Drawing the White

Drawing the White is a novel of Joanot Martorell.

Presentation

In the chapter six of the first part of Don Quichotte it is mentioned a tale of chivalry whose title is Drawing el Blanco . By the voice of the priest who proceeds to the auto-da-fe of the books constituting the library of gift Quichotte, Cervantès does not dry up praises on this novel of which it read the translation Castilian of 1511, without mention of author, the only one whom it probably knew. He is unaware of thus that work is Catalan, that its original title is Tirant lo Blanc and that its author is called Joanot Martorell.
Martorell, born around 1410, starts to write its novel on January 2nd, 1460. It does not put more than five years to write it, because when it dies in 1465, its manuscript is already between the hands of Martí Joan de Galba to which, against a loan of money, it left it in pledge. It is only in 1489 that Galba will take steps to publish the manuscript - L' Imprimerie is introduced in Valence only in 1474, nine years after the disappearance of Martorell-. The business is concluded, but Galba dies in the first months of 1490, without to have seen the printed book.
the Incunable leaves the presses of the German printer Nicolau Spindeler, installed with Valence (Spain), on November 20th, 1490. It is drawn with 715 specimens. Seven years later, it is made by it one second edition with Barcelona, with pulling more limited, which increases the number of specimens to approximately a thousand. The printer is this time Diego de Gumiel, the same one which in 1511 will publish the first Castilian translation, in Valladolid. If it is considered that the catalanophones are then roughly speaking 650.000, that corresponds in proportion to a pulling of approximately 92.000 specimens in current France of 60 million inhabitants, which is far from being negligible and which shows the success of a work which in addition was to already be known before even being printed.

Indeed, in XV^e century publication of a book on new presses all - L' printing works European does not have that thirty-five years of age were generally preceded by public readings. To buy a book which one knows already watch obviously that it highly is appreciated. That Diego de Gumiel judged good to offer a translation of it to a Castilian public makes only confirm this opinion. Drawing the White will be translated into Italian since 1538, but it will be necessary to await XVIII^e century to see it versed with French.
Curiously, after this late success but some, the book almost fell into the lapse of memory in France, whereas it interested, in addition to the scholars ibères, many researchers Anglo-Saxon, Italian, German, Rumanian and different - sign of this interest, the modern translations multiplied: English, Rumanian, Swedish, Dutch, Finnish, Italian, German, Chinese… The public of our country as a whole knows rather little Drawing the White . And those which are not unaware of the existence of it do not give him however the place which returns to him in the European literature and do not take the exact measurement of its importance in the birth of the modern novel. We want of it for proof only the extreme scarcity of the studies which are devoted to him in France.
Because Drawing the White mark undoubtedly an important stake in creation from the modern European novel, and Mario Vargas Llosa was not mistaken there. Since 1969, in a foreword blazing with a new Castilian translation, “Carta of batalla por Tie lo Blanc”, this writer talented analyzes with the smoothness which characterizes it the work of Martorell. It is not the only one to have found some value with our novel. Italo Calvino, in its collection of tests and articles entitled Pole leggere I classici , devotes six pages to him. A recent translation (2003, Anacharsis Editions) will allow all those which do not control sufficiently the Catalan of reading a fundamental text of the European literature.
Martorell and its Drawing the White lie within the historical scope of XV^e century, the Siècle of Catalan Gold. Martorell is in good company. The more so as he attends the Italians. One knows, indeed, that it remained a little more than one year at the Neapolitan court, where resides the king of Aragon-Catalonia, as from 1454, six years thus before starting to write his novel. Significant fact, it is probably a member of this court which wrote Curial and Guelfe , the other large chivalrous Roman of XV^e Catalan century. Drawing the White is not an isolated flower.
to specify the literary kind of Drawing the White - pseudo-biography of a Breton knight who, as of the twenty years age, makes known himself during festivals and of combat at the court of England, then becomes chief of the armed forces which fly to the help of the island of Rhodes and of the Greek Empire which it defends against the Turkish invasion we will follow Martí de Riquer which, on several occasions, distinguished it from the tales of chivalry in which Cervantès had locked up it, probably making him undergo - in spite of the praises of which it overpowers it a damage from which he yet entirely did not go back. Riquer very precisely raises that in Drawing the White one finds none the marvellous and frankly extravagant elements which are plethora in the tale of chivalry; all, on the contrary, is plausible there. In that it resembles more another contemporary literary kind, which one finds in other countries at the same time, and which reports the life of exemplary knights, quite real most of the time, kind that Riquer calls `Romance chivalrous'.

