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SPAN 300: Cervantes' Don Quixote

Lecture 10 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXXVI-LII. Gonzalez Echevarria starts by commenting on three of the returns and repetitions (characters who reappear and incidents that, if not repeated, recall previous incidents) that take place at the end of part one of the Quixote and which give density to the fiction: the galley slaves, Andres, and the postprandial speech or the speech on arms and letters. Don Quixote's insanity not only gives him a certain transcendence, but also shows the arbitrariness of laws, which causes their rejection by society and other characters' insane behavior. Gonzalez Echevarria comments on the intersection between literature and history before moving on to the captive's tale, the culmination of those intertwined stories, in which religious conversion overcomes social barriers and transcends the neo-platonic convergence of opposites in Renaissance plots. With his creation of Don Quixote, the first hero-fugitive from justice in the Western tradition - a "highway robber," as the officer of the Holy Brotherhood calls him - Cervantes has created the first important novelistic protagonist drawn from the legal archives. His is the case of the insane hidalgo who set out to act out chivalric fantasies and in the process committed a series of crimes. And yet, he is the agent of Providence.
(from oyc.yale.edu)

Lecture 10 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXXVI-LII

Time Lecture Chapters
[00:00:00] 1. Returns and Repetitions
[00:08:15] 2. The Postprandial Speech
[00:24:35] 3. The Captive's Tale
[00:40:05] 4. A Very Strange Episode
[00:43:03] 5. Remarks about the End of Part I

References
Lecture 10 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXXVI-LII
Instructor: Professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov].

Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures:

Lecture 01 - Introduction
Lecture 02 - Don Quixote, Part I: Front Matter and Chapters I-X
Lecture 03 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters I-X (cont.)
Lecture 04 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XI-XX
Lecture 05 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XI-XX (cont.)
Lecture 06 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXI-XXVI
Lecture 07 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXI-XXVI (cont.)
Lecture 08 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXVII-XXXV
Lecture 09 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXVII-XXXV (cont.)
Lecture 10 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXXVI-LII
Lecture 11 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXXVI-LII (cont.)
Lecture 12 - Don Quixote, Introduction to Part II
Lecture 13 - Don Quixote, Part II: Front Matter and Chapters I-XI
Lecture 14 - Don Quixote, Part II: Front Matter and Chapters I-XI (cont.)
Lecture 15 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XII-XXI
Lecture 16 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XII-XXI (cont.)
Lecture 17 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXII-XXXV
Lecture 18 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXII-XXXV (cont.)
Lecture 19 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXXVI-LIII
Lecture 20 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXXVI-LIII (cont.)
Lecture 21 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LIV-LXX
Lecture 22 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LIV-LXX (cont.)
Lecture 23 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LXXI-LXXIV
Lecture 24 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LXXI-LXXIV (cont.)