2 - After Montalvo: The Development of the Amadís Cycle

Summary

After Rodríguez de Montalvo's romances were published, different authors heeded the cyclical call at the end of Sergas. Accordingly, the Amadís cycle developed extensively. Yet not all those who wielded the pen enjoyed the same editorial success as Montalvo. The two branches of the Amadís cycle illustrate the different fate of the sequels. On the one hand, those romances that compose the heterodox branch enjoyed little or no favour from sixteenth-century audiences. Conversely, the romances of the orthodox branch, written almost exclusively by Feliciano de Silva, became a favourite of the public and printers. Despite being overlooked by literary scholars, Feliciano was one of the most influential writers of his century. For example, Cervantes's Quijote never mentions the romances of the other branch of the Amadís cycle, but it constantly refers to and mocks Feliciano's works, implicitly recognising their importance and success (Cervantes 1998: 40).

The dissimilar reception of the branches is linked to their relationship with their hypotexts, Montalvo's romances. Both branches took the cycle in new directions, but the difference in their narrative projects explains the dissimilar editorial fate. From a narrative perspective, the heterodox branch diverged considerably from Montalvo's Amadís. On the other hand, the orthodox branch developed aspects from the narrative universe described by Montalvo in a more consistent way, though this did not preclude considerable innovation. Therefore, the reception of Montalvo's romances is the core difference in the poetics of the two branches and the intertextual relations portrayed in them explain their failure or success. The complex intertextual development of the Amadís cycle offers significant insight into the poetics of rewriting and continuation of the libros de caballerías.

The heterodox branch

The first sequel of Sergas and the foundation of the heterodox branch is Ruy Páez de Ribera's Florisando (Book VI of the Amadís cycle), which was later continued in Juan Díaz's Lisuarte de Grecia (Book VIII). Of the corpus studied here, these two romances have received the smallest amount of critical attention. However, these remain essential to understand the development of the Amadís cycle and Feliciano's works.

Florisando by Ruy Páez de Ribera

Ruy Páez de Ribera, in all likelihood a cleric, was the first to write a sequel of Sergas, with his Florisando, published in 1510 (in Salamanca and Toledo) and 1526 (in Seville).