{"id":356,"date":"2022-03-28T04:05:04","date_gmt":"2022-03-28T04:05:04","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/histonaut.com\/?p=356"},"modified":"2022-03-28T04:06:00","modified_gmt":"2022-03-28T04:06:00","slug":"chivalry-books-in-don-quixote-from-criticism-to-funny-parody","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/2022\/03\/28\/chivalry-books-in-don-quixote-from-criticism-to-funny-parody\/","title":{"rendered":"Chivalry books in Don Quixote : From Criticism to funny Parody"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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The present essay is\ndevoted to the role of chivalry books in Cervantes’s   Don Quixote<\/em>. The very plot of the novel is based on the collision\nof foolish fantasies contained in chivalry books with the realities of the\nauthor’s time. But Cervantes not only clearly presents to the public all\ndrawbacks and shortcomings of chivalry romances, he transforms his protagonist\nin a grotesque funny parody of knight errant whose follies imitate imaginary\nfeats of literary heroes. This is the best way to denounce and ridicule the\nillusory world of knights’ fairytales full of enchanters, fantastic creatures\nand impossible exploits. Don Quixote<\/em>\nis actually a comic chivalry book intended to amuse the reader by showing him\nhow funny and absurd were the incredible adventures of literary knights errant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Chivalry books play the key role in Cervantes’s novel,\nand this role is definitely negative, actually, they trigger the narrative by\ndriving mad a fifty years old country gentleman, Alonso Quixano, who becomes a\nself proclaimed knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha. The author explains how\nit happened: “His fantasy filled with everything he had read in his books\netc. citation” (p.21) giving us the idea about the typical contents of\nchivalry romances on the one hand and expressing his attitude towards it on the\nother. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Friends of Alonso\nQuixano, the priest and the barber, as well as his niece and housekeeper\nperceive chivalry books almost as evil creatures who enchanted the poor man and\ndeserve capital punishment for this crime. That’s why after the examination of\nour ingenious gentleman’s library “more than a hundred large volumes, very\nnicely bound”(p.45) are sentenced to burning, and only a few most original\nand well written are spared. This episode informs the reader about the quantity\nand quality of chivalry romances available in Spain by the end of the sixteenth\ncentury. According to the priest’s and the barber’s judgement, the majority of\nsuch books were generally similar containing different versions of a limited\nnumber of fantastic plots and had little literary value. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The reader learns much more about chivalry books in\nChapter XLVII of Volume One from the lips of the canon of Toledo who finds them\n“prejudicial to the nation” because being “all essentially the\nsame” they are “foolish stories meant only to delight and not to\nteach”.(p.412). The indignant cleric enumerates several incredible plots\ninvented by writers of chivalry tales: “a boy of sixteen, with one thrust\nof his sword, fells a giant as big as a tower and splits him in two as if he\nwere marzipan”; the hero of the book wins more than a million of enemies\n“only through the valour of his mighty arm”; “a hereditary queen\nor empress falls into the arms of an errant and unknown knight”; “a\ngreat tower filled with knights sails the seas like a ship, and is in Lombardy at\nnightfall, and by dawn the next day it is in the lands of Prester John of the\nIndies”. The well-educated  clergyman is not against fantasy in general\nbut believes that “fictional tales must engage the minds of those who read\nthem, and by restraining exaggeration and moderating impossibility, they\nenthrall the spirit and thereby astonish, captivate, delight and\nentertain.”(p. 412).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Dian Fox indicates that ” for the Canon of Toledo,\nfiction can only delight when it adheres to the logically possible”,\nwhereas ” the books of chivalry condemn themselves by invading the realm\nof the fantastic, by violating verisimilitude” (p.408). The erudite cleric\nbelieves that in knights’ tales “the style is fatiguing, the action\nincredible, the love lascivious, the courtesies clumsy, the battles long, the\nlanguage foolish, the journeys nonsensical, and since they are totally lacking\nin intelligent artifice, they deserve to be banished from Christian\nnations”(p. 412). He blames “those nonsensical chivalry books”(p.427)\n“for being deceptive and false and far beyond the limits of common sense,\nand for giving the ignorant rabble a reason to believe and consider as true all\nthe absurdities they contain.” (p.423). All the above opinions are\nentirely shared and supported by the village priest, true friend of Alonso Quixano\n(p.413).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

