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"All prose fiction is a variation on the
theme of Don Quixote."
Trilling (CC '25), legendary
Like so many of the works we've read, Don Quixote represents
a "pivot" in European literature--a locus for some startling
literary discoveries (i.e. innovations) and developments (i.e. innovative
"twists" on older techniques), as well as an innovative
revisiting of some "age-old" questions (the relation of
art to life, the quest for meaning, etc.). Like all great literature,
it is self-conscious; what marks out Don Quixote among the
works we have read is, perhaps, its awareness of its place in a literary
tradition. (Note that Don Quixote is not, strictly speaking,
a novel, though it has been said to "anticipate" the novel.)
In what ways do you see Don Quixote as emerging from the "tradition"
adumbrated by the works we gave read? In what ways do you see it as
foreshadowing literary "tricks of the trade" with which
we are familiar today?
Quixote Home Page at The Kennedy Center
Cervantes Project (Digital Library) at Texas A&M
The Golden Age of Spain
After the discovery of the Americas, Spain gradually became one of
the wealthiest nations in the world. In the 16th century, Spain entered
Age, marked by an extraordinary flourishing of the literary, dramatic,
and visual arts (note the parallel between financial and artistic
wealth, an important underlying question in Don Quixote); and
by the growing dominance of the Roman Catholic Church, culminating
in its attempt to suppress all heresy through the Inquisition.
Spain's ascendancy, like all ascendancies, came at a price, mostly
paid by other people: the Jews and Muslims who were harried, persecuted,
killed, and expelled under the Inquisition; and the Aztec and Inca
Empires, destroyed by Spanish agents in 1521 and 1533, respectively.
At the beginning of the Golden Age, which spanned almost two centuries,
Spain was ruled by Charles [Carlos] I. But when his son Philip II
took the throne in 1556, Spanish power began to decline. Internal
struggle in Spain and continual battles in Europe and abroad--including
of the Spanish Armada in 1588, the War
of the Spanish Succession (1702-13), the Napoleonic
Wars (1803-15), and the Spanish-American
War (1898) --drained the country's resources and strength. The
conventional end date for Spain's Golden Age is 1681, the year that
saw the death of the playwright Calderón.
(Spanish history in yellow; British in
pink; other European events in green;
Cervantes' life in white.)
1469 Isabella I of Castile
marries Ferdinand V of Aragon, uniting their kingdoms
- 1478 Spanish Inquisition begins
- 1492 Ferdinand and Isabella commission Christopher
Columbus to explore the Indies
1516 Charles I of Spain inherits
the joint thrones of his grandparents Ferdinand and Isabella (although
he has to fight two wars in order to be recognized as sovereign).
He already holds considerable lands in Europe, including the Netherlands
and the Duchy of Burgundy.
- 1519 Charles is elected Holy Roman Emperor (in
which capacity he is known as Charles V).
1521 Destruction of the Aztec
1533 Destruction of the Inca
empire; birth of Montaigne
- 1553 Mary Tudor accedes to the English throne
and returns the country to Catholicism, ruthlessly pursuing and burning
Anglican and Protestant "heretics" (which earns her the nickname
- 1555 Mary Tudor marries Philip
(about to be Philip II) of Spain
[This marriage, designed to enforce Roman Catholicism on the realm,
failed on a couple of counts:
the English people hated foreigners - especially the Spanish - and twenty
years of Protestantism had soured the English on Papal interference.
Mary met with resistance at every level of society, and, unlike her
father (Henry VIII) or brother (Edward VI), failed to conform society
into one ideological pattern. Philip II, cold and indifferent both to
Mary and to her realm, remained in England for only a short time (but
long enough to coerce Mary into war with France, resulting in defeat
and the loss of the last English continental possession, Calais). Upon
the retirement of his father, Charles I [V], Philip returned to Spain;
Mary died ten months later. ]
1556 Philip II succeeds Charles
I (V) as King of Spain (not, obviously, as Holy Roman Emperor)
- 1558 Elizabeth I accedes to the English throne
upon Mary's death
- 1560s England begins participation in the slave
- 1564 Birth of Shakespeare; death
1571 Cervantes joins the Spanish army; fights the
Ottoman Turks at the Battle
; loses the use of one hand (his left).
1575 Cervantes decides to return to Spain, but his
boat is waylaid by Algerian pirates and he spends the next 5 years
in captivity (making frequent, but unsuccessful, attempts to escape).
edition of Montaigne's Essais; Cervantes, freed
on ransom, finally returns to Spain, where for the next 25 years
he struggles to make a living.
- 1582 Pope Gregory VIII calculates the Gregorian
Calendar, the calendar in use in the West today.
1587 Cervantes is hired as Royal Commissioner of
Supplies, responsible for gathering food for the "Invincible"
1588 The defeat of the Armada
by the British navy (after its near-destruction by storms) marks
a turning-point in naval power dynamics: the British Empire begins
its rise, and the Spanish one begins its decline.
1590s Financial irregularities see Cervantes imprisoned
twice; according to scholars, he begins writing Don Quixote
while in prison.
- 1602 Dutch East India Company founded to help
exploit profits from the East Indies
1603 James VI of Scotland
is crowned as Janes I of England, upon the death of Elizabeth I
1604 Publication of the first part of Don Quixote
(Cervantes is 57)
- 1606 King James I charters the Plymouth and
London Companies, which found the Jamestown Colony in Virginia in his
- 1609 Galileo Galilei builds the first astronomical
telescope to observe the planets and solar system.