As a conclusion

If one consulted the screen of '' Drawing the White '', one will have been able to note with this short summary of a novel which does not contain less than four hundred quatre-vingt-sept chapters, that the chivalrous and military adventures are accompanied by the account of the loves of Tie and Carmésine. This vast narration offers on the one hand a whole series of processes and tactics military, descriptions of engines of wars and troop movements which make of the Breton hero a large strategist, so much on ground than on sea. In that work becomes an invaluable document over the time, with characteristics and intentions extremely distant from those which one can find in the books of knighthood of the Breton cycle in which prevails the marvellous element, and where the hero has a completely incredible aspect. In addition, the loves of Tie and Carmésine, which are held within the framework of the life of court of Constantinople, are told with a deep sentimental and psychological vision and with very sensual details.
a prose very varied, sometimes solemn, rhetoric and pompeuse, sometimes familiar, sharp and moderated, cut very expressive dialogs, reflection of a reality in which the author lived, and who was that of exuberant Valence of half of XV^e century, confers on Drawing the White a real size as a literary creation.
the characters, who do not miss alive models, generally taken in contemporary or immediately former reality, are drawn with accuracy, of a firm feather and with a great capacity of individualization, since those who are the essential protagonists of the account to the unimportant characters. Thus, the model of Tie is not other than Roger de Flor, captain of the committed troops almogavres in 1302 by the emperor of the East, Andronic II, with an aim of containing the Turks who invaded the Greek Empire; Roger knew a fulgurating rise: he obtained the title of mégaduc and the promise to marry a niece of the emperor, girl of the tsar of Bulgaria. Among the Catalans Ramon Muntaner was which was to write a chronicle magnifiant this forwarding.
By its contents and its form of expression, by the purely human character of the hero whose innumerable exploits are always explained rationally, Tirant lo Blanc is well one of the largest European novels of all times. We will leave to finish the word with Martí de Riquer, which wrote: “It is extremely natural that in 1490 Tirant , novel then of topicality, had many readers. But what is really surprising it is that in 1969, ten thousand readers precipitate on a chivalrous, old novel five hundred years, and exhaust it at a rate/rhythm which would envy to him many novels current and engaged in this century. It is the great literary victory of Joanot Martorell.”

What Cervantès says

In the chapter six of the first part of Don Quichotte , one throws to fire the books which allegedly made insane the hero (the translation is of Louis Viardot):

And, without more tiring itself to divide into sheets books of knighthood, the priest called to controlling to take all great volumes and to throw them to the farmyard.

It spoke neither with stupid nor with deaf person, but well with somebody who wanted more to burn them than to give a bolt of canvas to be made with Tisserand, some large and fine which it could be. It thus took of them seven or eights of only one brewed, and launched them by the window; but too wanting to take some at the same time, one them had fallen to the feet from the barber, who collected it by desire for knowing what it was, and found to him for title Histoire of the famous knight Drawing the White .

