SPAN 300: Cervantes' Don Quixote
Lecture 22 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LIV-LXX (cont.). As we approach the end of the novel, Cervantes compresses and combines elements from different types of romances (morisco, Greek, pastoral) in what seems to be an attempt to create a new literary genre; the modern novel.
In the episodes in Barcelona, the prank with the talking head makes literal the figure of prosopopeia; Don Quixote's visit to the printing shop explores the very origin of the book; the sign the boys hang on Don Quixote's back also reduces him to language. Avellaneda's misreading of the Quixote coincides with
that of the duenas who punish Sancho, and is also ironically represented in Altisidora's dream. By taking literature to its limits, by incorporating Avellaneda's book into the Quixote, by rejecting bookish knowledge in favor of experience, Cervantes seems to point to the idea that there is no position
from which to stand outside of the world of fiction. The only way out would be through a voluntary act of the will, equivalent to the one Don Quixote makes after being defeated by the Knight of the White Moon.
(from oyc.yale.edu)
| Lecture 22 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LIV-LXX (cont.) |
| Time | Lecture Chapters |
| [00:00:00] | 1. Episodes in Barcelona |
| [00:17:30] | 2. Avellaneda's Spurious "Quixote" |
| [00:33:42] | 3. Don Quixote's Defeat by the Knight of the White Moon |
| [00:39:01] | 4. Episodes Leading to the Contagion of Madness from Character to Character |
| [00:46:11] | 5. Altisidora's Infernal Vision |
| [00:52:57] | 6. Experience over Bookish Learning |
| References |
| Lecture 22 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LIV-LXX (cont.) Instructor: Professor Roberto Gonzalez Echevarria. Transcript [html]. Audio [mp3]. Download Video [mov]. |
Go to the Course Home or watch other lectures: