Sobre el autor y la obra
-
Miguel
de Cervantes Saavedra
o
Vida:
1547-1616
o
Novelista,
poeta, y dramaturgo
o
Sirvió
en el ejército; durante su servicio fue cautivo por cinco años. Regresó al
trabajo de la escritura más tarde en su vida.
-
La
obra
o
Una
de las obras más famosas en el mundo entero, vista como una de las mejores
obras de ficción escrita hasta la fecha – una de las obras más influénciales en
la literatura del mundo entero
o
La
influencia en el lenguaje español
o
Es
una sátira de las novelas de caballería y una exploración de humanidad
o
Fue
publicada en dos partes
Personajes
-
For a more
complete character list and character analysis, see SparkNotes.
-
Alonso Quijano = Don Quijote de La Mancha
– the protagonist of the novel; he’s a retired country gentleman almost 50
years old that is obsessed with books of chivalry; he goes crazy and takes on
persona of “Don Quijote” and goes off to seek adventures. He is brave, obsessed
with chivalry, and determined.
o
The novel’s tragicomic hero. Don Quixote’s main
quest in life is to revive knight-errantry in a world devoid of chivalric
virtues and values. He believes only what he chooses to believe and sees the
world very differently from most people. Honest, dignified, proud, and
idealistic, he wants to save the world. As intelligent as he is mad, Don
Quixote starts out as an absurd and isolated figure and ends up as a pitiable
and lovable old man whose strength and wisdom have failed him. (SparkNotes)
-
Sancho Panza – Alonso Quijano’s neighbor,
who becomes Don Quijote’s squire
o
The peasant laborer—greedy but kind, faithful
but cowardly—whom Don Quixote takes as his squire. A representation of the
common man, Sancho is a foil to Don Quixote and virtually every other character
in the novel. His proverb-ridden peasant’s wisdom and self-sacrificing
Christian behavior prove to be the novel’s most insightful and honorable
worldview. He has an awestruck love for Don Quixote but grows self-confident
and saucy, ending the novel by advising his master in matters of deep personal
philosophy. (SparkNotes)
-
Rocinante – Don Quijote’s skinny steed
(his faithful and well-loved, but old, horse)
-
Aldonza Lorenzo = Dulcinea del Toboso –
the unsuspecting neighboring farm girl that Don Quijote names his lady love
o
While she is central in the novel, she never
actually appears as a physical character (SparkNotes)
-
Alonso’s niece
-
Alonso’s housekeeper
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Dapple – Sancho’s donkey
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Cide Hamete Benengeli - The fictional
writer of Moorish decent from whose manuscripts Cervantes supposedly translates
the novel. Cervantes uses the figure of Benengeli to comment on the ideas of
authorship and literature explored in the novel and to critique historians.
Benengeli’s opinions, bound in his so-called historical text, show his contempt
for those who write about chivalry falsely and with embellishment.
-
Cervantes -
The supposed translator of Benengeli’s historical novel, who interjects his
opinions into the novel at key times. Cervantes intentionally creates the
impression that he did not invent the character of Don Quixote. Like Benengeli,
Cervantes is not physically present but is a character nonetheless. In his
prologues, dedications, and invention of Benengeli, Cervantes enhances the
self-referential nature of the novel and forces us to think about literature’s
purpose and limitations.
-
The
duke and duchess – they delight
in manipulating Quixote, knowing his madness. They are introduced in Part Two,
Chapter XXX
Resumen básico
(There are more detailed summaries on Wikipedia and SparkNotes. I noted
the main structure/ideas here).
Part 1: Alonso
Quijano is obsessed with books of chivalry. He goes a bit crazy and takes all
of the fictional content of the books to be true, and wishes to go out as a
knight errant in search of adventure. He takes on all the necessary components
of his new persona (knightly name Don Quijote, faithful steed Rocinante, and
lady love Dulcinea) and goes off to perform chivalric deeds. He’s actually
quite a nuisance in his attempts to be a great knight, and is returned home and
put to bed after being knocked unconscious in a severe beating. Although his
family/friends burn his books while he’s knocked out, when Alonso wakes up he’s
still determined to be the knight Don Quijote, and takes on the “squire” Sancho
Panza (his neighbor) and goes off to his “adventures,” the most famous of which
is his attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants. After many
adventurers, he finally heads home.
