from conservative politics to near anarchism. As a candidate, Piñera strove to separate himself as much as he could from Pinochet’s legacy, claiming that he had voted “No” in the plebiscite of 1988. That political referendum, watched the world over, was the central theme of Pablo Larraín’s Oscar-nominated film No (2012). During the student protests, then, Piñera could not exorcise the spirit of Allende or Pinochet. According to Friedhelm Schmidt-Welle and Ingrid Simson, the impact of don Quijote in Latin America was at once complex and political. The text was embraced from the moment it reached the continent, and its legacy is still felt by all: “the Knight of the Sorrowful Face keeps walking along these latitudes” [el caballero de la triste figura sigue caminando hasta hoy por estas latitudes (10)]. In the same fashion, Allende lives on through other people’s idealistic pursuits. On the other side, Pinochet stands with his iron fist, influencing how the conservatives behave. During moments of civic disorder, Piñera would not or could not take immediate action to quell the youth revolts. His inaction meant persistent damage to buildings and conduct detrimental to the students’ own educational goals. At the time, Pinochet had been dead for six years, but the ghost of the dictator remained. Piñera knew that any forceful imposition of order would have made him appear to be acting like Pinochet. Student confrontations with the government and carabineros continued throughout 2012, mostly at the presidential palace of La Moneda, in the capital. Once again Chileans were at odds with each other. In the people’s collective memory, nothing had changed. Since Michelle Bachelet, a Socialist, was reelected president in 2014, she has been heavily scrutinized for a controversial loan and allegedly illegal real estate transaction by her son, Sebastián Dávalos, and daughter-

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in-law, Natalia Compagnon. As Jonathan Franklin of The Guardian has said: “the suspicion that a Bachelet family member was involved in illicit business has come to symbolize a widespread malaise in the Chilean body politic” (“Chilean President”). At this writing President Bachelet has the lowest approval rating of her second term (Gutiérrez Villagrán). Members of her party have added to the bad news by creating a scandal over their own exceedingly generous pensions. Although technically legal, these allocations clearly cross the ethical lines for a democratic government. Moreover, they do not reflect the priorities and vision of the party’s founders and clearly are not something Allende himself would have supported (CNN Chile). During his long tenure, Pinochet himself became seduced by the power of money. In fact, this dishonorable attitude dispirited his most staunch followers even more than the deaths he had ordered of so many Chileans. This further proves the uniqueness of Allende, his one-of-a-kind quality. One wonders what he would think of Chilean politics today, especially what is happening on the left. In the twentieth century, Pinochet firmly restored Chile’s traditional social order, which was threatened, in the words of Portales, by “restless individuals” [cosquillosos] like Allende who perceived the decay in the social fabric and were intent on implanting a new social order. Allende was personally aware of why he was being ousted. In his final speech, he declared that a specific social sector “is counting on outside help to acquire the power to continue defending its profits and privileges” [está esperando con mano ajena conquistar el poder para seguir defendiendo sus granjerías y sus privilegios] (González Camus 200). Even with the return of democracy, Pinochet’s legacy of widespread national incivility has proven too strong to break. During his tenure, he created the conditions for the kind of passivity that Portales had once described: “the almost general tendency of the masses to rest” [la tendencia casi general de la masa al reposo] (Fariña 287). Pinochet enforced those conditions through social hierarchies. He kept every social sector obedient and in its place. This deep social divide remains in evidence today. It can be seen in Chileans’ passivity and resignation in the face of politics, cultural expression, and education. Ramón Maíz Suárez has remarked that the discourses found in highly representative elements of national identity, such as foundational myths, political manifestos, flags, and literary texts are fundamental assets that do not present themselves as exogenous but rather as endogenous constituents of a nation (10). Looked at in this way, the nation consists of cultural artifacts, as Anderson has said, that unite people in their beliefs. With this in mind, we can argue that Blest Gana’s literary production, which has been so intricately woven into Chile’s narrative of national identity, gives