- 1611 The King James version of The Bible is
1614 Cervantes publishes the second part of Don
Quixote, but not before an unauthorized sequel by otherwise-unknown
author Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda has time to make an appearance.
Cervantes, apparently learning of "the spurious Quixote"
(el Quijote apócrifo) while writing Chapter 59 of his own
sequel, incorporates it into the plot.
1616 Cervantes dies in April, reputedly on the same
day as Shakespeare.
The Arts in 16th-century Spain
Letters: After the unification of Spain under Ferdinand
and Isabella and then under Charles I (V), Spanish literature was
imbued with patriotism, religious zeal, and allusions to earlier epics
and ballads. New genres arose, including the picaresque novel,
a comic genre focusing on the adventures of lower class rogues, which
supplanted then-popular chivalric and pastoral novels. Works of religious
literature also dominated during the period, including the spiritual
writings of St. Teresa of Ávila, Luis de León,
and San Juan de la Cruz.
Poetry and Drama: These, considered the true glory of Spanish
literature in the 14th-17th centuries, have remained largely unknown
to us foreigners (because untranslatable), which skews our sense of
the epoch a bit. Spanish poetry, previously influenced heavily by
Italian forms, had cultivated its own style through the use of elevated
language, classical allusions, and elaborate metaphors (signalling
the arrival of what we now call the Baroque period). Two well-known
poets in the new style were Luis de Góngora and Francisco
de Quevedo. Spanish drama hit its stride during the Golden Age,
led by the prolific playwright Lope de Vega. He helped develop
Spain's dramatic tradition by using Spanish themes and subjects in
his works. Other important playwrights were Tirso de Molina
and Pedro Calderón de la Barca. In addition, corrales--structures
in residential courtyards designed for theatrical performances--were
becoming more frequently used, and plays were no longer staged in
Painting: Spain's Golden Age produced many prolific painters
with unique and innovative styles, including the dramatic and expressionistic
works of Doménikos Theotokópoulos (more commonly known
as El Greco), the synthesis of the natural, religious, and
intellectual imagery in paintings by Diego Velazquez; the religious
imagery of Francisco de Zurbaran and Bartolome Esteban Murillo,
and the realism of Francisco Ribalta and Jose de Ribera.
1. What is the function of the prologue to Don Quixote?
(How does it compare with other prologues we've read? What kind of
a book does the author claim he has written? What is the point of
his conversation with the intelligent friend? How does the Prologue
prepare us for reading the novel?)
2. What is Don Quixote's real name?? (pp. 31, 34, 53...)
3. One of Don Quixote's main themes (surprise, surprise) is
literature itself--as Boccaccian consolation, as Dantesque threat,
and as fodder for the creative and critical reading mind.
(a)Think about the function of reading and/or writing
in the text.
(b) consider the book inquisition and burning scene (I:6).
What are the priest's and barber's qualifications as literary critics
(and are they as good as yours)? What are their criteria for
"good" lit.? Does the novel in which they appear conform to these?
(c) Ditto the canon at the end of Part I (p.419ff.). Note
that Part I only became "Part I" after Cervantes decided to write
Part II--10 years later. What is the significance of ending what was
then the novel with this encounter?
4. Expanding that question into more general considerations of the
relationship of art to reality: how is that relationship depicted
here? Does art imitate life, or vice versa, or both? Are there further
permutations of the imitative relationship at work here?
The introduction of "madness" into this volatile mix leaves
us flailing in a stew of "-lusions": illusion, allusion
and now delusion. Is there (can there be!) any definitive
"reality" within the story?
5. How mad is Don Quixote, anyway? Is his madness infectious?
How does it affect other characters/the novel as a whole? Think about
madness in terms of the familiar CFDs (clumsy fake dichotomies) of
content vs. form, story vs. discourse,
plot vs. theme. Does the Don's madness control the plot
from within or without (ie. would you locate it on the level of "content,"
or that of "form) ?
6. Speaking of CFDs, the text seems to be structured on a number
of binary oppositions, which you might like to keep tabs on. Some
important ones are: Don Q./Sancho Panza (what further CFDs are implicit
in this one?), arms (the sword) vs. letters (the pen), order vs. disorder,
otium (boredom) vs. negotium (activity)...
6. Other themes here are familiar to us too. Keep track of the following,
and any others that may strike you as you read: journey (cf.
Odyssey and all second semester works), clothing (cf.
Montaigne, Lear), madness (cf. Lear), bodies
and their secretions (cf. Montaigne, Boccaccio), offspring (literal
vs. literary; cf. Montaigne, Plato). "Emptiness" vs. "fullness"
seems to be a recurring motif (cf. Don Q.'s retort to the goatherd
on p. 451). Don Q. seems to keep losing body parts (ear, p. 78; teeth,
p. 141) and Sancho is deeply preoccupied with his his bowels. How
do you interpret these references?
7. We also see the introduction of a new motif, money. (Have
any of the previous texts really mentioned money, apart from the obvious
30 pieces of silver for which Judas sold Jesus' life?) Try tracking
clothing symbolism in Part I, money in Part II. (Think also about
what money is, that is, how it works. Whence does money derive its
value? How could its function be seen to parallel that of language--or,
in some cases, clothing?)
8. The book presents itself as a product of multiple authorship (see,
e.g., Prologue & p. 74, last para.). How do you unravel the tangle
of authorial voices present in the text? Is there a "Cervantes"
persona anywhere among them, or are all the "authors" of
this text fictitious? To what extent is Don Q. himself an "author"
here? What are the effects (on the text; on the reader)
of this "multiple authorship"?