111
See J. N. H. Lawrance, «Nuevos lectores y nuevos géneros: apuntes y observaciones sobre la epistolografía en el primer renacimiento español» in Literatura en la época del emperador, ed. Víctor García de la Concha (Salamanca: Universidad, 1988) 81-99 regarding the epistolary genre as the culmination of a process that reaches full maturity in the Renaissance. Now that the letter has acquired certain literary canonicity, studies abound which inevitably turn to the tradition in which the burlesque letter is inscribed to understand the actual situation of the epistle. See, for example, A. J. Greimas et al., La Lettre: approches sémiotiques [Les Actes du VIe. Colloque Interdisciplinaire] (Fribourg: Editions Universitaires, 1988) and Ecrire, publier, lire. Les correspondances [Actes du Colloque International «Les correspondances»] (Nantes: Université de Nantes, 1983). For the generic possibilities of the letter, see Patrizia Violi's recent study, «Letters», in Discourse and Literature, ed. Teun A. Van Dijk (Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins, 1985) 149-167 and Ana María Barrenechea's article «La epístola y su naturaleza genérica», forthcoming in Dispositio 15 (1990).
112
Lawrance 85. On the letter as recreation of a specific social context, see Jeannine Basso, «Echo de la vie culturelle dans les lettres en langue italienne publiées entre 1538 et 1662», in La correspondance 2 [Actes du Colloque International Aix-en-Provence, 4-6 octobre 1984], ed. Georges Ulysse (Aix en-Provence: Université de Provence, 1985) 221-238.
113
Lawrance 99.
114
Letras. Glosa a las coplas de Mingo Revulgo, ed. Domínguez Bordona (Madrid, 1958) 87-88. Cited in Lawrance 87-88.
115
Claudio Guillén, «Notes Toward the Study of the Renaissance Letter» in Renaissance Genres, ed. Barbara K. Lewalski (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1986) 81.
116
Guillén 92. For a situation similar to the one I examine here, that is, one in which the powerful could control the contents of what was communicated in a letter, see Paul Larivaille's study of Aretino, «Pour la histoire des rapports de l'Aretin avec les puissants de son temps; deux lettres in édites au pacha Ibrahim et au roi François 1er» in La correspondance 55-92.
117
Guillén 95.
118
Guillén 100.
119
On the general function of the epistolary genre in Don Quijote, see Amalia Pulgarín, «Función novelística de las cartas en el 'Quijote'», Anales Cervantinos 24 (1986) 77-91. All the letters included in Don Quijote reflect Cervantes's substantial novelistic gifts in creating a work that embraced all genres known to him. In this sense, the epistle as a practice of literary apprenticeship and development is studied in Françoise Van Rossum-Guyon, «La Correspondance comme laboratoire de l'écriture. George Sand (1831-1832)», Revue des Sciences Humaines 95.221 (Janvier-Mars 1991) 87-104.
120
Francisco Márquez Villanueva, «La locura emblemática en la segunda parte del Quijote», in Cervantes and the Renaissance, Papers of the Pomona College Cervantes Symposium, Nov. 16-18, 1978, ed. Michael D. McGaha (Easton, Pennsylvania: Juan de la Cuesta, 1980) 93-96.