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expression to the bourgeois nature of its citizens and their irredeemable attachment to materialistic concerns. In the early days of the Chilean republic, few had access to wealth or the means to produce it; others realized its benefits and desired a role and their share. Holding on to its assets and imposing social order were always the goals of the oligarchic governments. Machiavelli once stated that the people would react if they felt oppressed. In his Discourses, he asserted that the more the patricians forced the people to do what they did not want to do, the more disorder would ensue. As Maíz Suárez has said, forging a national identity means people willingly conform to a set of shared beliefs. The nation does not construct itself; the work is done by its citizens. A large role in this is played by the upper echelons, the intellectuals and the politicians (13). A maker of national identity, Blest Gana constructed an image of the nation and warned us that its social structure could crumble under certain conditions. Portales feared social disorder and was vigilant in his efforts to keep the people passive, under the influence of “el peso de la noche.” His pragmatic mind laid the foundations for an extremely successful businessminded republic, one that was emulated—to an extent—during the Pinochet era in Chile. In the 1970s and 1980s, the Jefe Supremo de la Nación (Supreme Leader of the Nation) had all the weapons he needed to secure his own “peso de la noche” as he granted access to the nation’s wealth to a group of University of Chicago economists for their fiscal experiments. Acting like don Quijote defending Andrés in I, 5 of Don Quijote, the international community did attempt to probe Chile’s human rights violations. Pinochet-Juan Haldudo feigned surprise and declared that all was well. Then he punished “Andrés” even harder. Abel Malsira and Abelardo Manríquez were heroic prototypes who could not quite summon the necessary skills to succeed. In the case of Abel, he simply waited too long to engage in politics. His father, don Alejandro Malsira, was one of the few characters who could converse on the same level with the mythical Manuel Rodríguez. But he died in San Bruno’s ignominious massacre of elite criollos. Little by little, then, Abel became aware of his country’s circumstances and realized that his true love was Chile. His attractive and fearless cousin Luisa Bustos was a symbol of the emerging nation. Not as pretty as the goda Violante de Alarcón, Luisa was a paragon of virtue. For Manuel Rodríguez, had he not dedicated himself to building patria, he could have been faithful to her alone. Blest Gana had a particular preference for Luisa, one that was similar to the way that he favored Leonor Encina for her independent spirit. In his portrayal of Abelardo Manríquez, moreover, Blest Gana permitted himself to sketch the most romantic of his heroes, a young man

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who lived the moment the way he wanted. From the beginning of El ideal de un calavera, young Abelardo made daring bets that he always won, except when he decided to bet on the love of Inés, a girl unlike doña Inés de Ulloa, savior of don Juan Tenorio. Manríquez participated indecisively in one of the most notorious chapters in Chilean history, a military mutiny that was led by a man with seemingly incomplete information about the supporters of his coup. The Motín de Quillota was indeed anarchic and, following it, Portales’s life became expendable. Vidaurre and his followers were also condemned: “as a bad omen, the sentence ran from mouth to mouth to announce the death of his powerful prisoner to Vidaurre: Captain Florín executed Don Diego Portales!” [como un presagio funesto, corrió de boca en boca la frase con que anunciaron á Vidaurre la muerte de su poderoso prisionero: ¡El capitán Florín ha fusilado à don Diego Portales!] (IC, II; 335-336). Blest Gana created Martín Rivas as a prototype bourgeois who could communicate with both sides of the socio-political spectrum; in other words, Blest Gana advocated for political and civic engagement and for moderation. The qualities of a nineteenth-century knight were apparent in every aspect of Martín’s life. He lived the dream, and his beliefs in a better society caused him to be quixotic. Notwithstanding his idealism, Martín made good business deals and brought riches to the Encinas, to himself and his future family. The dreams and projects of Martín belonged to an incipient middle class, between the medio pelo and the oligarchic aristocracy. Martín received a formal and elite education that propelled him solidly into good society; he just lacked the economic means. During the Allende era, this same sector of Chileans either emulated the upper class, which turned them into siúticos, or as abajistas joined forces with the underprivileged—many of whom became part of leftist youth brigades, an alternative world with an equally alternative social order. In Guzmán’s Batalla de Chile, in fact, the Allende sympathizers addressed each other using the politically loaded word compañero. Allende wanted to rearrange the social order in Chile; but in doing so he betrayed his own class and became an abajista. His many travels through the Chilean territory, captured in Guzman’s Salvador Allende, depict a Quijote-like individual shaking hands and promising citizens that he would solve their entuertos (problems, conflicts). Looking through Gramsci’s lens on Machiavelli, we can see that Allende made himself an idealistic and fragile emblem of the people’s clamor for a socially better, more equal Chile. Machiavelli and Cervantes (through Don Quijote) expressed their views on the political and the social differently. But they had a similar purpose in mind: to convey in ingenious ways the aspirations of their

