The Santo Domingo International Book Fair It is one of the most established literary events in the Caribbean. This year’s edition, with the presence of 18 countries, is celebrated until November 17, in the Plaza de la Cultura Juan Pablo Duarte, and is dedicated to the writer Mateo Morrisonwith guest of honor representation from Washington Heights, the largest Dominican community in the United States.
Castilla-La Mancha and its culture are well represented through the first two of their respective canons in our literature: Jorge Manriquethe lyrical, and Miguel de Cervantesthe story. Both, moreover, married to women from Toledo: the poet with Guiomar de Meneses, daughter of the Count of Fuensalida, and the author of Don Quixote, with the Esquivian noblewoman Catalina de Palacios.
Jose Manuel Ortegacollaborator of ABC Artes&Letras, after several books dedicated to Manrique, published in the regional editorial team, on the occasion of the centenary of the 2nd part of Don Quixote, explored the possible analogies, homages, parodies and even imitations of Manrique and his Coplas in the Cervantine magnum opus. Many were the results which, first, in serial form, was made public in successive deliveries to ABC of Castilla-La Manchathen, recently, compiled them into a book, “Don Quixote Theory with Jorge Manrique in the background”, published by Huerga y Fierro in 2022 and which is now present at the Santo Domingo Fair.
The sentences, situations, characters, even the structure and composition of the work, the connections and resonances of Manrique in the great Cervantine novel are identified, reasoned and explained in detail in Ortega’s book. Fundamentally, this common consciousness of the two authors, Manrique and Cervantes, of witnessing and recording an end of an era, a change of century.
But Cervantes, who praises dozens of poets, silences the name of Jorge Manrique. Because?
It could be a fervor of Cervantes towards Manrique, ineffable due to its immensity and, therefore, unexpressed. Or perhaps, excessive prejudice on the part of Cervantes which could call into question his originality. A parody, like a gloss, can be great but it’s not one hundred percent original.
Mysteriously, Cervantes never mentions Manrique. And what is surprising: for four long centuries, no scholar, critic or historian of our literature had detected this silencing clamor. Until this book by the Castilian-La Mancha researcher.
The author of the prologue, also writer and ABC contributor, Antonio Lázaro He also prefaced the edition of Coplas Manriqueñas, illustrated by the Dominican artist Geo Ripley (Universo Oculto, 2023), a book also present, by the hand of its illustrator, at the Dominican event.
In his prologue to the Coplas, Lázaro remembers that one of the first printed books to arrive in Americain the Indies, always from its geographical and cultural gateway, which is the current Dominican Republic, was the Coupletswhose printing began before the Colombian voyages, already in the 1480s, and analyzes their enormous influence and prestige on Ibero-American literature, comparable only to that of Quixote himself.
Castilla-La Mancha is universally known, among other things, for the title of the work and the nickname of its protagonist. But the fact is that all the action of the first part of Don Quixote and two thirds of the second take place in the lands of Castilla-La Mancha. And if the Montiel field saw the birth of Alonso Quijanoto the gentleman who would be armed like the knight Don Quixote, Don Quixote as a book was born in the city of Toledowhere literary Cervantes places the discovery, purchase and translation of an ancient manuscript with most of his adventures.
As for Jorge Manrique, he was commander of Montizónwith Villamanrique, in Ciudad Real, he was part of the poetic circle of the Archbishop of Toledo Carrillo, He married and had his marital home in Toledoperhaps in the palace of Fuensalida (property of his father-in-law), for 10 years he led his first major battle at Ajofrínsaw his father die in the main house of the Order of Santiago, in Ocañaand fought and was mortally wounded in the castle of Garcimuñoz, died in Santa María del Campo Rus and he was buried in the crypt of the ancient church of the monastery of Ukles, in the province of Cuenca (the so-called Manriqueño triangle).
Neruda, Borges, García Márquez and Bolaño, among others, have already renewed their great creations and explained in their writings and opinions this double heritage of Manrique and Cervantes. The book by José Manuel Ortegawith its presence at the stand of the publishing house Huerga y Fierro at the Santo Domingo International Book Fair, enriches this double heritage, revealing the deep link existing between the two authors.