Part 2:
Alonso/Quijote and Sancho are aware of the book published about them and are
now quite famous. The duo encounter some strangers (a Duke and Duchess), who
begin to deceive and manipulate Don Quijote for entertainment. This part is a
significantly darker account of the rest of Quijote’s adventures, in which the
element of deception is much stronger. Toward the end, Quijote becomes starts
to become sane again, and when he is “conquered” in a battle, he heads home,
where he falls into a deathly illness. One day he awakes from a dream having
fully recovered his sanity, and he recognizes his true identity as Alonso
Quixano, apologizes for any harm he has caused, and orders that his niece be
disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry.
Important critical ideas/thoughts
-
Sources/inspirations for the novel
o
Amadís de
Gaula (very famous throughout the 16th century)
o
Tirant lo
Blanch (a romance written by the Valencian knight Joanot Martorell and
published in 1490 – “Tirant the White,” one of the best known medieval works of
literature in Valencian)
o
Orlando
Furioso (Italian epic poem published in 1532 by Ludovico Ariosto; Orladin’s
unrequited love which leads to his madness)
o
The Golden
Ass (published in antiquity by Apuleius; focus on protagonist’s desire to
see and practice magic and his accidental transformation into an ass)
o
Cervantes’s own experiences as a galley slave in
Algiers
-
Publication of spurious “Second Part” by
Avellaneda
o
Some dude, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda,
published a second part to Cervantes’s novel (before Cervantes did), in which
he gratuitously insulted Cervantes
o
Cervantes took offense and responded – he subtly
criticized Avellaneda in the prologue to his own, true second part, and
included several subtle digs at him in the second part of his novel
-
Other stories
o
Cervantes includes several extra stories/tales
within the story of Quijote and Sancho. These tales are narrated by the various
picaresque figures that the two main characters encounter during their travels.
o
There are less of these tales in part two, as
many criticized the frequency of these digressions in part one.
-
Language/Spelling/Pronunciation
o
Cervantes uses two types of Spanish. Don Quijote
speaks Old Castilian, to show his knightly character – he uses the same
language used in the chivalric books. The other characters use more modern
Spanish. This “language barrier” makes it hard for the other characters to
understand Quijote sometimes.
o
The novel had a huge influence on the modern
Spanish language.
§
Formation of idioms/clichés
o
Use of puns in character’s names
§
Rocinante (the horse) – means “a reversal”
§
Dulcinea (lady love) – means “an allusion to
illusion”
-
Various different interpretations of the work
o
Parody of the chivalric romantic novels of his
time (generally accepted truth)
o
Cervantes was attacking the Catholic church, the
Spanish inquisition, and the ruling Catholic Spanish nobility (Professor Tariq
Ali)
o
Radical nihilism and anarchy; preference of the
glory of fantasy over t he real world (Harold Bloom)
o
Desire to move people into emotion using a
systematic change of course, on the verge of both tragedy and comedy at the
same time (Edith Grossman)
-
Characterization
o
Quijote and Sancho are opposites
§
Quijote: tall, thin, fancy-struck, and
idealistic
§
Sancho: fat, squat, world-weary
o
Hero and sidekick duo
o
Sancho and Quijote are foil characters. “Whereas
Don Quixote is too serious for his own good, Sancho has a quick sense of humor.
Whereas Don Quixote pays lip service to a woman he has never even seen, Sancho
truly loves his wife, Teresa. While Don Quixote deceives himself and others,
Sancho lies only when it suits him.” (SparkNotes)
o
“Sancho’s perception of Don Quixote informs our
own perception of him, and we identify and sympathize with the bumbling Sancho
because he reacts to Don Quixote the way most people would. Through Sancho, we
see Don Quixote as a human being with an oddly admirable yet challenging
outlook on life.” (SparkNotes)
-
Influence on the world
o
Influenced literature ever since
o
Quijote and Sancho have become character motifs
o
Influence on Spanish language
o
Creation of many puns/sayings/clichés
-
Cervantes’s tendency to comment on nature of
storytelling
o
Ex: Sancho tells a story in a very repetitive
way and Don Quijote interrupts and commands him to tell the story only once.