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“nations.” Durante la Reconquista, El ideal de un calavera, and Martín Rivas illustrated the social exigencies of their times. The behaviors and attitudes of their characters were set against the vivid backdrop of historic events that rocked the nation. Through these nineteenth-century moments and conditions, we can better comprehend the audacious ideals of Allende in the seventies. He believed he could deconstruct and reassemble Chile’s social order. Collective identity is formed, in a way, by rejecting what the other side symbolizes. Lo proprio —that which belongs to el pueblo (the people) —is opposed to, and intertwined, with lo ajeno —the foreign—in developing the national discourse (Maíz Suárez 13-14). Expressions of national identity could also be artistic. In Allende’s time, these included the legacy of Violeta Parra and her deep commitment to Chile’s lo propio. They were further represented in the Nueva Canción and its lyrics, the literature of the time, graffiti on the walls, etc. These all played a part in constructing a national discourse, but they were only one side. The other side always remained within the boundaries of lo ajeno. Like Violeta or Víctor Jara’s songs, Allende and his purposes unraveled. We conceive them now like an archeological artifact encased in a museum, in a heterotopic space, only reflecting what once was and what never again can be. Allende thought that he could fix his nation and make it more open to true democracy. He was a sincere patriot like one of Machiavelli’s Romans. Guicciardini told Machiavelli that he had in truth recreated the Romans, as don Quijote had recreated the knights errant. The Romans put the republic first and their own pursuits second. Allende behaved too idealistically. Just as Machiavelli had done with the Romans, and Cervantes with don Quijote, the visionary leader refashioned the Chilean Armed Forces in an imaginary way. He turned them into non-existent knights errant who would come to the rescue when called. He also imagined his political opponents and affiliates as men of virtù. He was like a devout follower of the order of knight errantry to which don Quijote belonged, constantly dismissing warnings that the Armed Forces were plotting to oust him from the government. Indeed, don Quijote aspired to fulfill a sort of caballero manifesto, glorifying his kind by rescuing those in distress, and did not heed the danger to his persona. In twenty-first century Chile, Portales has emerged as the real winner. The people, for the most part, behave as the Ministro said in his famous “el peso de la noche,” without any restlessness (cosquilleo). Of course, contemporary Chileans also live in pervasive political oblivion. Numerous decontextualized and globalized cultural images influence people to behave in a detached or disenchanted manner. In other words, “el peso de la noche” is imposed by lo ajeno, which dominates and maintains social order in Chile now.

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Evident in the latest political scandals, contemporary politicians are preoccupied with becoming wealthy. They appear to be civically disengaged negotiators at best and market speculators at worst. Allende’s legacy lingers, then, as a heterotopia, in the Foucauldian sense. It is placidly adrift—not lost, but with no one there to claim it, either. Nowadays, no politician would dream as big as Allende did. On his statue, there is an inscription from his last speech expressing faith in Chile and its destiny. To a point, democracy has indeed been restored. But the nation’s social order remains resolutely stacked in favor of the affluent, with just a few “cosquillosos”—mainly youth—who confront Chile’s sense of identity and direction. By contrast, contemporary politicians do the talk but do not walk the walk. They represent a materialistic nation, citizens of means—in charge of the social order—accompanied by siúticos who, like Amador Molina, will do anything and everything to belong in those spheres from which they are daily rejected. If we keep our representatives well fed—with enormous mesadas (money diets) —we can assure that Chile’s social order will remain as it is and always has been. From the inception of our independence movement, the criollos fought to keep things as they were and later found themselves accidentally involved in emancipation. There is, thankfully, one historically effective agent of change. Education helped Martín Rivas rise to the level he did; education made Machiavelli the humanist he was—in spite of his lack of means. And, for don Quijote, it was the knowledge he acquired from his library that kept him from being discharged as a mere loco by his peers. For Chile, ultimately, education is the key to getting past the gatekeepers of the closely guarded social order. To paraphrase Blest Gana as he received his professorship at the Universidad de Chile: education is the only hope for the underprivileged and for the well-being and future happiness of the nation.

