EL TRIUNFO DEL IMAGINARIO: DE CERVANTES A EUGENIO IONESCO
THE TRIUMPH OF THE IMAGINARY: FROM CERVANTES TO EUGENE IONESCO

Summary/Abstract: The Triumph of the Imaginary: From Cervantes to Eugene Ionesco. An obvious relation of continuity exists between the Spanish writer Miguel de Cervantes and the French dramatist of Romanian origin Eugene Ionesco. This relation can be demonstrated through the analysis of two dramatic masterpieces: “Retablo de las maravillas”, by Cervantes and “Les Chaises”, by Ionesco. In “Retablo…, Cervantes, by employing the baroque technique of “illusion-disillusion”, and “theater-in-the theater”, presents the strange situation of a group of spectators obliged to admit the existence and actuation on the stage of imaginary, immaterial personages. In the end of the piece, Cervantes offers an ironical perspective of demystification about the fantastic procedure of the ambulant actors. So, the role of fantastic imagination appears, in the piece of Cervantes, censured, by fear of Inquisition which, in that age, did not admit any exaggeration of human imagination, because of being associated with heretical practices. In the 20-th Century, E. Ionesco rediscovers the technique of Cervantes –consisting in bringing to the scene imaginary personages- and amplifies it by a process of accentuation and elevation at a symbolic-transcendental level. So, while in the case of Cervantes we can speak of a “censured fantasy”, in Ionesco’s theater there is a “symbolic fantasy” which helps the author to express a very serious philosophical background.

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