Inventing the Romantic Don Quixote in France

Auteur

Clark Colahan is Anderson Professor of Humanities, Emeritus, at Whitman College, USA. He is the author of several books and numerous articles on Spanish and French literature of the Early Modern period and the Enlightenment. He is the author of The Visions of Sor María de Agreda: Writing Knowledge and Power, the co-editor of Spanish Humanism on the Verge of the Picaresque, and the co-author of the English translation of Cervantes' last novel, The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda.

Texte du rabat

The evolving adventures and myth of Don Quixote from farcical social criticism to Romantic idealism and then melancholy. Hagiography, Jansenism and its interpretation of Pascal's break with empiricism, Sarah and Henry Fielding, and Rousseau's use of the Jansenist sequel to Don Quixote.

Contenu

Author's foreword

Synopsis

Introduction

Chapter One: Hagiography and the religious side of Don Quixote's parodic journey

Cervantes' use of saints' lives

St. Thomas of Villanueva

Traits and adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho running parallel to those of Brother Thomas.

Chapter Two: The Jansenist milieu

The Filleau brothers and Jansenism

Jansenist teachings

Filleau de la Chaise's essay on Pascal's Pensées

Chapter Three: Don Quixote's rise toward moral exemplarity

A Jansenist tone

Protestant affinities

Dulcinea and faith

Chapter Four: Don Quixote as high moral achiever

Transforming Don Quixote and Sancho

Don Quixote doing good in the world, mostly

Pride goes before a fall

Chapter Five: Sancho as backsliding social climber

Toward the utopia of fraternity and equality

Increasing day by (every other) day in wisdom and strength

Chapter Six: Reason, trust, and which way lies happiness?

Reason

Parafaragaramus and confusing choices

Chapter Seven: Magicians in Commedia dell'Arte and the Quixote sequel

"The Fake Necromancer"

Practical jokers

"Mother Goose" and "The Barrel"

The magician as director of tragi-comedy

Chapter Eight: Rousseau's recasting of Parafaragaramus

Trickery versus tenderness

Taking courage through trust

Justice versus sadism in society

Chapter Nine: Magician Overboard Downstream

Benevolent and effective

All-knowing denouncer of misdeeds

Active pursuer of delinquents

Thief of happiness

Stage magician

Object of Ridicule

Magician as dangerous scientist harming nature

Chapter Ten: The British Don Quixote: good-humored laughter and utopias

Sarah Fielding on selfless friendship and Henry Brooke on Don Quixote's humanitarianism

The split English reaction to Don Quixote's 'Enthusiasm'

Rousseau's impact

Coleridge and Don Quixote through the lens of German philosophy

Chapter Eleven: Rousseau's Julie - reliving Don Quixote's failed quest

Summary and Take-away

Works Cited

Index