Comparative Literature 80900.
Cervantes and the Crisis in European Fiction
Lia Schwartz
GC: T. 4.15-6.15 p.m.,4 er.
Room 4419
This course will focus on the study of Cervantes’s Don Quijote (1605-1615) as a text that
recreates early modern literary forms, while questioning the writing of fiction, from the
perspective of Aristotle's Poetics and related Italian theories of the novel. Cervantes’s
work will be also analyzed in relation to its literary models ~ romances of chivalry,
pastoral, picaresque and moorish novels, Boccaccio’s Decameron and other stories of
adventures ~ and their philosophical contexts. The function of madness as a fictional
device will be also examined in connection with Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly. Other
aspects of this complex narrative to be considered include its rhetorical and ethical
background, as well as the treatment of popular discourses and of classical adages.
‘Among the works to be read in addition to Don Quijote, are Lazarillo de Tormes, some
sections of J. Sannazaro’s Arcadia, Erasmus’s The Praise of Folly, and some novelle of
the Decameron.
TEXTS
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quixote. Tr. by W. Starkie, with a new introduction by
Edward Friedman. New York: A Signet Classic, 2001
Cervantes, Miguel de. Don Quijote de la Mancha. Edicién del Instituto Cervantes,
dirigida por Francisco Rico. Madrid: Galaxia Gutenberg, 2004.
Cervantes, Miguel de. Exemplary Stories. Oxford World’s Classics.
Boccaccio,
jovani. The Decameron. Penguin Classics.
Erasmus of Rotterdam. Praise of Folly. Penguin Classics,
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes. A New York Review Books Classics.
Sannazaro, Jacopo. Arcadia. Detroit: Wayne University Press, 1966. Syllabus.
August 28. Introduction. Cervantes: his education; the years in Italy; becoming a soldier
in 1570. he was wounded in battle of Lepanto; captured by the Turks, he spent five years
asa prisoner in Algiers; he was ransomed and returned to become a writer in Spain. Don
Quixote in the context of Cervantes’s works, Editions and translations. A brief diachronic
overview of the reception of Don Quixote in Europe since 1605
September 1. Don Quixote in the context of sixteenth century narrative fiction, A “new
Boccaccio” who invented the modern novel. Historicist vis-d-vis some contemporary
approaches to its interpretation. Reading and discussing Don Quixote: the author's
Prologue. Amadis of Gaule and the success of romances of chivalry in sixteenth century
Spain. A discussion of part I, chapters 1-9.
September 8. Erasmus's Praise of Folly. Cervantes’s exemplary novel El licenciado
Vidriera ( Master Glass). Don Qujote’s madness as seen from the perspective of early
modern science and satire.
September 15. Pastoral literature in the sixteenth century: from V iclogues to}
Sannazaro’ «Arcadia. Narratives of the Golden Age and the pastoral (H. Levin).
Transformations of the pastoral in Don Quijote, 1, 10-14,
September 22. A new fictional genre in Spain: the picaresque novel. Lazarillo de Tormes
(1554) and later picaresque narratives. Cervantes’s exemplary novel Rinconete y
Cortadillo and the world of roguery. Don Quijote, 1, 15 to 22. 1,21: the adventure of
Mambrino’s helmet: from Ariosto’s Orlando furioso to the influence of skeptical ideas
‘upon Neostoicism. The question of the perception of reality. Leo Spitzer's and Américo
Castro's defense of “perspectivism” in Don Quixote.
September 29. Don Quijote, 23-47. 1. The interpolated stories and their literary
antecedents: from Boccaccio’s Decameron to Apuleius’s Golden Ass. “The Tale of 1Il-
‘Advised Curiosity” (I, 33-35) and Don Quixote’s “battle with certain skins of red wi
Decameron X.8 and the motif of friendship in moral and fictional literature. 2. The
story of the captive (1, 39-41) and the moorish novella of Abencerraje y la hermosa
Xarifa.
October 6. No class scheduled - Classes follow Monday schedule October 13. Don Quijote, 1, 48-52. The enchantment of don Quijote and his return to the
village. The character of the canon of Toledo: a discussion on literary theory. The
Aristotelian sources of Cervantess ideas about fiction (Riley).
October 20. 1615: the publication of Don Quixote part II. Cervantes’s rejection of the
“false Quijote” by Alonso Fernéndez de Avellaneda (1614): the Prologue to part II. The
question of authorship in Cervantes’s time, Don Quijote, Il, |-11. The third sally and the
enchantment of Dulcinea (Auerbach). The story of don Quijote and the representation of
secondary characters: Sans6n Carrasco and the adventure with the Knight of the Mirrors:
HW, 12-15)
October 27. The encounter with the Knight of the Green Cloak, II, 16-19. Popular
culture and the episode of the wedding of Camacho the Rich, with the adventure of
Basilio the poor: II, 19-21. The descent into the Cave of Montesinos: a parody of an epic
motif, I1, 22-24. The adventure of the puppet-showman, II, 25-28: theater in the novel
‘November 3. Don Quixote in the palace of the Duke and Duchess: II, 30-59. Chivalric
adventures and the government of Sancho. Don Quixote in Barcelona.
November 10. Adventures at sea and the episode of Don Gregorio and the Moorish girl:
I1, 60-66. The return to the village: I1, 67-74. Moors and Christians in Spain after the
edict of expulsion of the former (1609-1613).
November 17. Characterization in Don Quixote or towards the birth of the modem novel.
The exemplary story El celoso extremefio (The Jealous Exiremaduran) and the characters
of don Quixote and Sancho. Popular proverbs, Erasmus's Adagia and the stylization of
conversational speech. Popular ballads and their influence on the novel.
November 24- Thansgiving — No classes
December 1. The figurations of love in Don Quixote, and their Neoplatonic contexts:
from pastoral literature to the Greek novel and their influence upon Cervantes’s works
December 8. By way of conclusion: the theory of imizatio in the Renaissance and the
production of the Cervantine text. Its reception at the end of the twentieth century: about
some contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of Don Quixote. ography
For specific publications on Cervantes’s works, see the Cervantes International
Bibliography Online —bttp:™ ws ae su edulcervantes/V2/Bibliografiatindes 1 the
‘American journal Cervantes, and the eetronic publications and bibliography included in
the section dedicated to Cervantes at
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