Sancho is defensive, saying he’s telling it in the traditional way of his
homeland. Quijote gets bored and Sancho stops because he’s offended (Part One,
Cap. XX)
§
Sancho’s idea that story is not a story unless
it has a certain formal structure (clue to pay careful attention to Cervantes’s
structure)
Temas/ideas importantes (del
texto mismo)
-
Estilo de escritura
o
Third person narration
o
Narration from a distance – openly writing after
the adventures, as though recounting a tale
o
Episodic format
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Intertextuality
o
Cervantes makes several references to previous
famous texts
o
Example: one of the books that Alonso Quixano
loves is the famous chivalric novel, Amadís
de Gaula
o
Example:
Reference to Lazarillo de Tormes
-
Realism
o Contrast of the “delusion” vs. the stark description of
reality, particularly at the end of the novel
-
Metatheatre (reflecting comedy and tragedy
simultaneously)
o
“Lionel Abel relates the character of Don
Quixote as the prototypical, metatheatrical, self-referring character. He looks
for situations he wants to a part of, not wating for life, but replacing
reality with imagination when the world is lacking in his desires. The
character is aware of his own theatricality” (Wikipedia, “Metatheatre”).
o
“Abel adds that role-playing derives from the
character not accepting his societal role and creating his own role to change
his destiny” (Wikipedia, “Metatheatre”).
o
Techniques of metatheatre according to
Wikipedia:
§
Ceremony within a play, role-playing within a
role, reference to reality, self-reference of the drama, and a play
within a play
o
*The protagonist is role-playing within a role –
the character Alonso Quixano takes on the role of Don Quijote
o
*Self-reference of the drama: in Part 2 of the
novel, the characters are aware of the publication of Part 1
-
Genre “picaresca”
o
Episodic form (series of adventures)
o
Title is similar to a title of picaresque novel
o
Takes place over a long period of time
-
Deception / illusion / engaño
o
Don Quijote is obviously deluded (and quite a
bit crazy).
o
Everyone deludes/deceives him
o
Quijote makes excuses for his own delusions
§
In the windmill scene, when the “giants” are
revealed to be windmills, he says that the enchanter (his enemy) changed them
just after he attacked them (Part One, Chapter IV)
§
In a scene in which he kills several sheep,
thinking they are knights, he again uses the same tactic, saying that a
sorcerer turned the armies into sheep in the midst of battle to thwart his
efforts (Part One, Chapter XVIII)
o
In Part 2, even faithful Sancho deceives him
(example: when Quijote demands that he bring him Dulcinea, he brings in three
shabby women and says they are Dulcinea and her two maids in waiting. They are
shabby due to an “enchantment”)
-
Clase social
o
Distinction between class and worth
§
Contrast between Sancho (lower class but kind
and thoughtful) and Duke and Duchess (upper class but cruel)
o
Cervantes criticizes class structure in Spain,
“where outmoded concepts of nobility and property prevailed even as education
became more widespread among the lower classes. The arrogance of the Duke and
Duchess in the Second Part highlights how unacceptable Cervantes found these
class distinctions to be” (SparkNotes)
o
“Through Sancho, Cervantes critiques the
ill-conceived equation of class and worth. Though Sancho is ignorant,
illiterate, cowardly, and foolish, he nonetheless proves himself a wise and
just ruler, a better governor than the educated, wealthy, and aristocratic
Duke.” (SparkNotes)
o
Sancho tells his wife that he will soon be leaving with Quixote on
another adventure. Teresa warns Sancho not to dream too much and to be content
with his station. Sancho replies that he wants to marry off his daughter and make
her a countess. Teresa objects to this plan, saying that people are happier
when they marry within their own class (Part Two, Chap. V)
-
Metafiction
o
Cervantes says he is recounting/translating this
story from an old manuscript. He often mentions problems in the original
manuscript, or says that the manuscript has been ruined or cut off in places.
