Since its publication in the early seventeenth century Don Quixote has become a classic of world literature, and its hero a symbol of romantic aspiration and absurdity. Even today, Cervantes's mad knight continues to reach out and hook readers' psyches. Don Quixote is the story of a verisimilar literary character, whose rich and conflicted inner life and encounters with the world around him became the prototype for the modern novel, from Tom Jones to Lolita. Johnson situates Quixote within its relevant historical and cultural context, including the uniquely Spanish form of the general European dialectic of Old vs. New. The mad hero's encounters with the world expose the shaky foundations of that conflictive society. Don Quixote was a revolutionary ideological statement in its own time, and has proved to be a revolutionary literary statement for all time. Johnson shows how Cervantes challenges the official poetics of the late sixteenth century, and simultaneously anticipates virtually every aspect of the trendiest theorizing of the late twentieth century.
--This text refers to the
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Title of related interest from Waveland Press: Barrett, Five Centuries of Spanish Literature: From the Cid through the Golden Age (ISBN 9781577663195).
--This text refers to the
Paperback
edition.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
11 of 11 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don Quijote-Why the most important book of all time,
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This review is from: Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction (Paperback)
My comment. I took a two semester course on the Quijote. This book is excellent in that it points out why this work of Cervantes is landmark for all world literatures in the way that it discusses fiction and metafiction, and also, the merits of the different theories about realism and verisimilitude in literature. It very simply and easily points out to the reader why the Quijote is such a masterpiece and why it continues to be. ...BW
9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good place to start,
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This review is from: Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction (Paperback)
I picked up Johnson's book on Don Quixote because the novel is large and intimidating to me and I felt I'd need some preparation before reading it. I also felt I needed something to undo the prejudices I had formed against the main character from seeing The Man of La Mancha. Johnson provides an excellent orientation to the many things going on in the novel. His scholarship is current and insightful; the extended discussion in the chapters "A Book about Books" and "Readers and Reading" were especially helpful. I also liked his explanations about how Parts I and II relate to one another (part II is clearly more than just a sequel or "more adventures"). Johnson concludes his study by revealing his own personal reading of the text. I found it plausible (it's mostly a psychological reading), but Johnson by no means suggests that his reading is conclusive or better than any other reader's reading. This is a book I plan to keep at hand as I begin (once again) to try to make it all the way through Cervantes' classic and ground-breaking novel.
15 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A perfect pony for thin nights,
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This review is from: Don Quixote: The Quest for Modern Fiction (Twayne's Masterwork Studies) (Paperback)
I'm a fan of the Twayne's series of studies, which offer an undergraduate course in about 100 pages. Johnson's little book on Don Quixote is one of the best. It's much better than either the Nabokov book or the studies in the Norton edition, all of which are chatty and interesting but not very helpful in coming to terms with Cervantes' long, often boring, brilliant novel. Johnson provides enough dollops of literary theory, history, biography, culture, and critical exegesis for the reader to really start to work independently. What I liked most was his final reading of Quixote as a man fleeing his incestuous desire for his niece, madly projecting and fantasizing to relieve the pressure. His description of a world where Moors and Jews lived secret lives while passing as Christians, ne'er-do-well aristocrats like Quijano suffered lives of quiet desperation, and encounters with the Other in the New World radically altered Western consciousness at the very time that print brought people into closer communion, provided grist for many hours of thought and appreciation. The sections on reader-response and literary theory were a bit more conventional, but they were clear and compelling nevertheless. If you choose one pony while mounting Rocinante, this is the one to ride.
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