"La palma rota", de Gabriel Miró. Estructura narrativa de base cervantina

Abstract

Against the traditional and inaccurate view of Gabriel Miró (Alicante 1879 – Madrid 1930) as a stylist, lyricist or poet in prose, he must be vindicated as a novelist, and so his novel La palma rota (1909) will be studied here for its Cervantine narrative structure. Aurelio Guzmán is a baciyélmico character, for he embraces two forms of being depending on who defines him – some see him as sublime (yelmo de Mambrino), thus described in the light of the Golden Age idealistic literature, while others believe he is vulgar (bacía de barbero), thus following the model of the picaresque fiction. This is a Don Quixote-like narrative structure for its perspectivism. Also, there is the process of idealization and refutation of reality, similarly to Don Quixote’s fantasies. In La palma rota, this works at several levels, but especially in what regards an ideal notion of love which is impossible to achieve in real terms, so the relationship between Aurelio Guzmán and the female protagonist, Luisa, becomes tortuous.