El (des)concertado reloj de la amistad en “El curioso impertinente” de Cervantes

This article studies the conceptualization and transformation of friendship in Cervantes's “El curioso impertinente.” The main focus of the essay is the correlation between friendship and time, stressing the importance of the image of a harmonious clock at the beginning of the novel and how the combination of a desire to be extremely fortunate and social imperatives of behavior dislocate and eventually destroy the clock of friendship. The essay demonstrates how a desire for antonomasia instrumentalizes friendship by requiring deception and ultimately transforming the friend into an other.