Carolyn Nadeau examines the significance of the sources cited for female characterization in the Prologue and their relationship to Cervantes' writing style. When the anonymous friend suggests that Cervantes include Guevara's Lamia, Laida, and Flora, Ovid's Media, Homer's Calypso, and Virgil's Circe as models for specific types of women, he not only foregrounds the significance of these classical women for the female characters in the text but also partakes in the controversial debate of the value of imitatio at the historic juncture of Humanist and Modernist perspectives on cultural authority.