             Instead of useless\nfairytales the Canon of Toledo recommends to read books about real historical\nfigures and their heroic deeds arguing that from such studies the reader\n“emerge learned in history, enamored of virtue, instructed in goodness,\nimproved in his customs, valiant but not rash, bold and not\ncowardly”(p.424). But all reasonable arguments against chivalry books are\nwasted on the insane Manchegan who likes them because “they drive away\nmelancholy, and improve your spirits if they happen to be low”, and\nappreciates “great pleasure and delight” which derive from “any\npart of any history of a knight errant”(p.430) . <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In other words, our ingenious gentleman dissatisfied by the realities of the surrounding\nworld is searching refuge in foolish fantasies promulgated by chivalry books. Today\nthe same phenomenon of evasion from disturbing reality can be observed among\nyoung people plunging in the virtual world of videogames and internet gadgets\nand as a result becoming as vulnerable to the challenges of the real life as\nDon Quixote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The reader can easily take the Canon of Toledo and the village priest for\nspokesmen of Cervantes’ own ideas, but according to Antony J. Cascardi, the two\nChurchmen  express, most probably, the\nopinion of official authorities finding all useless fantasies potentially “prejudicial\nto the nation”. Cascardi\ninforms that similar point of view on chivalry books was already published by\nMiguel Sanchez de Lima in 1580,(p.34) and believes that the criticism of\nliterary fictions by clergymen can represent a hint on Inquisition practices of\ncensorship (p.40).  In the context of the\nhumorous nature of Don Quixote<\/em>, the\nvery idea of the Church censoring fairytales for the lack of verisimilitude ,\ndefinitely, looks ridiculous.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Cervantes  clearly understands that mere criticism of\nchivalric nonsense is not enough to dissuade  the fans of fantastic adventures of imaginary\nknights errant , and creates a funny parody of chivalry books choosing laughter\nas the best weapon against these fictional writings. As Daniel Eisenberg\nindicates, “Cervantes wrote Don Quixote <\/em>to make\nus laugh at the amusing misadventures of a burlesque knight-errant” in\norder “to end the great popularity of romances of chivalry”, and “to\nsupply what they could not offer: entertainment that was not only harmless but\nbeneficial” (article p.1). <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Actually, the author of the famous novel declares in the\nPrologue  that his work “intends\nonly to undermine the authority and wide acceptance that books of chivalry have\nin the world and among the public” and adds that it “should move the\nmelancholy to laughter, increase the joy of the cheerful”(p\/8).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            P.E.\nRussell proves in his article Don Quixote\nas a Funny Book<\/em> that “for some two centuries after 1605, Don\nQuixote <\/em>seemed to its readers to be a funny book” (p.319). And indeed,\n“a great deal of it is concerned with describing tricks and hoaxes, with\nmaking sport of the protagonist, his squire, and many other characters”(p.312).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            E.C.\nRiley defines Cervantes’s description of  Don Quixote and Sancho Panza as “the\nverbal equivalent of graphic caricature”(p.110) and perceives them as\n“a recognizable duo of fat-man and thin-man comics”(p.112).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In\nDaniel\nEisenberg’s opinion, modern critics do not quite understand how ridiculous Don\nQuixote is because they are not aquatinted with the romances of chivalry of the\nSpanish Renaissance. The protagonists  of \nchivalry books were young, handsome, strong knights in shining armors on\nmighty destriers (battle horses) who travelled in such exotic places like Asia,\nAfrica, England or Greece whereas  Don\nQuixote was just the opposite and chose “the least attractive region of Spain”,\nLa Mancha, for his sallies. His very name “de la Mancha” was\nperceived as a joke in Cervantes’s times. Don Quixote “chooses a far,\ngarrulous, ignorant, greedy, unhappily married peasant as his squire”. His\nromantic love to a peasant girl also looked laughable for contemporary readers.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            According to Judith A. Whitenack, all Don Quixote’s antics\nreproduce in comic and absurd form well-known plots of chivalric adventures,\nfor instance, “the knight aids the army of a Christian king against a\nMoorish one (the reba\u00f1os<\/em>, or armies of sheep); he challenges evil giants\n(the windmills); an enamoured lady pays him a nocturnal visit (Maritornes); he\nrescues a lady from her kidnapper (the vizca\u00edno<\/em> or Basque); he avenges a\nslain knight (the funeral procession); he challenges a wild beast (the lion);\nhe competes in jousts and tournaments (his plans for the St. George’s Day\ntournament in Zaragoza); he defends his lady’s beauty against all comers (the\nToledo merchants); he is whisked away on quests by mysterious means (the\nenchanted boat); and he changes chivalric epithets according to circumstances\n(\u201cEl Caballero de la Triste Figura,\u201d \u201cEl Caballero de los Leones\u201d)”.She\nremarks that “the full parodic effect of the novel depends upon readers\nwho will immediately recognize the chivalric material”(p.62) .