Inventing the romantic Don Quixote in France : Jansenists, Rousseau, and British Quixotism /

Cervantes' now mythical character of Don Quixote beganas a far different figure than the altruistic righter of wrongs we know today. The transformation from mad highway robber to secular saint took place in the Romantic Era, but how and where it began has just begun to be understood. Germany an...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Colahan, Clark (Author)
Published: Routledge,
Publisher Address: Abingdon, Oxon :
Publication Dates: 2023.
Literature type: Book
Language: English
Series: Routledge studies in Latin American and Iberian literature
Subjects:
Summary: Cervantes' now mythical character of Don Quixote beganas a far different figure than the altruistic righter of wrongs we know today. The transformation from mad highway robber to secular saint took place in the Romantic Era, but how and where it began has just begun to be understood. Germany and England played major roles, but, contrary to earlier literary historians, Pascal, Racine, Rousseau and the Jansenists scooped Henry and Sarah Fielding. Jansenism, a persecuted puritanical and intellectual movement linked to Pascal, identified itself with Don Quixote's virtues, excused his vices, and wrote a game-changing sequel mediated by the transformative powers of a sorcerer from Commedia dell'Arte. As an early Romantic, Rousseau was attracted to the hero's fertile imagination and tender love for Dulcinea, foregrounding the would-be knight's quest in a play and his best-selling novel, Julie. Sarah Fielding reacted similarly, basing her utopian novel David Simple on the Jansenist concept of quixotic trust in others. Colahan here reproduces and explains for the first time the extremely rare original illustrations of the French sequel to Cervantes' novel, and documents the fortunes in French culture of the magician at the heart of the Romantic Quixote.
Carrier Form: xvii, 207 pages : illustrations ; 24 cm.
Bibliography: Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN: 9781032467252
1032467258
Index Number: PQ6352
CLC: I551.074
Call Number: I551.074/C683