§
A key example of this is in Part One, at the end
of chapter VIII and beginning of Chapter IX, when the historical account from
which he is working “cuts off” and so the action (a great battle) is interrupted
and then re-continued when Cervantes finds another manuscript (in the following
chapter).
o
“In the second section, Cervantes informs us
that he is translating the manuscript of Cide Hamete Benengeli and often
interrupts the narration to mention Benengeli and the internal inconsistencies
in Benengeli’s manuscript. Here, Cervantes uses Benengeli primarily to
reinforce his claim that the story is a true history. In the third section,
however, Cervantes enters the novel as a character—as a composite of Benengeli
and Cervantes the author. The characters themselves, aware of the books that
have been written about them, try to alter the content of subsequent editions.
This complicated and self-referential narrative structure leaves us somewhat
disoriented, unable to tell which plotlines are internal to the story and which
are factual. This disorientation engrosses us directly in the story and
emphasizes the question of sanity that arises throughout the novel. If someone
as mad as Don Quixote can write his own story, we wonder what would prevent us
from doing the same. Cervantes gives us many reasons to doubt him in the second
section. In the third section, however, when we are aware of another allegedly
false version of the novel and a second Don Quixote, we lose all our footing
and have no choice but to abandon ourselves to the story and trust Cervantes.
However, having already given us reasons to distrust him, Cervantes forces us
to question fundamental principles of narration, just as Quixote forces his contemporaries
to question their lifestyles and principles. In this way, the form of the novel
mirrors its function, creating a universe in which Cervantes entertains and
instructs us, manipulating our preconceptions to force us to examine them more
closely.” (SparkNotes)
-
Honor
o
“Don Quixote’s obsession with his honor leads
him to do battle with parties who never mean him offense or harm” (SparkNotes)
-
Symbols (according to SparkNotes)
o
Books and manuscripts – importance and influence
of fiction and literature
o
Horses – symbolize movement and status; often
denote a character’s worth or class
§
Rocinante and Dapple
o
Inns – meeting places for people of all classes
-
Love
o
Quijote is obsessed with Dulcinea
o
Quijote claims that all knights errant are in
love, even if they do not show it (Part One, Chapter XIII)
o
Chrysostom and Marcela – C fell in love with M
for her beauty and wrote numerous depressing poems about her before his suicide
due to her cruelty. Fact is M is pretty but was quite articulate in her
rejection of him due to chastity, so C was the idiot. (Part One, Chapters
XII-XIV)
-
Gender
o
“With the exception of Dorothea, the women in
the First Part of Don Quixote are
weak-willed, subservient creature who rely on their husbands as masters… men
revere women for their beauty and their chastity, but women remain mere objects
over whom men fight or drive themselves insane” (SparkNotes)
-
Religion
o
Cervantes brings up religion by mentioning
Benengeli’s praise of Allah and Sancho’s suggestion that he and Don Quixote try
to become saints (towards beginning of Part Two). The novel repeatedly touches
on the importance of being a Christian in Cervantes’s Spain. Cervantes often
brings up religion in reference to Sancho, who Cervantes says is an old
Christian and whose wise aphorisms often stem from Christian sources. The
captive’s earlier tale about the Moor Zoraida’s passionate longing to convert
to Christiantity and subsequent baptism makes Zoraida appear to be a good and
beautiful woman. This depiction of the essential goodness within Zoraida
despite her Moorish heritage contrasts with Cervantes’s and his characters’ dismissal
of her Moorish countrymen as liars and cheats. Moreover, in the discussion on
the way to Chrysostom’s funeral, in Chapter XIII, Don Quixote compromises his
extreme faith in chivalric traditions in order to allow knights-errant to
praise God. Christianity, then, unlike most of the social customs of the times,
receives a positive and somber treatment in the novel and stands alone as the
one major subject Cervantes does not treat with a mordant, ironic tone. Here,
at the beginning of the third expedition, Cervantes treats Christianity with
more reverence than at any other point in the novel. (SparkNotes)
Key scenes
-
Don Quixote hears crying and finds a farmer
whipping a young boy. The farmer explains that the boy has been failing in his
duties; the boy complains that his master has not been paying him. Don Quixote,
calling the farmer a knight, tells him to pay the boy. The boy tells Don
Quixote that the farmer is not a knight, but Don Quixote ignores him. The
farmer swears by his knighthood that he will pay the boy. As Don Quixote rides
away, satisfied, the farmer flogs the boy even more severely. (Part One,
Chapter IV)
-
Windmill scene: Don Quixote and Sancho come to a
field of windmills, which Don Quixote mistakes for giants. Don Quixote charges
at one at full speed, and his lance gets caught in the windmill’s sail,
throwing him and Rocinante to the ground. Don Quixote assures Sancho that the
same enemy enchanter who has stolen his library turned the giants into
windmills at the last minute. (Part One, Chapter VIII)
-
The narrator suddenly declares that the
historical account from which he is working (translating) “cuts off” and so the
action (a great battle) is interrupted and then re-continued when Cervantes
finds another manuscript (in the following chapter). (Part One, Chapter VIII)
-
Quijote mixes ingredients into a famous “Balsam”
and drinks the potion, which makes him vomit but feel better the next morning.
