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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.
List of contents
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 toneProtestant affinitiesDulcinea and faith
Chapter Four: Don Quixote as high moral achiever
Transforming Don Quixote and SanchoDon Quixote doing good in the world, mostly
Pride goes before a fallChapter Five: Sancho as backsliding social climber
Toward the utopia of fraternity and equality Increasing day by (every other) day in wisdom and strengthChapter Six: Reason, trust, and which way lies happiness?
ReasonParafaragaramus 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 effectiveAll-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
About the author
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.
Summary
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.
