Mirror, Mirror

HUM 2052: Civilization IISpring 2013Dr. Perdigao

January 18-23, 2013

Merello’s Don Quixote’s Melancholy and Don Quixote

http://www.spanishpaintersfromspain.com/

Octavio Ocampo’s Visions of Don Quixote

http://www.visionsfineart.com/ocampo/visions_of_quixote.html

The author outside of the text

Octavio Ocampo’s Friendship of Don Quixote

http://www.visionsfineart.com/ocampo/friendship_of_don_quixote.html

Don Quixote in Images

• http://www.donquijote.org/vmuseum/paintings/various/index.asp?pag=8

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)• Little known about his early life

• Enlisted in Spanish Navy infantry—Battle of Lepanto (1571), was wounded

• On return to Spain, ship captured by Barbary pirates (1575), ransomed

• Published pastoral romance Galatea (1585)

• Imprisonment result of problems with accounting

• Believed to have written Don Quixote in prison in Seville

• Published in 1605

• False sequel leads him to write a sequel, published in 1615

Contextualizing Quixote• Epic, tragedy, pastoral romance as conventional genres; DQ crosses

boundaries as modern text, satirizing conventions of chivalric romance

• All epics as quests—DQ as new form of the epic

• Deciding to live by the standards of that world in modern and realistic context, revitalizing the chivalric code in modern times

• Chivalry as an ideal

• Picaresque novel: corrupt society, hero from lower class

• Dichotomies: appearance and reality; reality and illusion; reason and imagination; reason and madness (2219-2220)

• “Who am I?”

Madness or Creativity?• Stagnancy of his existence

• Age 50—midlife crisis

• Is he crazy from reading novels or does he read to prevent going crazy?

• Creates another reality to place himself within

• Question of generation and regeneration

• Genesis, Adamic creation, with naming of self, horse, love

• Windmill jousts: his inner needs to impose concerns on external reality

Perspectives• Madness compels him to life—not out

• Through madness, he goes sane

• New life is richer than his present existence

• Don Quixote’s “real” existence; Quijada or Quesada, Quejana (2226); Aldonza Lorenzo: Dulcinea (2229)

• The book’s existence—preceding this text, as original text (in romance tradition)

• “O happy age and happy century . . . in which my famous exploits shall be published, exploits worthy of being engraved in bronze, sculptured in marble, and depicted in paintings for the benefit of posterity. O wise magician, whoever you be, to whom shall fall the task of chronicling this extraordinary history of mine! I beg of you not to forget my good Rocinante, eternal companion of my wayfarings and my wanderings” (2230).

Precursor to postmodernism?• Part II—comment on the existence of the self

• Hall of mirrors within the text, like Velasquez’s painting

• “I know who I am. . . and who I may be, if I choose” (2244)

• Self-referential world

• Prologue about not writing a prologue

“Merely Players?”• Illusion

conjuring image

• Allusion

referring to something

• Elusion

escaping

• All is play-acting

• Enchantment: disenchantment

• Illusion: disillusion

• How does one reach reality—through illusion?

• What is real?

Staging the Scene• Episodes

Innkeeper

Andres/Juan Haldudo

Housekeeper, niece, curate, barber: problem with books

Sancho Panza, promise

Windmills

Friars, Biscayan

Chapters 8-9: loses historical account, missing pieces

Cid Hamete Benengeli

Grisóstomo, Marcela

Sheep

Ginés de Pasamonte

Metatexts• “The Ballad that Antonio Sang” (2263-2264) as metafictional text

• Shattered his illusions (2273)—tale told by Ambrosio—“end the tragedy”

• Grisóstomo’s story as parallel: “Grisóstomo’s Song” (2275-2277)

• As pastoral in Part I—with songs telling DQ’s story in another context

• Idea of faith, service to God questioned, place of knight-errantry in Christian context called into question (2271)

• “. . . But there is one thing among others that gives me a very bad impression of the knights-errant, and that is the fact that when they are about to enter upon some great and perilous adventure in which they are in danger of losing their lives, they never at that moment think of commending themselves to God as every good Christian is obliged to do under similar circumstances, but, rather, command themselves to their ladies with as much fervor and devotion as if their mistresses were God himself; all of which to me smacks somewhat of paganism” (2271).

• Idealization of beloved, Marcela’s response

Metatexts• The Life of Ginés de Pasamonte—unfinished text—as life (2290)—“that it

will cast into the shade Lazarillo de Tormes and all others of that sort that have been or will be written” (2289), 15th century picaresque novel

• God as judge, disavows laws of state (2290-91), frees prisoners and renames himself Knight of the Mournful Countenance (2291)—asks them to find Dulcinea and tell her the story; Ginés de Pasamonte tells him it is impossible but that they will say Credos and Hail Marys; Pasamonte thinks he is insane and robs him

• Goatherd hears DQ and recognizes the type of stories from books (2293)

• Turns against Catholic faith (2295)

• Homecoming story by the end of Part I