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The Plot of History from Antiquity to the Renaissance

Author(s): Eric MacPhail


Source: Journal of the History of Ideas, Vol. 62, No. 1 (Jan., 2001), pp. 1-16
Published by: University of Pennsylvania Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/3654172
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The Plot of History from
Antiquity to the Renaissance

Eric MacPhail

In the Poetics Aristotle introduced the notion of plot or mythos as a dis-


tinctly poetic form of rationality and coherence absent from history. In the course
of antiquity and the Renaissance Aristotle's notion of plot underwent a curious
inversion by which history came to supplant poetry as the main literary form of
emplotment. To account for the readjustment or even reversal of Aristotle's dis-
tinction between history and poetry, we will examine the notions of order, cau-
sality, and chance expounded by classical historians and literary theorists before
tracing their influence to Renaissance writers. In the Renaissance the transmis-
sion, conflation, and distortion of Aristotelian doctrine exerted a profound influ-
ence on historiography and literary criticism, particularly in the latter part of the
sixteenth century. It is even possible to understand some of the new and hybrid
forms of Renaissance fiction as a reaction to this transference of the idea of plot
from poetry to history. While history may indeed possess no coherent plot, as
Aristotle speculated, literary history can nevertheless reconstitute the genealogy
of competing notions of plot and order in Renaissance narrative.
We can situate Aristotle's definition of plot in the context of his inquiry into
cause and coincidence. In book two of thePhysics Aristotle proposes a rigorous
typology of cause, distinguishing between formal, material, efficient, and final
causes, and he also considers the status of chance and fortune as accidental
causes or aitia kata symbebekos (197a5-6).' The Metaphysics takes up the ques-
tion of to kata symbebekos, translated alternately as accident or coincidence,
and in doing so develops several arguments that pertain to the treatment of plot
in the Poetics and to the larger issue of the coherence of fiction and history. As
Richard Sorabji points out, the key to Aristotle's notion of coincidence is the

' Citations of Aristotle's work are in the pagination of the Bekker edition; translations are
from The Metaphysics, tr. Hugh Tredennick (Cambridge, Mass., 1989); The Poetics, tr. S.H.
Butcher (New York, 1951).

Copyright 2001 by Journal of the History of Ideas, Inc.

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2 Eric MacPhail

paradox of existen
ics VI, 2 maintain
and destruction [g
symbebekos] ther
not so, if nothing
in the sense that
Genesis thus seems
the coincidental, r
dental or the for
not go back to s
cause.

Aristotle's Poetics furnishes a definition of plot or nmythos t


link between the metaphysical discussion of cause and the fict
chance. For Aristotle the dramatic plot is the integration of
synthesis ton pragmaton (1450a5), into a whole or olon consi
ning, a middle, and an end (1450b27). The unity of action does
accidents within the plot as it moves continuously from begin
end, and yet the plot as a whole exemplifies the metaphysical no
dence. Aristotle defines the beginning of the plot or the arc
does not itself follow anything by causal necessity but after
naturally is or comes to be" (1450b28-29). Thus the mythos,
dence, originates in an uncaused cause, that scandal abhorre
Aristotle further complicates the question of causality when he d
cal events the type of probability or necessity that he associa
actions. Chapter 23 of the Poetics exhorts the epic poet to em
shun the example of histories (1459a17-22), for while histor
possess a chronological unity, they do not form any causal chain
exhibit any unity of action.
In chapter 9 of the Poetics Aristotle poses the fundamenta
tween poetry and history on the basis of a series of counter
recounts the actual (ta genomena) while poetry portrays the poss
History deals in the particular (kath' ekaston) while poetry expre
sal (katholou). Moreover, while poetry constructs a dramatic
history consists of episodes. According to chapter 9. "of all p
the worst are episodic ... in which the episodes or acts succe
without probable or necessary sequence" (145 lb33-35). In the
contrast, all events, even when unexpected, should follow ea
and effect or di allela (1452a4). According to chapter 23, th
causal connection is precisely what characterizes historical a
which thus remain irreducibly episodic. Disconnected episodes

