Abstract

A careful reading of Don Quixote shows that this masterly novel is not composed of words alone. As all literary masterpieces, the Cervantine work is full with silence. The narrator (who cannot be identified with Cervantes, as we have established before) keeps silent and skips over certain details, or gives partial accounts of them. This paper discusses some Cervantine omissions, and evidences by means of three passages from the first part of the novel that such silences are not overlooks or inconsistences, as some have suggested. Instead, Cervantes’ silence shows the great writing skill of the author.