ABSTRACT
In this passage from the "diverting and important scrutiny" in Don Quixote's library, Cervantes records, through the mouth of the curate, his contempt for the founder of the P almerin family of romances, and his veneration for the most famous of its members. And whatever may be thought nowadays of the relative merits of Palmerin of England and Homer's works, the genealogy of a book that could once be honourably mentioned by Cervantes in the same breath with the
great epic poet of Greece should not be without interest even at the present time. Moreover, while the vogue of the romance of chivalry lasted, the Palmerin series was the one rival of the Amadis series, just as two of the eponymous heroes were rivals in the addled brain of Don Quixote, who "had many an argument with the curate of his village (a learned man, and a graduate of Siguenza) as to which had been the better knight, Palmerin of England or Amadis of GauP."