2 Richard Sorabji, Necessity, Cause and Blame (Ithaca, 1980), 6.

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The Plot of History 3

plot because each one is in itself a


into any larger scheme. In effect
ics maintains that there is no t
that for Aristotle there is no theo
poetry, which rises above history
Nevertheless, Aristotle does see
history, particularly in a very d
follows the exaltation of poetry
sodic composition. To exemplify
the comic convention of assigning
onomata, 1451b13). However, h
real names (genomenon onomato
to the province of the historian,
the real or the actual. To explain
ment which may or may not repr
dians assign their characters rea
"the reason is that what is possi
at once feel sure to be possible,
otherwise it would not have hap
with ta dynata, these lines seem t
the possible on which Aristotle
order to resolve this contradict
tended his argument to be unde
haps this is why, only a few lin
when tragic poets construct plo
they are nonetheless poets; for th
from conforming to the princi
out, if some actual events are poss
any means that whatever has h
plies a degree of coherence tha
copied from history. In this wa
antinomy between poetry and h
versely, most readers seem to h
that history is an eminently fit s
On the basis of the many pass
misunderstanding and within the
the theory and practice of histori
ary canon. Augusto Rostagni has

3 Gerald Else, Aristotle's Poetics (C


4 Else, 317. Luigi Pareyson draws t
(Milan, 1961), 332.

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4 Eric MacPhail

first adopting and


and plot and reass
originated a tripar
verisimilar (plasm
egories with the th
ceases to be the ant
while mythos as p
fable or falsehood
rhetoric in the ea
attributed to Cor
ration in rhetoric
(fabula).6 These dis
in Rome and Byz
Roman grammaria
duces reges," or p
inclusive of legend
grammarian Euant
all comedy is abou
history: "postremo
de historia fide p
ptolemus of Parium
Ars poetica. As rec
tise On poems, N
historical facts, w
etry.9 In these va
beyond, history in
basis of Aristotle'
A further and mo
the much disputed
initiated this contr
an article on the
principles to thos
Callisthenes and D
torian of Alexand

I Augusto Rostagni,
6 Rhetorica ad Here
Diomedes, Ars Gram
8 Euanthius "De fab
vols.; Leipzig, 1902-
9 See Rostagni, 423-
10 Eduard Schwartz
(1897), 560.

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The Plot of History 5

to have aspired to express "the inn


that history might become "the y
ment from the preface to his wor
historian ought to suit his style
serving the same principles of p
pounds in chapter 15 of the Poe
From this coincidence we may in
tory the attributes which Aristot
Another figure associated with t
history is Duris of Samos, discip
history. In the prologue to his his
and Theopompus for their failur
(mimesis).'3 In effect they have
pleasure in chapter 14 of the Poet
isthat which comes from pity a
fault paradoxically is to have wr
tragedy, implying that Duris him
later historian thought to have
history was Diodorus Siculus, w
century BC. In book 20, while r
Carthage, Diodorus pauses to ack
writing: while historical events
obliged to narrate them in succe
(20.43.7). As a consequence even
historians rearrange them to suit
as an echo of Duris's critique of
pathos in their readers, but it c
Hellenistic historiography and A
Poetics Aristotle similarly remar
history but only in order to stres
nection among historical events.
plot. Above all they possess no pat

I Schwartz describes Callisthenes as an


Einheit im Gegensatz zu der einen un
"Kallisthenes Hellenika," Hermes, 3
(1909), 491, he remarks of Callisthen
Schwester der Trag6die."
12 Discussed in Else, 574 and B. L. U
American Philological Association, 7
13 Cited in Schwartz (1909), 492,
Bedeutung des Aristoteles ftir die Gesc
(Geneva, 1956), 106-7.
14 Ullman, 38, and note.

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6 Eric MacPhail

contrary, it is the
recorded in legen
Diodorus by contra
is superior to their
possess the skill of
Another testimon
Cicero's Familiar
correspondent Lu
Civil Wars in ord
when he successf
consulship as a ty
peripeteias: "secer
bet enim varios act
term of office of
("uno in argumen
cum corpus"), whic
of the Poetics. Ci
afford the reader g
quam temporum
Aristotle conceive
experience from w
plot of his own pa
friend a tragic hist
Frank Walbank h
tragic history by a
Tragic history is
predates Aristotle
and Aristotle's vie
immense prestige
resolve the academ
does not answer t
where is the plot
of historians from
Perhaps the most
in classical antiqui
of Roman imperi
Carthage and Cor

"1 Marcus Tullius C


143-48.

