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Inventing the Modern Novel

· Don Quixote is a widely influential text that has inspired many famous authors around the world, such as J.M. Goethe, Gustave Flaubert, Charles Dickens, William Faulkner, and Vladimir Nabokav

· There are many adaptations of it too. Here are some examples:

· A Broadway musical called Man of La Mancha (linked below) Man of La Mancha (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

· A ballet (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  designed by Marius Petipa

· A well-known  sketch (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  by Spanish painter Pablo Picasso

· And over  30 film adaptations (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site. , including a recent movie (linked below) The Man Who Killed Don Quixote  (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.

· You may be wondering: what is it about this novel that has inspired so many people? One part of the answer to this question is that many agree Don Quixote is the first modern novel

· Miguel de Cervantes essentially invents the first novel by combining elements of established literary types, such as epic, tragedy, and  pastoral romance (Links to an external site.)Links to an external site.  (Norton 384).

· This combination of elements "resulted in a work of considerable novelty, with the serious aspects hidden under a mocking surface" (Norton 384)

· Food for thought: we've read through many different genres of literature in this course. Which of our texts would you characterize as epic or tragedy?

· Unfortunately, we did not have time to read any pastoral romance!

· The narrator claims in the prologue to Don Quixote to satirize the above genres. He explains his friend's advice to:

make proper use of imitation in what you write, and the more perfect the imitation the better your writing will be. Inasmuch as you have no other object in view than that of overthrowing the authority and prestige which books of chivalry enjoy in the world at large and among the vulgar, there is no reason why you should go begging maxims of the philosophers, counsels of Holy Writ, fables of the poets, orations of the rhetoricians, or miracles of the saints; see to it, rather that your style flows along smoothly, pleasingly, and sonorously, and that your words are the proper ones, meaningful and well placed, expressive of your intention in setting them down and of what you wish to say, without any intricacy or obscurity. (Norton 1680)

· HOWEVER... Another way to answer the question of "what is it about this novel that has inspired so many people?" shows there is an underlying seriousness to parodic elements in Don Quixote 

· Mostly because Don Quixote reveals the distance between values represented in what we read and the real world:

So what we have is not mere parody or caricature; for there is a great deal of difference between presenting a remote and more-or-ess imaginary world and presenting an individual deciding to live by the standards of that world in a modern and realistic context. (Norton 1674)

· To sum up: Cervantes invents the modern novel by recombining established genres in new ways WHILE using the novel as a way to examine social reality 

Focus: The End of Don Quixote

· Don Quixote ends with an account of Alonso Quijano's death, excerpted here:

Death came at last for Don Quixote, after he had received all the sacraments and once more, with many forceful arguments, had expressed his abomination of books of chivalry. The notary who was present remarked that in none of those books had he read of any knight-errant dying in his own bed so peacefully and in so Christian a manner. And thus, amid the tears and lamentations of those present, he gave up the ghost; that is to say, he died. (Norton 1800)

· Consider the difference between his death in the novel and his death in Man of La Mancha (linked in Inventing the Modern Novel). In the novel, Don Quixote dies "sane," having given up his illusions of being a knight. In the musical, Alonso Quijano dies "his real self"--a knight errant. The two versions clearly value different interpretations of Don Quixote's "true self"

· Food for thought: which version do you prefer? Why?

· Another curious item about the end of Don Quixote is how the narrator addresses readers. See here:

Perceiving that their friend was no more, the curate asked the notary to be a witness to the fact that Alonso Quijano the Good, commonly known as Don Quixote, was truly dead, this being necessary in order that some author other than Cid Hamete Benengeli might not have the opportunity of falsely resurrecting him and writing endless histories of his exploits. (Norton 1800)

· The narrator describes the official "death sentence" from the notary, not just as part of the plot, but also to prevent other people writing "unauthorized" sequels in real life

· This part of the quotation shows another curious mixture between "fiction" and "reality"

· Food for thought: why do you think it was important to prevent future sequels of Don Quixote?

Read website:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/p003hydl