Sancho also takes the potion and gets ill, and feels no better. Quijote
explains the balsam does not work on Sancho because he’s a squire, not a
knight. (Part One, Chapter XVII)
o
SparkNotes analysis: The graphic accounts of Don
Quixote’s and Sancho’s vomiting constitute Cervantes’s basest humor. Cervantes
later justifies the inclusion of such bawdy episodes, stating that a successful
novel contains elements that appeal to all levels of society. This crude humor
seems out of place, especially when compared to the delicate humor of Sancho’s
story in Chapter XX. Critics often focus on this disparity, but Cervantes may
be using this contrast to draw our attention to the differences between
romantic ideals and reality. He highlights reality by emphasizing its physical
aspects, reminding us about the inconsistency between the way things play out
in Don Quixote’s dreams and the way they play out in the real world.
Don Quixote’s explanation for why the Balsam of Fierbras does not work for Sancho underscores the characters’ perception of class and privilege. Don Quixote seems to believe that bad things cannot happen to knights because they belong to a higher class, one that the mundane world cannot touch. The fact that he persistently attributes all of his misfortunes to an enchantment emphasizes his faith that mortal forces cannot touch him. This class distinction extends to gentlemen as well, who play by a different set of rules than members of the lower class. Cervantes’s attitude toward such class distinctions appears mixed: even though Cervantes includes numerous classist remarks, he pokes fun at Don Quixote’s claim of being separate and superior. Ultimately, Cervantes undercuts the idea that one’s class signifies one’s worth. He criticizes people in all classes in an effort to humanize everyone.
Don Quixote’s explanation for why the Balsam of Fierbras does not work for Sancho underscores the characters’ perception of class and privilege. Don Quixote seems to believe that bad things cannot happen to knights because they belong to a higher class, one that the mundane world cannot touch. The fact that he persistently attributes all of his misfortunes to an enchantment emphasizes his faith that mortal forces cannot touch him. This class distinction extends to gentlemen as well, who play by a different set of rules than members of the lower class. Cervantes’s attitude toward such class distinctions appears mixed: even though Cervantes includes numerous classist remarks, he pokes fun at Don Quixote’s claim of being separate and superior. Ultimately, Cervantes undercuts the idea that one’s class signifies one’s worth. He criticizes people in all classes in an effort to humanize everyone.
-
The priest and the barber try to trick Quixote into
coming home by disguising themselves as a damsel in distress and her squire
(Part One, Chap. XXVI-XXVII)
-
The stories of Cardenio and Dorothea
o
The story of Cardenio – “the Ragged Knight of
the Sorry Countenance” – crazy naked man who fell in love with Lucinda; one of
his friends, Ferdinand, fell in love with her too. Quixote interrupts his story
and they fight and Cardenio refuses to finish the story. Cardenio later
finishes telling his story to Sancho when they randomly meet up again. (Part
One, Chap. XXIII-XXIV, XXVII)
o
Dorothea’s story – Ferdinand (same dude from
Cardenio’s story) had sex with her and promised to marry her, then bailed to go
marry Lucinda (Cardenio’s lady love). Dorothea wants revenge and agrees to help
priest, barber, and Sancho with Quixote (Chap. XXVIII-XXX)
o
Ferdinand, Lucinda, Cardenio, and Dorothea are
all reunited and they couple off into F & D and L & C – happy climax
(Chap. XXXVI)
-
The story of the man who was a captive in Algiers but
escaped – mirrors Cervantes’s true life captivity during his time as a soldier,
and his fanciful wishes to escape at the time (Part One, Chap. XXXIX-XLI)
-
Sancho and Quixote talk about the publication of a book
by a Moor (Cide Hamete Aubergine) recounting their adventures (Part Two, Chap.