'6 Frank Walbank, "History and Tragedy," Historia. 9 (1960), 216-34; repr. Selected Pa-
pers (Cambridge, 1985), 224-41.

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The Plot of History 7

gues that since Fortune or tyche h


historian's duty to provide his r
torical events (1,4,1). With dubio
to the 140th Olympiad (220-216 Bc
history are supposed to have come
(1,3,4). Commentators have not f
concept of history as an organic w
matic plot possess the unity of
For his part Polybius complains
like the dissected members of a
sumably the task of the univers
(1,4,7). The only way to derive p
cludes, is to perceive the interco
which might simply be rendered a
While Polybius appropriates th
his universal history, elsewhere h
tragedy. In book 2 he criticizes th
and pity like a tragic poet rather
an historian (2,56,7-12). If Phyla
betrays his duty even further by
cannot experience the proper e
the lesson of the Poetics that trag
follow as cause and effect (1 452a
in order to invert Aristotle's val
impersonates the tragic poet, Poly
who alone solicits genuine emoti
History has inherited or simply u
The insistence on causality is c
tory. In book 2 he distinguishes h
Second Punic War from the ma
"apodeictic" (2,37,3). In book 3,
History proper, he announces his
piad met apodeixeos (3,1,3) by e
this basis Walbank takes the ter
fect."'8 Later in book 3 Polybius
tory is the study of causes, and
reveal the full sequence of caus
discover the full significance of
tise on history writing framed a

17 Frank Walbank, A Historical Comm


'8 Walbank, on Polybius 2,37,3.

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8 Eric MacPhail

with tragic histor


speeches in order
actual words spoke
supply the facts. A
the causes of even
and foresee the cou

For the mere state


us; but when we ad
For it is the mental transference of similar circumstances to our own

times that gives us the means of forming presentiments [prolepseis] of


what is about to happen and enables us at certain times to take precau-
tions and at others by reproducing former conditions to face with more
confidence the difficulties that menace us. (12, 25b3)'9

Causality is what makes the past prospective and therefore profitable.


This argument, which is perfectly incompatible with Aristotelian doctrine,
recalls a famous and much imitated passage from the preface to Thucydides'
History of the Peloponnesian War, which also deals with the historian's use of
speeches. After assuring us that he has transcribed the speeches in his text as
faithfully as possible and inquired into the facts as diligently as he could, the
author claims for his work a permanent, eternal value. For if we know the past,
we can anticipate the future given the concordance between "the events which
have happened and those which will some day, in all human probability, happen
again in the same or a similar way" (1,22,4).20 Here Thucydides founds the
doctrine of the uniformity of history, which confers a prognostic value on the
past.
In Polybius's work the themes of historical recurrence and prevision receive
their most important development in book 6, which is devoted to the Roman
constitution. The fragmentary proemium insists that the constitution is the prin-
ciple cause of success and failure in politics (6,2,9), and thus constitutional
forms guarantee the causal logic of political history. The following section on
different constitutions (6,3-6,10) identifies constitutional history as the basis of
political prevision, since the constitutional changes which a state has gone through
in the past often mirror those which it will experience in the future (6,3,1-3).
Polybius identifies seven different regimes or forms of government from monar-
chy, the most primitive form, to ochlocracy, the degeneration of democracy; and
he explains how these forms follow each other in a continuous cycle. This is the

~9 Polybius, The Histories, tr. W. R. Paton (6 vols.; London, 1922-27), IV, 371.
20 Thucydides, History of the Peloponnesian War, tr. Charles Forster Smith (4 vols.; Lon-
don, 1919-23) I, 41.

