The poetics of time in late Cervantes: delay and digression in the Viaje del Parnaso (1614)

La poética del tiempo en el Cervantes tardío: dilación y digresión en el Viaje del Parnaso (1614)

Abstract

This article examines El Viaje del Parnaso (1614) as a representative work of Cervantes’s late style, focusing on a poetics of delay and digression. Drawing on theories of senectute and late style, it argues that delay functions not only as a formal strategy but also as a central theme of the poem. Cervantes builds the text on a constant tension between narrative progression and catalogue: epic and travel conventions are repeatedly interrupted by lists of poets, descriptive pauses, and self-reflexive, metaliterary digressions. These interruptions slow down the narrative rhythm and mirror the «slow pace» of the aging protagonist, a fictional projection of Cervantes himself. The study shows how slowness, interruption, and temporal awareness shape a reflection on authorship, literary marginality, and Cervantes’s position within the poetic field of his time. Ultimately, El Viaje del Parnaso presents delay not as a flaw, but as an aesthetic principle that enables originality, critical distance, and a resistance to definitive closure of the poetic canon.