La agudeza de Sancho: del rebuzno a la cuestión de la imitación creadora

The object of this article is to account for what Cervantes calls, in Chapter II, 27 of Don Quixote, in an exceptional formula, the smartness (otherwise sharpness) of Sancho. He associates the duo that is Don Quixote’s speech and the braying of Sancho with some salient motifs observable in the second part, before situating the episode in the theme of imitation, where the spectacular scene here reaches its most elementary level, but also its offensive and comical nec plus ultra. The braying episode may well, in effect, be comparable to the Avellaneda affair, as suggested through the comparison of certain chapters of the apocryphal Quijote of 1614 and the 1615 authentic.