SPAN 4550

Cervantes: Don Quixote

Course Description

Course information provided by the Courses of Study 2014-2015.

Don Quijote is not only "the first modern work of literature," as Michel Foucault noted, but also "the first European novel," as the novelist Kundera hailed it. In fact, Foucault believed that Cervantes's discovery of the arbitrary relation of words and things ushered in the modern age. Four centuries before Freud, Cervantes questioned the meaning of madness, inquiring into the close bonds between delusions and fantasy, dreams and artistic production. A revolutionary document of its own age, Don Quijote confronts us with the complex history of Christians, Jews, and Muslims in Spain, especially with the conflicts between Christianity and Islam in the Iberian Peninsula. Stressing a critique of creation within Cervantes's own creation, our close reading of Don Quijote will examine Cervantes's subversion of early modern Spanish literary genres. We will also explore the links established by his masterpiece with the network of institutions, practices, and beliefs that constituted 16th and 17th century Spanish culture. Our readings will be supplemented with an ample range of critical approaches.

When Offered Fall.

Prerequisites/Corequisites Prerequisite: two of SPAN 2140, SPAN 2150, SPAN 2170 or permission of instructor.

Breadth Requirement (HB)
Distribution Category (LA-AS)
Language Requirement Satisfies Option 1.

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