<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The strange Don Quixote’s madness also provoked laughter\nbecause, as P.E. Russell explains, mental insanity, provided it was not too\nviolent, was considered funny at that time.(p.321). Dian Fox adds to this that\nthe crazy knight occasionally comes close to killing some of his imaginary\nenemies, “but true to the nature of comedy, he never inflicts lasting\ninjury on anybody in either part”(p.409).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Don\nQuixote’s mind is completely deranged by the chivalric nonsense he read, that’s\nwhy “everyday things are transformed in his mind’s eye – windmills become\ngiants, sheep warriors, inns castles, etc”.(Riley, p.111). Diane\nChaffee-Sorace  remarks that the\ningenious gentleman “interprets people and situations in terms of\nchivalric fantasy in order to integrate them into” his illusory world\n(p.209), and then “fabricates his own adventures by imposing his magic\nworld on the people around him”(p.216). In this way, chivalry books are\nresponsible for all lunacies committed by Don Quixote. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Our ingenious gentleman leaves home with the intention of\n“righting all manner of wrongs, and, by seizing the opportunity and\nplacing himself in danger and ending those wrongs, winning eternal renown and\neverlasting fame”(p.21). But in reality all Don Quixote’s adventures are\nuseless, absurd and most harmful for his own health.  E.C Riley qualifies, for instance, as\n“one of his most pointless acts of lunacy” the protagonist’s combat\nwith windmills, and wittily adds: “like all the best fairytale giants,\nwindmills are also rather comic (waving their arms and getting nowhere)”(p.114).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In Chapter L of Volume One Don Quixote affirms that\n“since he became a knight errant he had been valiant, well-mannered,\nliberal, polite generous, courteous, bold, gentle, patient, long-suffering in\nlabors, imprisonments and enchantments”(p.430). Whereas E.C. Riley finds\nthe insane Manchegan “in his early, maddest days, capricious, misdirected,\nimpractical, idealistic, militant, ineffective”.(p.115). What a striking\ndifference between the protagonist’s distorted self-evaluation  and the analyst’s objective opinion! <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The\ninitial folly of the ingenious gentleman takes shape encouraged by the typical picaro<\/em> of innkeeper who knights him in\nthe presence of “ladies of easy virtue”. In this way external\nconditions contribute to the appearance of the imaginary character born in the\nhead of Alonso Quixano deranged by the reading of chivalry books. According to\nP.E.Russell, it happens because of specific attitude towards mad people in\nCervantes’ times – they were to some extent untouchable. That’s why in Chapter\nIII of Part I the innkeeper “warns the muleteers not to try to revenge\nthemselves for the wounds inflicted on them by the knight . For the same\nreason, when the constabulary are sure he is mad, they leave him alone.”(p.322).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Cervantes\nwrites a parody of chivalric fairytales and cares to reproduce their fictitious\nquality, that’s why starting from Part Two of Volume One the insane Manchegan\nis presented as the protagonist of the story written by Cide Hamete Benengeli,\nan Arab Historian, and in such a way he is completely detached from the real\nlife and even from the author of the novel who is not responsible any more for\nthe mad knight’s follies. In this connection Diane Chaffee-Sorace  correctly points out that “Don Quixote\nand the other characters in the book are, after all, as fictitious as the tales\nof chivalry which Cervantes mocks”(p.218).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Sancho\nPanza, as a grotesque parody of a gallant squire, is as comic as his master.\nThis peasant “without much in the way of brains”(p.55) clearly sees\nthat Don Quixote is mad but believes that the self-styled knight errant can\nmake him governor of an insula. Sancho Panza enters the imaginary world of our\ningenious gentleman in search of possible gains and in Volume Two becomes,  according to the duchess, even funnier and\ncrazier than his master.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            Don Quixote can be easily manipulated by everyone who\nread about fantastic adventures of knights-errant. In this connection  Judith A. Whitenack indicates : “The\nwillful deceivers of Don Quixote, like the priest and the barber, Dorotea,\nSans\u00f3n Carrasco, the duke and duchess, and Altisidora, are also readers of the\nbooks of chivalry and thus know very well how to invent chivalric plots that\nfit Don Quixote’s expectations”.