Cervantes and Shakespeare: Coincidence of dates in a timeless time

Abstract

Once again I shall draw upon, and this is forseeable, the notion that Aristotle called topics, which remains in effect, like those and other common places. Thus, without taking distance from such foundational notions, I shall refer to Cervantes and, in a certain manner, to El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha as well as to Shakespeare and The Tragical Historie of Hamlet, Prince
of Denmark, to address the subject of this Congress, although rather than treating these works directly, I shall allude to them
from the starting point of some of the many parodies. One, unavoidable, ‘Pierre Menard, author of the Quijote’, by Borges (bien sûr, Gérard Genette would say whenever naming it, providing this both necessary and implicit reference); another by Jules Laforgue, one of his Moralidades legendarias: ‘Hamlet or the consequences of filial piety’. If parody is understood as satirical imitation of a serious work, from which an ironic or comic transposition derives, they would both fit, with their respective differences with regard to the conventional difference but, beyond their particularities, it will not always be possible to distinguish between them because, just as
the dates coincide, parodies also tend to be confused. I hope such confusion will not prevail.