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The Plot of History 9

famous cycle of constitutions or


discusses in his Discorsi.21 Given
we can foresee the future evolutio
(6,9,11). More particularly, if w
acme, we can predict its eventu
nostic capacity of history deriv
another type of plot. Whereas f
prises (para ten doxan, 1452a4), f
ing precisely because it is predic
All of these departures from Ar
far constitute an important lega
ism. Inspired by the tradition of
prognostic pretensions, humanis
and the logic of historical event
to reevaluate the historicity of fi
sal of roles assigned to history
teenth century, according to a rec
and poetry have changed places:
to some internal, natural necessi
fictional plot emerged to reoccu
history.
Hellenistic views on poetry and history reached humanist Europe both di-
rectly and through various Latin intermediaries including Horace, Cicero, and
Tacitus. At the outset of hisHistories Tacitus faithfully summarizes the thesis of
apodeictic history when he declares his intention to begin by outlining the ante-
cedents of events including the state of the city, the attitude of the army, the
condition of the provinces, and the strengths and weaknesses throughout the
empire at the time of Nero's death. In this way he can make known not only the
hazards and outcomes of events, which are most often fortuitous, but also their
reason and causes: "ut non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque for-
tuiti sunt, sed ratio etiam causaeque noscantur" (Historiae 1.4). Tacitus's lapi-
dary style helped to preserve the apodeictic thesis and to transmit it to Renais-
sance humanists, who disseminated the notion in their treatises on history known
as artes historicae. One such treatise, that by Antonio Possevino, cites both
Tacitus's formula and Polybius's authority in order to define historical explana-
tion:

21 See Gennaro Sasso, "Machiavelli e la teoria dell'anacyclosis," Machiavelli e gli antichi


e altri saggi (4 vols.; Milan, 1987-97), I, 3-65.
22 Robert Newsom, A Likely Story: Probability and Play in Fiction (New Brunswick,
1988), 70.

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10 Eric MacPhail

Explanation means
disposing it in a c
done so that we ma
their occasion and
mains, according t

From this definitio


technique for conne
Similarly, the De
nizes the importanc
between patent cau
rian must research
his sense that the v
pean history to the
cerns all princes.24
tune has brought t
though no state ha
Roman republic.
Another inspiratio
tory is the rhetor
Antonius outlines th
expect an account of
signify his approv
what was said or d
explained whether
ert Black has show
historiography begi
writing by George
in the fifteenth cen
the requirement "u
nation of causes re

23 Antonius Possevinu
Dubois, La conception
"Explanatio est, ut res s
quomodo item, et quar
rerum, sed ratio etiam
reliqui, id Polybio judi
24 Ubertus Folieta, O
Theoretiker humanisti
resque in Europa gestae
deliberationem caderen
" Robert Black, "Ben
English Historical Re

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The Plot of History 11

this way humanism inherited wh


apodeictic history.
Humanism also cultivated the fa
Thucydides and Polybius and codi
prudentia. Following Cicero's cl
Petrarch's Rerum memorandarum
past, the understanding of the pres
dence thus comprehends the thre
This synoptic view is only possible
as we find in the De tradendis di
book of this humanist treatise on
its lessons, despite the mutability
human nature remains constant:
never change nor do the causes of
stancy of human nature enables the
future from the patterns of the
practical affairs is known as pru
resides in the conjectures which we
future so that prudence appears to
divinationis prudentia."28 Here in
the role of the prophet or diviner.
Marc Antoine de Muret develops
inaugural lecture on Tacitus's An
history Muret poses the rhetorica

Where can we find a greater so


human affairs, than in history? Fo
from the inspection of their entr
has diligently noted and observe
and undertaking will best be able
future.29

To the notion of history as divination, he adds the familiar image of revolving


time:

26 Petrarch, Rerum memorandarum libri, ed. G. Billanovich (Florence, 1943), 43: "Ea est
prudentia. Quae nichil est aliud, ut a Marco Tullio diffinitur, nisi 'rerum bonarum et malarum
scientia'.... Hec posset minutius, sed trifariam brevissima partitione diducitur in preteritorum
memoriam, presentium intelligentiam et providentiam futurorum."
27 Juan Luis Vives, Opera omnia (8 vols.; Valencia, 1782-90; reprint London: Gregg Press,
1964), VI, 389: "Sed illa tamen nunquam mutantur quae natura continentur, nempe causae
affectuum animi, eorumque actiones et effecta."
28 Vives, VI, 387.
29 Marc Antoine Muret, Opera omnia, ed. Frotscher (3 vols.; Leipzig, 1834-41), II, 377.

