ABSTRACT
Cervantes designs a dog that ultimately abandons the logic of the ideal exemplary big dog that occupies the inside. Borrowing from the classical and medieval tradition, the early modern period in Europe bred and designed small and large dogs with a gendered and ennobling symbolics. A symbolic anthropocentric tradition invested the large and small dog with aspects of human character since ancient times. Cervantes's dog, his book, is bashed with a stone. The stone, in turn, that strikes the dog is Avellaneda's book. The termination of the large-small dog dichotomy in 'The Dialogue of the Dogs' puts Cervantes on an evolutionary trajectory toward the birth of a new dog in literature, the portrayal of the medium-sized dog also known as the podenco. Philosopher of ethical action Immanuel Levinas writes that the ethical imperative towards the other is based on a theory of human, not animal, friendship.
