Resumen de Sancho y la duquesa: una nota socioliteraria
Underlying Cervantes' comic novel we find serious observations about Spanish society, as for example in the dialogues between Sancho Panza, now self-consciously competing with Don Quixote as the protagonist, and the anonymous Duchess, an involved reader who particularly appreciates Sancho. Flattered by her special attention, Sancho rises to the occasion of a private interview which, though completely unrealistic in terms of actual social practice, is made possible by the utopian literary space of the novel, in which readers can make personal contact with members of different classes. But Sancho is in a double bind: he must defer to the authority of the Duchess, even when it goes against his own interests and convictions, as in the case of her assertion that Dulcinea is really enchanted. His response to this assertion is complexly ambiguous, straining the close reader's comprehension.