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12 Eric MacPhail

Even though huma


ries, and great is th
many things shoul
things happen by a
how things will tur
have had most freq

It is curious how Mu
the basis of the Aris
analogy, as the basi
of analogy, "plerum
cent of Henricus C
the De occulta phil
convenit."'' Both au
of determinism and
Thus from the reco
history has develope
larity and recurrenc
great deal of penet
and Montaigne, but
express the conven
other humanists de
rected Aristotle's ev
Poetics. Focusing on
the use of real nam
posed to subordinate
acknowledged that
onomaton) because
plausible than do im
to derive tragedy fr
Poetics, the In libr
We have already s
tional names in tra
possibility. Robortel
uncharacteristic as
else it would not h

30 Muret, II, 378.


31 Cornelius Agrippa,
1992), 204.
32 See Ruidiger Landf
33 See Bernard Weinb
Modern, ed. R. S. Cra

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The Plot of History 13

could have happened" (quae vero f


Thus he elides the difficulty of Aris
verbfieri for the much more prob
the facts command our belief, Rob
greatest emotional impact on the
verisimilar plot: "si nos verisimili
The utility of tragedy depends on it
its credibility, which ultimately der
its historicity. Robortello makes t
remarkable disregard for Aristotl
because it portrays true events. "F
invented by poets, but rather they
kings and heroes" (93).34 Here Rob
Hellenistic equation of tragedy and
If history verifies tragedy, it also
Aristotle would reserve for poetry
has happened but what can happen
in Robortello's analysis necessity
ward truth. In fact truth and nece
attested by the principle that dra
necessarium, hoc est secundum ve
derive from what has actually hap
tribute of history. Given the necess
Aristotle's view of the pure contin
on chapter 23 of thePoetics, he prop
judgment that the events of history
event does not depend on another
estimation, is capable of unity of
scribed by Sallust: "Non negarim
persequi actionem unius, qualis es
(268). Here we might recall that C
conspiracy as a unified, dramatic
sona." While indeed some events
knowledges, others have a necess
toward the same end and form a coh
alias fortuitum inter se ordinem hab
et connexum habent ea, quae eun
(268). In such cases history posses
is based on the same principle of

34 "[N]on est enim quod aliquis creda


desumptas a maximis calamitatibus, qua

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14 Eric MacPhail

circumscribes the ar
as the poet.
When history usurps the function of poetry, what takes the place of history?
What narrative form remains or emerges to defy the orderly succession of events
and to rehabilitate the contingency of life? Renaissance fiction offers a variety of
solutions to convey the spontaneity of unplotted events and thus to revive the
role abdicated by history. As many critics have remarked, one distinctive feature
of Renaissance fiction is the vogue of the novella or short story, which Michel
Jeanneret calls modular narrative."3 In a collection of novelle each story or mod-
ule is generally independent of the others, and within each story the action usu-
ally arises spontaneously without antecedent or motivation. In Aristotelian terms
the short story is a story of accidents or uncaused causes. In this sense the most
emblematic form of the short story is the histoire prodigieuse which achieved a
prodigious success in the late French Renaissance, beginning with Pierre
Boaistuau's collection of Histoires prodigieuses of 1560. By its very nature the
prodigy or portent is a singular, unassimilable event, and each of the forty sto-
ries in Boaistuau's original collection is more of a miscellany than a continuous
narrative. As one of the foremost experts on the work has remarked, "On
dchouerait a vouloir tracer le plan de cet ouvrage: il est aussi peu ordonne qu'un
recueil de leqons."36 The Renaissance genre of histoires prodigieuses dispenses
with plot and promotes enumeration over dramatic synthesis.
The same phenomenon characterizes longer narrative, which often presents
a loose sequence of disparate episodes. French criticism has focused on the case
of Rabelais's Tiers Livre and Quart Livre which resemble collections of short
stories, while Leo Spitzer has characterized Rabelais's entire narrative project
in terms of the paradox of "gratuitous plot."37 Jeanneret observes of Rabelais's
later works: "Surtout, les Tiers et Quart Livres adoptent un mode de composi-
tion par accumulation qui n'a plus grand chose a voir avec le deroulement
chronologique d'un roman" while Spitzer declares more emphatically, "Rabelais
nous montre un d6dain souverain pour cette intrigue que je dirais 'gratuite,'
puisqu'elle tourne autour de Panurge, le h6ros de l'action gratuite."38 The chronicle
of Panurge's arbitrary adventures dissolves the coherence of plot and puts in
question the very concept of probable or necessary causation. It should be ac-
knowledged that a counter-tendency of criticism has insisted on the "design" of
Rabelais's work, but this design is primarily based on numerological propor-

