Cervantes's «La señora Cornelia»: The Novella Turned Novela

Abstract

Mostly perceived by critics as an inverosimile failure, this article proposes reinversing this negative image of Cervantes's «La señora Cornelia» trhough a metanarrative reading that explores the theory of the novel, so liked by Cervantes.  Leaving aside mere plot-level points, with this novel (maybe the last one that Cervantes wrote, and the only one that takes place in its entirety in Spain) we argue that all readings of «La señora Cornelia» must subject to the novel's hidden condition of false essay on the  novel, a condition that Cervantes seems to announce discreetely but openly, as in Lope's Violante sonnet, in front of our very eyes.