"Mas No Lo Saben Todo Los Letrados / Ni Todos son Ydiotas Los Soldados." Francisco de Guzman's Digression de Las Armas y Letras (1565)‪.‬

ALTHOUGH SIGNIFICANT CRITICAL ATTENTION has been directed at identifying the classical and Italian Renaissance sources of Don Quijote's curious Discourse on Arras and Letters that occupies parts of chapters 37 and 38 of the first part of the novel, I am aware of only a passing reference to a more contemporary model available to Cervantes in Spanish. Antonio Bernat Vistarini has pointed out: "un interesante parangon, no detectado aun, entre el 'Discurso de las armas y letras' de don Quijote (I, 38) y la 'Digresion de las armas y letras' de Francisco Guzman en sus Triunfos morales" (32)." The present study consists of a review of prior criticism to date, an introduction to Guzman's verse rendition of the debate between arms and letters, and a transcription of it. Much has been written about the popular literary tradition of the debate between arms and letters. Eric Haywood provides a compendious description of the genre of the "querelle of Arms and Letters":