II)
-
Sancho tries to convince Quixote that three dirty village
girls are Dulcinea and her ladies in waiting, claiming that they have been
enchanted to be ugly (Part Two, Chap. X)
o
Example that shows that Sancho is able to use
Quixote’s madness against him
-
An “enchanter” (hired by the Duke and Duchess) tells
Sancho he must whip himself 3,300 times to rescue Dulcinea from her enchantment
(Part Two, Chap. XXXV)
-
Quixote and Sancho ride on a “famous” wooden “horse,”
that is supposed to take them on a flying journey to unknown lands (Part Two,
Chap. XL-XLI)
-
Sancho’s “governorship” of a non-existent territory,
during which he proves himself to be a very fair and good leader, despite his
low social class (Part Two, Chap. XLII-XLV, XLVII, XLIX, LI, LIII)
-
Duke and Duchess release a bag of cats with bells on
their tails into Quixote’s room as he composes a sonnet to Dulcinea, scaring
him and ultimately injuring him as one cat attacks his face (Part Two, Chap.
XLVI)
-
Mention of counterfeit sequel to the text by two random
characters who have read it, it is greatly criticized by all parties (Part Two,
Chap. LIX)
Article – “Manipulation of Narrative Discourse: From Amadís de Gaula to Don Quixote” – Shannon M. Polchow (JStor)
-
Abstract: There is no doubt that Miguel de
Cervantes was heavily influenced by the romances of chivalry. While it is
apparent that he found chivalric adventures and situations to parody in Don Quixote, he also found inspiration
in their narratological structures. Current narratological studies of Don Quixote reveal that the text
contains numerous narrative voices, including the extradiegetic voice of the
supernarrator and the intradiegetic voices of the historian, translator, and
Cide Hamete Benengeli. Looking specifically at Amadís de Gaula, one will see how these voices illustrate a common
narratological link between Don Quixote
and the chivalric tradition.
-
There are many side characters in Don Quixote, with their own stories to
tell. These extra characters are all involved in the telling of Quijote’s own
story. They have their own adventures (less violent but still as exciting as
Quijote’s), which intertwine with Quijote’s huge adventure
-
Debate about who is the narrator of Don Quixote
o
First 8 chapters have a single narrative voice –
however, this is suddenly interrupted when the narrator says that the manuscript
he is translating doesn’t finish the story he is recounting (in the middle of a
dramatic battle)
o
James A. Parr (An Anatomy of Subversive Discourse) – many narrators:
§
First voice (Chap. 1-8) is voice of the
researcher/historian, who is searching for a reliable text (to translate); he
is “assigned the pose of an objective observer, but he is also given the
liberty of first-person commentary”
§
Second voice (that interrupts the narration at
the end of chap. 8) is the “editorial voice” or the “supernarrator” – “He does
not write or translate, nor is he a character within the text. He is an
anonymous figure who acts primarily as the editor of the text”
§
Numerous metadiegetic narrators – characters
within the text that narrate their own adventures, etc. (examples: Cardenio,
Dorotea, and the Captive)
§
Second author – author introduced by the
supernarrator at the end of Chapter 8, enters into narratological scene in
chap. 9 and describes how he found the manuscript and had it translated by some
morisco
§
Cide Hamete Benengeli – not a true narrator, but
a presence. Everything that he might state is filtered through the voice of the
supernarrator.
