The 'eye' of interpretation: Emblematics and ideologies in the literature of early modern Spain

In this dissertation, I examine the impact of the emblematic mode of discourse upon several important texts from seventeenth-century Spain. Writers and playwrights of the Spanish early modern period utilized emblems (as well as textual and theatrical strategies closely related to emblematic strategies) as vehicles or packages for ideological messages; in addition, I believe this emblematic "form" inscribed within itself an accompanying set of rhetorical techniques, and that it engendered within the reader-spectator a closely related set of hermeneutic or interpretive strategies, which varied according to the social and educational level of the receptor.;My dissertation consists of a close analysis of material from two emblem books (Juan de Horozco y Covarrubias's Emblemas morales and Diego de Saavedra Fajardo's Empresas politicas). I then move on to an analysis of the emblematic mode in the following seventeenth-century works: El esclavo del demonio (Antonio Mira de Amescua), Caer para levantar (Agustin Moreto), Oraculo manual (Baltasar Gracian), and Don Quijote (Miguel de Cervantes).;There are two principal ways in which these early modern writers used emblematic rhetorical strategies to transmit ideological messages to a diverse audience. First, they appropriated visual techniques taken from emblem books, in an effort to quickly implant social messages into the belief system of undereducated members of society. Second, they utilized the complex, tripartite nature of the emblem (pictura/inscriptio/subscriptio) to appeal to the interpretive desires of the middle and upper class members of the reading and viewing public. These readers and spectators were encouraged to participate actively in the creation and discovery of possible meaning(s) for emblematic imagery.;However, in my analysis of Don Quijote, I show how Cervantine discourse both takes advantage of emblematic rhetorical strategies while at the same time it questions the very possibility of successful interpretation of any image, including an emblematic image. Don Quijote, himself and emblematic figure, "read" and interpreted by others, also acts as humorously degraded emblematist, whose words act for the reader as comically degraded versions of emblematic texts.