Confessing on the Move

Abstract

Even though Viaje del Parnaso (1614) has been relegated to the status of a minor work within Cervantine literature, in its day it must have had a strong personal significance, and it was well received. The fact that he devoted time and energy towards the end of his life to complete Viaje meant that Cervantes wanted to leave us with a personal testimony of his experience as a writer and a record of his artistic and aesthetic values. However, it undeservedly finds itself at the margins of Cervantine studies, possibly due to the widespread belief held by many that he was a bad poet. This chapter explores the literary value of Viaje and the ‘Adjunta’ in prose and why it has been studied so little.