Vidas de papel. Personajes principales, anónimos y colectivos en el “Quijote” y el “Persiles”

[Machine translation] The ten chapters of this book propose separate sieges of Don Quixote and Persiles from apparently marginal perspectives, such as the theme of the double, the illustrations of the character of Dulcinea in the last two centuries or the functions of the least relevant characters, the anonymous or the collective ones. The characters of the third level, the anonymous and the collective ones, beyond their purely utilitarian dimension in the story, give it back a social dimension that allows the protagonists to confront otherness, in a dialogue that will force them to “take charge” of someone else's point of view about the world. The comparison with the same range of characters in Don Quixote de Avellaneda, who do not have the dialogic capacity of the Cervantes people, sheds new light on Cervantes' conception of the novel. The willingness to “take charge” of someone else's perspective is at the basis of the construction of the characters of Don Quixote and Sancho. Three chapters of this book attempt to delve into the subject: those dedicated to the self-construction process of Don Quixote, to his relationship with the doubles that other characters are proposing to him, and to the self-regulation of the binary system composed by Sancho and himself in response to external stimuli. In short, the separate paths along which this book travels could lead the reader to the very heart of the two Cervantine masterpieces or, at least, that is what the author intends.