Cervantes's Novel of Modern Times

A New Reading of Don Quijote
Erscheinungsjahr 2005
ISBN: 978-0-691-12227-4
Verlag: Princeton University Press

Buch, Englisch, 192 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm, Gewicht: 366 g

This book offers a radically new reading of Don Quijote, understanding it as a whole much greater than the sum of its famous parts. David Quint discovers a unified narrative and deliberate thematic design in a novel long taught as the very definition of the picaresque and as a rambling succession of individual episodes. Quint shows how repeated motifs and verbal details link the episodes, often in surprising and heretofore unnoticed ways. Don Quijote emerges as a work that charts and reflects upon the historical transition from feudalism to the modern times of a moneyed, commercial society. In Part One of the novel, this change is measured in a shift in the nature of erotic desire, and we find Don Quijote torn between his love for Dulcinea and his hopes to wed for wealth and social advancement. In Part Two, Don Quijote himself changes from anarchic madman to a gentler, wiser hero--a member of a middle class in the making. Throughout, Cervantes meditates on the literary form that he is inventing as a response to modernity, questioning the novel's relationship to other genres and the place of heroism and imagination within stories of everyday life.A new and coherent guide through the maze-like structure of Don Quijote, this book invites readers to appreciate the perennial modernity of Cervantes's masterpiece---a novel that confronts times not so distant from our own.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Quint, David

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Literaturwissenschaft Romanische Literaturen Spanische Literatur

Inhaltsverzeichnis

PREFACE ix

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS xv

DON QUIJOTE, PART ONE 1

ONE

Cervantes's Method and Meaning 3

Interlace 3

Arms and Letters 7

Luscinda at the Window 15

The Two Loves of Don Quijote 17

TWO

"Dulcinea" 22

Cardenio and Anselmo 25

Cardenio, Quijote, Amadis, Orlando 30

Camila and Marcela: What Is the Woman to Do?38

Happy Ending and Mystification 50

Love and Chivalry 53

THREE

"Princess Micomicona" 57

Zoraida and the Princess 60

Modern Marriage 73

Social Mobility, Generic Mix 76

Coda:"Nuestra Se?ora" 86

DON QUIJOTE, PART TWO 91

FOUR

The Gentler, Wiser Don Quijote 93

Structure 95

The Two Quijotes 100

Don Diego de Miranda and Don Quijote 107

Camacho and Basilio 115

A New Don Quijote 123

Preaching to the Bandits 128

FIVE

Aristocrats 131

Cruel Readers 133

Courtiers versus Knights 143

Justice 152

Paying Up 158

NOTES 163

INDEX 189