5 Michel Jeanneret, "Le r6cit modulaire et la crise de l'interpretation," Le difi des signes
(Orleans, 1994), 53-74.
36 Jean C6ard, La nature et les prodiges: L'insolite aui XVIe siucle en France (Geneva,
1977), 253.
37 Leo Spitzer, "Rabelais et les 'rabelaisants,' " Studi Francesi, 4 (1960), 401-23.
38 Jeanneret, 55; Spitzer, 412.

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The Plot of History 15

tions which are entirely foreign to


of events.39 In other contexts Erich
fiction in the Renaissance and the
minist schemes of narrative logic
"secularization of chance," which
the triumph of itinerant, unpredict
or chapters of Lazarillo de Torme
exemplify Jeanneret's definition
narrative units. They are fictiona
history.
The ultimate fictional challenge to plot in Renaissance literature is Cervantes's
novel Don Quijote. Leaving aside numerous instances of narrative spontaneity
and contingency, we can, for the sake of brevity, focus strictly on one episode
where Cervantes measures his work against the norms of Aristotelian poetics. In
chapter three of the second part of the novel, the university graduate Sans6n
Carrasco informs Don Quijote and Sancho Panza that their adventures have
been recorded in a historia which has reached a wide public and provoked both
admiration and criticism. Among the criticisms he reports is the claim that the
author included a short story ornovela entitled "El curioso impertinente," which
was out of place and unrelated to the main plot.4 In other words part one ofDon
Quijote violates the Aristotelian precept of unity of action. Don Quijote is indig-
nant at this breach of esthetic convention, and he deplores the proliferation of
interpolated tales, to which he refers pejoratively as "novelas y cuentos ajenos"
(II, 43). He even fears that his history will resemble a work of the painter Orbaneja,
who painted whatever came out, "lo que saliere" (II, 42), without knowing in
advance what his painting would depict. The unpremeditated art work of Orbaneja,
which Cervantes mentions again at the end of his novel (II, 589), corresponds to
the unpredictable itinerary of Don Quijote, who plans to go to Saragossa but
ends up in Barcelona. The unpredictable, episodic structure of the novel, which
disregards, to its hero's chagrin, the basic principle of narrative continuity, makes
Don Quijote, in Aristotelian terms, a work of history rather than of poetry.
In this way, through the episodic dispersion of plot and the narrative enact-
ment of chance, Renaissance fiction was able to restore the Aristotelian symme-
try between history and poetry. In the Poetics poetry reveals order while history
transcribes disorder. In Hellenistic historiography and literary criticism history

39 See especially the trilogy of Edwin Duval, The Design of Rabelais' Pantagruel (New
Haven, 1991); The Design of Rabelais' Tiers Livre de Pantagruel (Geneva, 1997); and The
Design of Rabelais' Quart Livre de Pantagruel (Geneva, 1998).
o Erich Kohler, Der literarische Zufall, das M4gliche and die Nomwendigkeit (Munich,
1973), 31.
41 Miguel de Cervantes, Don Quijote de la Mancha, ed. Juan Bautista Avalle-Arce (2
vols.; Madrid, 1979), II, 42.

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16 Eric MacPhail

rivals poetry in the


fact and fiction exc
between order and d
lates the coherence
compensatory relatio
during insight into t

Indiana University

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