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INDEX

11th September, 1973, 11, 60, 292, 304–7, 11n11, 291n28 abajista(s): and Allende, 57, 287, 318; and Bilbao, 287; and Carrera, 249; and Portales, 57; definition of, 57n21, 249n7 Allende, Salvador: and defeat, 58, 284, 309; and don Quijote, 55, 318; and Gramsci, 279, 318; and innovation, 279; and Leigh, 285; and lo propio, 319; and La Moneda, 291, 303; and muñequeo, 281, 285; and Nixon administration, 282, 291, 312; and political beliefs, 283–85, 306; and quixotic, 58, 158, 228; and Soderini, 283–84 Anderson, Benedict, 8, 16, 17, 22, 25, 64, 70, 118, 152, 191, 316 antichi, gli 62, 123, 135, 310 arbitristas, 98, 100 arribismo, 202, 202n22 arribista(s), 201, 249, 313 aspiracional, 149, See also siútico(s) Austen, Jane, 194, 195 Bachelet, Michelle, 315; and siútico(s), 144n2 Balmaceda, Manuel, 11, 14, 45, 47, 149, 279, 286, 287 Barthes, Roland, 148-149 Batalla de Chile, 311, 318 Batalla de Lircay, 166 Batalla de Maipú, 30 beauty: and despair, 211, 235, 260; and masculinity, 5, 155, 235,

236, 242, 254, 258; and rebelliousness, 142, 259, 260, 265, 278; and wealth, 42, 50, 53, 54, 195, 196 Bhabha, Homi, 13, 14, 47, 146 Bilbao, Francisco, 10, 30, 31, 38, 142, 162, 215, 226, 287 Braghettone, il, 111, 128 buenas familias, 144, 147, 200, 221, 232, 257, 311 caballero(s): and masculinity, 5, 64; and materialism, 66; and the polis, 68, 77, 78, 98, 228, 318 Carrera, José Miguel: and don Quijote, 256; and Machiavelli, 242–44; and O'Higgins, 245, 248–49 Castiglione, Baldassare, 86, 87, 88, 151, 282, 86n8 Castro, Fidel, 285, 298 clothing: and "tell", 151; and agency, 105, 158, 159, 160, 175; and Allende, 57; and caballero(s), 78; and capitalism, 172–74; and Machiavelli, 105, 146, 148; and Martín Rivas, 54, 267; and Rafael San Luis, 54, 208; and siútico(s), 7, 8, 54, 149; and social marker, 148, 172, 174, 178, 180; and uniforms, 5, 235, 254, 258–59, 278; and wealth, 180 contact network, 147, 148, 149, 171, 176, 193, 207, See also red de contactos criollo(s): and capitalism, 252; and enmities, 235–38, 241–42; and

344 Independence, 165, 247; and land, 7n6; and occasione, 232; definition of, 3n4; heirs of, 202 cuico(s): and 11th September, 11; and El qué dirán, 148, 221; definition of, 57, 144, 147n5 Dante Alighieri: 84–85, 104, 105, 131, 188, 228, 263, 294, 84n7, 95n12; and Dantesque, 72, 249 Desastre de Rancagua, 240, 242, 243, 244, 246 El Mercurio, 17, 285, 18n13 Encina, Dámaso: and fortuna, 185; and pelucones, 189; and political views, 189 Encina, Leonor: character traits of, 42, 177–78, 186, 253, 270, 317 Ferdinand of Aragon, 69, 74, 111, 120, 122, 156, 120n23, 156n9 figuración social, 171 Foucault, Michel: and anti– Machiavellians, 63, 86, 246; and don Quijote, 16, 254, 270, 277; and heterotopia, 144, 150, 192; and The Prince, 313 Girard, René, 6, 143, 146, 202, 256 Gramsci, Antonio: and Machiavelli, 73, 157, 224, 286, 238n4; and Manuel Rodríguez, 238; and patria, 248, 282 Guzmán, Patricio, 175, 279, 280, 311, 318 heterotopia: and Allende, 59, 60, 280, 281, 320; and siútico(s), 149, 150; and picholeo, 192; and tertulia, 192 inconveniente, 126, 130, 131, 238 Instituto Nacional: and Barros Arana, 41; and Blest Gana, 38, 43; and Egaña, 162; and

