Cervantes's novel of modern times : a new reading of Don Quijote / David Quint.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Quint, David, 1950-

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616. Don Quixote.

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de.

Physical Description:

xiii, 192 pages ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Princeton, N.J. : Princeton University Press, [2003]

Summary:

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 mazelike 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.

Contents:

Don Quijote, Part 1 1

1 Cervantes's Method and Meaning 3

Interlace 3

Arms and Letters 7

Luscinda at the Window 15

The Two Loves of Don Quijote 17

2 "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

3 "Princess Micomicona" 57

Zoraida and the Princess 60

Modern Marriage 73

Social Mobility, Generic Mix 76

Coda: "Nuestra Senora" 86

Don Quijote, Part 2 91

4 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

5 Aristocrats 131

Cruel Readers 133

Courtiers versus Knights 143

Justice 152

Paying Up 158.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages [163]-188) and index.

ISBN:

0691114331

OCLC:

51984764

Online:

Publisher description