Kolumbus – ein quijotesker Schelm aus dem Mittelalter? Intertextualität als Formprinzip in Carpentiers „El arpa y la sombra”

Combining key statements from Carpentier’s work about the discovery and the conquest of America with recent historiographical research on texts portrayed in his last novel, our working hypotheses concludes that El arpa y la sombra deconstructs the official humanistic image of Columbus by presenting him as a ‘pícaro’ whose quijotesc behaviour is governed by medieval narrative. This perspective on Columbus is based on literary models, such as Marco Polo’s travel tales, and reveals a businessman who is simply incapable of understanding the Other and ‘discovering’ a new world. In his mind the Other appears to be feminine and assimilated into a world of medieval literature which he has subjectively selected and deformed. Taking into consideration that Carpentier has altered historical texts in order to use them for parody, we could find many parallels between the image of Columbus developed in El arpa y la sombra and the one supported by contemporary historiography. These parallels include the acceptance of the high degree of fictionality in Columbus log-book and in the texts that this log-book is based on. In this respect Carpentier’s novel anticipates key findings of contemporary historiography by decades.