Index Lastarria, 10, 43; and Martín Rivas, 54, 188, 207, 208, 270; and Vicuña Mackenna, 40 Jara, Víctor, 319, 60n24 Lastarria, José: and patria, 17; and Sarmiento, 43, 44; and Memoirs, 44; and Sociedad Literaria, 43, 44 Lazarillo de Tormes, 97; and Lazarillo, 98, 143, 251; and Lázaro, 98, 98n16 letrados, 15, 16, 42, 43, 89, 116, 129, 89n11 liberty: and caballero(s), 75, 76; and lessons from the past, 62, 64, 70, 73, 99, 294 Malsira, Abel: and Manuel Rodríguez, 235, 241; and patria, 55, 234–35, 317 Manríquez, Abelardo: and masculinity, 5; and Motín de Quillota, 318, 296n32; and patria, 248; and rebelliousness, 278; and trangression, 249, 278 medio pelo, 8, 14, 33, 197, 199, 200-202, 202, 206, 212, 222, 228, 257, 265, 318, 199n20 momios, 216 Motín de Quillota, 2, 6, 30, 42, 55, 275, 318 Motín de Urriola, 2, 6, 15, 30, 31, 40, 42, 162, 166, 175, 214, 215, 219, 223, 224, 225, 226, 227, 228 Neruda, Pablo, 11, 19 O'Higgins, Bernardo: and Machiavelli, 155, 167, 168–69; and Manuel Rodríguez, 169, 245; ruling of, 170, 265 Osorio, Mariano: and Machiavelli, 246

Blest Gana via Machiavelli and Cervantes ottimati, 80, 92, 101, 150, 155, 308, 297n33 Parra, Nicanor, 287, 296 Parra, Violeta, 319 Patria Vieja, 168, 241, 242, 245 pelucones: and adversaries, 13, 187; and Allende, 11; and Martín Rivas, 197, 225, 228; definition of, 4 peninsular(es), 4, 22, 23, 30, 35, 55, 171, 233, 235, 237, 240, 249 Perón, Juan Domingo, 314 pícaro(s), 97, 143, 204, 251; and Machiavelli, 62n2 picholeo: and medio pelo, 199, 201; and Molinas, 198, 200; and Portales, 57; and siútico(s), 203; and transgression, 203, 220; and women, 205; definition of, 20 Pinochet, Augusto: and 11th September, 293–94; and Allende, 297-320; and La Moneda, 294; and Leigh, 293; ruling of, 273 pipiolos: and artisans, 226; and la Chimba, 217; and the Church, 4, 187; and Vidaurre, 273 Portales, Diego: and "cosquilloso(s)", 290, 316; and "peso de la noche", 290–91, 311, 316–17, 319; and animita, 296; and Machiavelli, 273–75, 287; and pelucones, 273; and remains, 307; and Vidaurre, 296 Prats, Carlos: and Allende, 283–86, 299–300, 304n36, 309n38; and Pinochet, 301, 314 Quimantú, 18–19 rastaquouères, 46 red de contactos, and balmasiúticos, 149, See also contact network resentido social, 314

345

Rivas, Martín: and don Quijote, 2021; and education, 318; and political views, 228; and siútico(s), 151, 151n7 Rodríguez, Manuel: and don Quijote, 230, 256; and Machiavelli, 239; and patria, 236, 237, 317 roto, 58, 238, 239, 248, 58n23 San Luis, Rafael: and the economic markets, 209–11; and Motín de Urriola, 219 Semanario, El: and The Clinic, 18 siútico(s): and Allende, 14; and Lucía Hiriart, 8; and siutiquería, 146; and Trasplantados, 46-47; definition of, 6, 6n5 Sociedad de la Igualdad, 6, 14, 15, 30, 31, 35, 40, 52, 187, 215, 217, 219, 223, 224, 226, 227, 267, 286; and Allende, 31 sprezzatura, 151, 282 tertulia: and performance, 191–93; and women, 193; definition of, 20 Tohá, José: and don Quijote, 302; and Moy de Tohá, 301 tribu, 7, 13 Unidad Popular, 19, 216, 228, 297, 298, 302, 309, 312 upelientos, 216 Urriola, Pedro, 2, 30, 226, 2n3 verità effettuale, 82, 128, 131, 156, 240, 240n5 Vicuña Mackenna, Benjamín, 15, 30, 35, 37, 39, 40-42, 44 Vidaurre, José, 30, 273, 275, 276, 296-297, 318 White, Hayden, 20, 21 Wood, Andrés, 217