ABSTRACT
If the thematic exibility of the miscelánea, and the suppositions it shares with other divulgatory genres, have created problems for the classication of these texts, the range of formal possibilities harnessed by Spanish miscellanies, with regard to both their external appearance and internal complexion, also poses a considerable challenge to the critic seeking to group together such works. This attempt at genre-building is complicated from the outset by the fact that we are dealing with works whose macroformthat is, the overall formal vehicle employed by the miscellanists to convey their fragments from the private to the public sphere-is constituted by prose; we thus begin at a tangible disadvantage in comparison to analogous classicatory endeavours in, for instance, the eld of poetry, where formal aspects are more immediately circumscribable, and may even dictate what thematic concerns are to be observed therein. Imbrie’s assertion that ‘many prose forms will not be forced into rigidly xed moulds’ is particularly apt in the case of the miscelánea, which appropriates any one of four prose guises: plain prose, epistles, dialogues, and frame stories.1 Through his choice of macroform, the miscellanist is able to manifest some semblance of an authorial personality in a genre where derivativeness of content is an inherent quality, as we have seen in the previous chapters, but the fact that these macroforms are also utilised by writers in other, diverse traditions represents a further hurdle in the construction of a viable genre model, as we must identify those elements which distinguish and condition their usage in the service of miscellaneity. Furthermore, as the Spanish miscellanies apparently contradict Fowler’s assertion that ‘most kinds have a distinctive representational aspect, such as narrative, dramatic, discursive’, by appearing to offer two ‘discursive’ macroforms (plain prose and epistles), a ‘dramatic’ or mimetic macroform (dialogue) and a ‘narrative’ or diegetic macroform (frame-story), it will be necessary to demonstrate the commonalities of these macroforms as the miscellanists utilise them.2