“Blessing! known as the priest by throwing a great cry; you have there Drawing the White ! Give it quickly, accomplice, because I answer well to have found in him a treasure of joy and a mine of entertainments. It is there that meet gift Kyrie-Eleison of Montalban, a valorous knight, and his brother Thomas de Montalban, and the knight of Fonséca, and the battle which to the Drawing mastiff the valorous one delivered, and smoothnesses of the young lady Pleasure-of-my-life, with the loves and the tricks of the widow Reposée, and Madam the empress in love with Hippolyte, his rider. I say it to you in truth, lord accomplice, for the style, this book is best world. The knights eat there, sleep there, die there in their beds, make their wills there before dying, and one tells there thousand other things which miss with all the books same species. And yet I ensure you that which composed it deserved, for “ to have ” ¹ says so many stupidities without being forced there, which one sent it to row with the galères all the remainder of his days. Carry the book on your premise, and read it, and you will see whether all that I say is not true.

- You will be obeyed, answered the barber…

The fact that Cervantès rented the novel for then condemning its author to the galères was regarded as the most obscure point of the Quichotte . It is however enough to read the chapter twenty-two of the same first part to understand that there was nothing contradictory for Cervantès; Ginès de Passamont, emulates of Guzman d' Alfarache and thus representative of picaresque the, is led to the galères for several misdeeds. Don Quichotte, who crosses the convoy of galériens, has a conversation with the gueux one:

- And which is the title of the book? asked gift Quichotte.

- the life of Ginès de Passamont , answered the other.

- is it finished? gift Quichotte began again.

- How can it be finished, retorted Ginès, since my life is not it? What is writing includes/understands since the day of my birth until the moment when one condemned me this last time to the galères.

- You had thus been there already? gift Quichotte began again.

- to serve God and the king, answered Ginès, I already made there four years another time, and I know the taste of cookie and the ox nerve, and I do not regret great to still go back there, because I will have time to finish my book there; there remains to me a crowd of good things to be said, and, in the galères of Spain, there is more leisure than I do not need any, more especially as one should not any to me much for what remains to me to be written, because I know it already by heart.

It will have been understood that to condemn the author of Drawing the White to the galères, it was, in a humorous way, to give the opportunity to him to continue to level us his feather.

note

¹ Viardot, which had not put the two fragments in report/ratio and the passage had thus not included/understood, removed a negation which was restored here. Cervantès says indeed: “ Idiot todo eso , bone digo that merecía el that the compuso, been able No hizo tantas necedades of industria, that the echaran has will galeras por todos los días of known emptied. ”, whose exact translation is: “And for that I ensure you that which composed it deserved, for not to have said so many stupidities knowingly , which one sent it to row with the galères all the remainder of his days.” Indeed, Martorell always remains in the field of the possible one and avoids very marvellous, which appreciated the author of the Quichotte .

Bibliography (in French)

Drawing the White , preceded by “ Drawing the White , novel without border”, original foreword of Mario Vargas Llosa, Anacharsis, 2003.

One will be able to read the Spanish foreword of Mario Vargas Llosa with: '' Tirant lo Blanc '', novela sin will fronteras

Drawing the White , preceded by “ Drawing the White , the words like actions”, by Mario Vargas Llosa. And follow-up of “a universal gentleman, Anne-Claude de Tubières, count de Caylus”, Gallimard, 1997.
In saddle with Tie the White , Vargas Llosa, Gallimard Editions, 1996.
critical Studies on and around Drawing the White . Acts of the international symposium Drawing the White : the paddle of the European modern novel , Center Hispanic inhabitants of Aix of research, 1997.
“Tiran the White”, in Why read traditional the (pp. 41-46), Italo Calvino, Editions of the Threshold, 1984.

Translations of Drawing the White in other languages that French

in German:

Romance DER vom weißen Ritter Drawing lo Blanc , translation of Fritz Vogelgsang (1990).

in English:

Tie lo Blanc , translation of David H. Rosenthal (1984), New York.

Tie lo Blanc , translation of Ray the Fountain (1993), New York, Peter lang.

The White Knight: Tie lo Blanc , translation of Robert S. Rudder (1995), Gutenberg project.

in Castilian:

Los cinco libros LED esforçado cavallero Tie el Blanco de Roca Salada , Valladolid, Diego de Gumiel, 1511; text taken again by Martí de Riquer (1990), Barcelona, Planeta.

