Carmen’s Intertexts: Cervantes, Viardot, Mérimée, Bizet

Abstract This chapter reads Cervantes’s novella ‘La gitanilla’ (‘The Little Gypsy Girl’) – the first of his Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) published in 1613 – against Prosper Mérimée’s novella Carmen (1845) and, by extension, Georges Bizet’s opera of 1875. As Ife establishes, these three treatments of a classic love triangle are connected via the French translation of ‘La gitanilla’ published in 1838 by Louis Viardot, one of the most intelligent contributors to the espagnolade that swept France during the 19th century. The chapter also adds a fourth, biographical love triangle to the mix, reminding us that Viardot’s much younger Spanish wife, Pauline – one of the most celebrated singers of the age – enjoyed a 40-year amitié amoureuse with the Russian poet Ivan Turgenev. Ife explores how superimposing these four not entirely congruent triangles raises intriguing literary, philosophical, and moral questions.