Un mar de tinta: el bufete de Cervantes y la mano en la mejilla de los escritores de los Siglos de Oro

The text analyses the topic of the “The Palm-on-Cheek Pose” in Cervantes’ works and it reflects on the narratively ways in which the author employs it, a part from Don Quixote. Cervantes plays with a traditional topic in Spanish culture. The pose can be found in medieval works, but it’s only during XVI and XVII c. when it becomes recurrent, nearly obsessive. Spanish literature could be re-read focusing on this topic, with its narrative functions, its expressions and its complex transformations. The “The Palm-on-Cheek Pose” seems like a paradigm and a metaphor that, through its changes, becomes the symbol of the search for the individual and collective identity.