131
Fray Antonio de Guevara, Epístolas familiares, ed. José María de Cossío, 2 vols. (Madrid: Aldus, 1950-52) 1: 88.
132
It should be recalled that there is no textual mention of who the duchess actually is or where she is from. In this regard, although there is a smattering of critical commentary on the possible «referents» for the duke and duchess, the fact still remains that the textual evidence does not support the empirical biographical connections proposed under the rubric of «modelos vivos». This, of course, is a concern that entails an argumentation that is not part of my focus here.
133
Although I am aware of the larger gender implications, I purposefully use masculine pronouns here since to date no fool literature written by women has been discovered in Golden Age Spain. Because of this, it is interesting to note that Teresa Panza, and by extension Cervantes, represents the transgression of a norm within the already transgressive and noncanonical framework of fool literature.
134
According to Covarrubias, «estar de la bellota» means «estar un hombre necio, gordo y robusto, como los cevones que buelven del monte, engordados con la bellota».
135
«[E]l queso se consideraba como alimento más propio y adecuado para el loco, al que solía ponérsele en el capillo de su ropón». F. Márquez Villanueva, «La locura emblemática en la segunda parte del Quijote», 93.
136
One should remember that in pre-newspaper times, the letter served not only as a means of personal communication but also as a source of daily news. In this regard, see P. Dumonceaux, «Le XVIIe siècle: aux origines de la lettre intime et du genre épistolaire», in Ecrire, publier, lire 289-302. The psychological ambiguities of letters and how they have been transposed to the present period have been exhaustively examined by Jacques Derrida in The Post-Card from Socrates to Freud and Beyond, trans. Alan Bass (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1987). For a brief and more recent study of a different kind, see John L. Brown, «What Ever Happened to Mme. de Sévigné? Reflections on the Fate of the Epistolary Art in a Media Age», World Literature Today 64.2 (Spring 1990) 215-220.
137
There is an ample display of the «nuevas de corte» genre in Villalobos's burlesque letters. See, especially, letter number two, «El doctor Villalobos á un grande del reino», in Algunas obras del doctor Francisco López de Villalobos. This «newsmakers» section is placed invariably at the end of the letter. Villalobos explains the reason to a friend as follows: «Este bocadillo os guardé para la postre, porque siempre acabeys de leer mis cartas» (11). It is also introduced by the same expression that Teresa Panza uses: «Las nuevas de acá son, que...». Thus, the rhetoric of the construction of burlesque epistolary narrative is quite evident. On the relationship between «nuevas de corte» and fool literature, see Francisco Márquez Villanueva, «Literatura bufonesca o del loco», Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica 34.2 (1985-86) 501-528.