Don Quixote de la Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes | Anthony Close (essay date 1977)
Anthony Close (essay date 1977)
SOURCE: Close, Anthony. “Don Quixote as Burlesque Novel.” In The Romantic Approach to Don Quixote: A Critical History of the Romantic Tradition in ‘Quixote’ Criticism, 1-28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.
[In the following excerpt, Close takes issue with the Romantic approach to Don Quixote that was established in the 1800s and views the work rather as a burlesque, a study of character, and a precursor of the modern novel.]
INTRODUCTION
Most criticism of Don Quixote since about 1800 has followed the main lines of the approach to the novel initially adopted by the German Romantics. This I call the Romantic approach to Don Quixote. What follows is a critical history of it. I believe it to be misguided in each of its basic tendencies. These are:
- a) the idealisation of the hero and the denial of the novel's satiric purpose; ...
[The entire page is 9470 words long]
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