§
Dramatized author of prologue of 1605
§
SUMMARY: researcher/historian, supernarrator,
metadiegetic narrators (other characters), second author, Cide Hamete
Benengeli, 1st prologue author
-
The Historian (researcher) – Chapters 1-8
o
“Other versions of Don Quixote’s tale exist. His
is not the first rendition of the tale, nor will it be the last.”
o
He seeks to accurately recount Don Quixote’s
adventures (under pretense that Quixote truly existed)
o
The historian is not Cervantes’s invention –
strategy was utilized in chivalric narrative (For example: historian figure
appears in the prologue of Amadís de
Gaula) – idea of the desire to preserve and maintain old texts, and create
a more reliable version for future readers
-
The translator (the morisco)
o
Translator does not appear in the text, but his
comments are filtered through the supernarrator
o
Idea of translation is present in libros de
caballerías also – idea that this strategy gives the texts a more authoritative
grounding as researched accounts
-
Cide Hamete Benengeli
o
“Cide Hamete is not a narrator for he never
speaks directly to a narratee… His voice reaches us through that of the translator,
which is in turn filtered by the supernarrator”
o
At one point, the “second author” directly cites
Cide Hamete Benengeli’s translated text, thus passing his narrative
responsibility over to Cide. Something similar occurs in Amadís, when a narrator hands over his narration to a fictional
character.
§
In Quixote:
“the narrator relates the tale of the fictional character Cide, originally in
Arabic, in Don Quixote”
-
The Supernarrator
o
He frequently interrupts the flow of narration
in order to interject a commentary about the organizational structure of the
story
§
This is especially frequent in Part Two, in
which the editor/supernarrator continuously interrupts narration to alternate
between simultaneous plot lines (Sancho and Quixote’s different goings-on)
o
The supernarrator also intrudes to offer his own
personal interjections
§
“¡Válame Dios…!”
o
Other interruptions made to clarify the current
situation
o
Sometimes appears to reaffirm his position as
the true narrator of the story
§
Use of “Digo” to add authority to his voice –
idea that what one reads in the text is being filtered through his perspective
-
Many narrative voices of Amadís
o
Historian/translator who also takes on editorial
tasks (like Cervantes’s supernarrator)
o
Most of the narration is in third person, but a
first person voice frequently interrupts. The first person voice clarifies
information that he wants the reader to know.
-
*** Article’s conclusion and summary:
o
Cervantes was greatly influenced by the libros
de caballerías
o
He found chivalric adventures and situations to
parody in Don Quixote
o
He also appropriate the complex narratological
structure of various books of chivalry
§
(especially use of historians/translators and
the supernarrator or editorial voice)
Article: “Use of Madness in Cervantes and Philip K. Dick” – Kenneth
Krabbenhoft (JStor)
-
Cervantes as a master of Spanish baroque fiction
– “a tradition devoted to probing the relationship between the imagination and
reality, madness and sanity, the telling of stories and their reception”
-
“Don
Quixote was the first important work of prose fiction to view reality as a
kind of fiction, and fiction as a kind of reality: Don Quixote converts the
world to his own point of view through the sheer force of his madness”
-
Cervantes’s use of multiple and often unreliable
narrators
-
Cervantes has influenced works across the globe
centuries later in the questioning of reality and the use of multiple narrators
or unreliable narrators
-
Quixote is the author/creator of his own
insanity – he has some control over it, yet surrenders to the fake reality that
he himself has created as a better way to live
-
Quixote’s obsession with disenchanting Dulcinea
reveals the Spanish hero’s way of battling injustice and evil
-
Idea that Quixote’s “madness” attracts the
reader (and other characters)
o
The main characters recognize that their story
has been recorded for entertainment (in Part Two, Chap. 2)
o
Quixote’s madness “doesn’t belong to him any
more: it has become the shared property of his readers”
o
Now that other characters (such as Duke and
Duchess) know about Quixote’s madness, they use it to manipulate him
-
Quixote’s disillusionment
o
When the Duke and Duchess’s deceitful
manipulations/illusions become physically painful for Quixote (Part Two), “he
begins to internalize his humiliation and despair and doubt his ability to
disenchant Dulcinea”
o
Twist on Spanish baroque motif of desengaño –
combination of disillusion with psychology of defeat – “making Don Quixote’s
separation from his illusions tantamount to questioning his worth as knight
errant”
o
Quixote’s death – both conforms to conventions
of chivalric novel that Cervantes parodies, and demonstrates the bitter
consequences of his disillusionment
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