Tie lo Blanc , translation of J.F. Vidal Jové (1969), with a prolog of Mario Vargas Llosa, Madrid, Alianza.

in Chinese:

Qishi Dilang , translation of Wang Yangle (1993), Renmin Wenxue Che Bansche, Beijing.

in Finnish:

Tie Valkoinen , translation of Paavo Lehtonen (1987), Helsinki.

in Italian:

Drawing it bianco (1538), translation of Lelio Manfredi, Venice (reeds., 1566 and 1611); edition criticizes of Annichiarico, A., L. Indini, Mr. Majorano, V. Minervini, S. Panunzio I S. Zilli (1984), introduction of G.E. Sansone, Roma, Edizioni Tipografica.

… , new translation of Giuseppe Grilli.

in Japanese:

… , translation of KB Tazawa, Iwanami Shoten Publishers.

in Dutch:

Tie lo Blanc , translation of Bob de Nijs (1988), Amsterdam.

in Polish:

Tiranta Bialego , translation in the course of Rozalya Sasor.

in Portuguese:

Tie lo Blanc , translation of Cláudio Giordano (2004), Atelié Leading, Cotia.

in Rumanian:

Drawing el Blanco (Romance cavaleresc) , translation partial of Oana Busuioceanu (1978), Bucharest, Minerva

in Russian:

…, translation of Marina Abramova and Piotr Skobtsev

in Swedish:

Drawing in Quickly , translation of Miquel Ibàñez (1994), Stockolm, Interculture

Internal bonds

Screen of '' Drawing the White ''
Characters of '' Drawing the White ''
Characters quoted in '' Drawing the White ''
Toponymy of '' Drawing the White ''
'' Drawing the White '', or '' the plot of the ladies '' (film)
'' Triumph of Tie '' (opera)
Manual Boix
Anne-Claude de Tubières, count de Caylus
Curial and Guelfe
'' Tirant lo Blanc '', Wikisource

External bonds

“Joanot Martorell and '' Drawing the White ''”.
'' Drawing the White '' with the Anacharsis Editions.
Presentation of '' Drawing the White '', at the time of a meeting organized by the bookstore Floury brothers of Toulouse (December 2004).

To listen to the meeting with Jean-Marie Barberà (Document RealOne Player)

Illustrations for “Tiran the White”, in the '' Œuvres badines '' of the count de Caylus (XVIII^e century).
“the anamorphosis of died in '' Drawing the White ''”.
a Valencian site catalano devoted to '' Drawing the White ''. Some French articles.
the adaptation of the count de Caylus, in his '' Œuvres badines ''.
the opinion of a reader in connection with the integral edition of '' Drawing the White '' with the Anacharsis Editions.
'' Drawing the White '' quoted in a modern novel ('' sky with beautiful teeth '' of Antonio Sarabia)

Various works drawn from Drawing the White

Illustrations of Boix Handbook for the bibliophilic edition in four volumes of '' Tirant lo Blanc '', editions of Will plow for the third time Branca (the Third Branch), 1978-1983.
Illustrations of Boix Handbook for the edition shortened and adapted for the children of '' Tirant lo Blanc '', Edicions Will brominate, 1989.
Cantate '' Tríptic de Tirant lo Blanc '', of the type-setter Amand Blanquer, on a text of Josep Palàcios, 1990.
El triomf of Tie , opera of the type-setter Amand Blanquer, on a booklet of Josep Lluís and Rodolf Sirera, 1991.
Ballet '' Tirant lo Blanc '', COp 50, compositrice Leonora Milà, 1991.
Série of one hundred drawings to the Indian ink, taking as a starting point Drawing it White , of Chilean Víctor Ramírez.
Film '' Tirant lo Blanc '', of Vicente Aranda, Carolina Films, S.L., distributed by Arclight films, 2005.

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