(p.62) <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            By the end of Volume One the heroic knight-errant is\nphysically broken by the collision of his imaginary world with harsh realities\nof life but does not recover his mental sanity. In Volume Two Don Quixote is\nalready a famous literary character living inside a chivalry book and has to\nfollow the turns of the plot written by others. For instance, “the duke\nand duchess deliberately abuse Don Quixote by staging events to generate his\nchivalric antics”(p.216),  remarks\nDiane Chaffee-Sorace. In this way in the duke’s castle he is not guided anymore\nby his mad imagination but is just reacting to unbelievable situations in which\nhe is involved. In this connection Anne J. Cruz remarks: “But the less\nopposition there is to his fantasies, the more lucid Don Quixote\nbecomes”(p.844).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In the artificially created fantastic world of chivalry\nbooks the protagonist’s disappointment is growing and attains its culmination\nafter his defeat by the Knight of the White Moon. Paradoxically, the literary\nDon Quixote cannot survive the fictitious adventures staged for him by\nill-intentioned playwrights. In this situation “accepting his inability to\nassume a self-invented role in his own story, Don Quixote refuses to continue\nhis portrayal of a knight-errant”(p.840), indicates Anne J. Cruz. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            This disillusionment in knight-errantry leads the\nprotagonist to mental recovery and final transformation into Alonso Quixano the\nGood who recognises his madness and blames chivalry romances for it. In this\nway, Cervantes presents chivalry books as incompatible with real life where Don\nQuixote is just a product of unbridled imagination of insane Alonso Quixano. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

            The\nhumorous effect in the novel is also created by the author’s language. In Daniel Eisenberg’s opinion, Spaniards are\ncorrect claiming that Cervantes’ verbal humour is to some extent\nuntranslatable. For instance, words (examples) can only be explained but never\ntranslated. Fortunately, I read the novel in Spanish and can better catch the\nhumoristic spirit of Cervantes’ narration.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

            In conclusion it is important to stress that Don Quixote<\/em> represents a funny parody of\nchivalry books which is intended to ridicule the knights-errant from fairytales\nso popular at that time. Today the comic character of Cervantes’ work is\nconsiderably shaded by the difficulty of reading in the Golden Age Spanish and\nby its general perception as the world classic. Definitely, for correct\nunderstanding Don Quixote<\/em> should be studied in the historical\nperspective and compared with chivalry romances parodied by its author.  In my opinion,  P.E. Russell is quite right when proving that\n for Cervantes’ contemporaries “Don Quixote<\/em> was simply a brilliantly\nsuccessful funny book”.(p.312).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 Bibliography:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cervantes,\nMiguel. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha. <\/em>Barcelona:\nAustral, Edicion Alberto Blecua & Andr\u00e9s Pozo, 2012.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Chafee-\nSorace, Diane. “Ekphrastic\nand Theatrical Interior Duplication: Irony and Verisimilitude in Don Quijote’s\nAdventure with the Basque.” Romanische Forschungen<\/em> 101 (1989):\n208-20. Print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cascardi, Anthony. “What the Canon Said.” Cervantes,\nLiterature and the Discourse of Politics<\/em> (2012): 20-48. Print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Cruz, Anne. “Don Quijote’s Disappearing\nAct.” Print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Eisenberg, Daniel. “Teaching Don Quixote as a\nFunny Book.” Modern Language Association of America<\/em> (1984): 62-68.\nPrint.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Fox,\nDian. “The Apocryphal Part One of Don Quijote.” John Hopkins\nUniversity<\/em> 100.2 (1985): 406-16. Print<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Riley, E.C. “Don Quixote: From Text to\nIcon.” Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes Society of America<\/em>\n(1988): 103-5. Print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Russell, P.E. “”Don Quixote” as a Funny\nBook.” The Modern Language Review<\/em> 64.2 (1969): Pp. 312-326. Print.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Whiteack,\nJudith. “Don Quixote and the Romances of Chivalry Once Again: Converted\nPaganos and Enamoured Magas.” Cervantes: Bulletin of the Cervantes\nSociety of America<\/em> 13.2 (1993): 61-91. Print<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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The present essay is devoted to the role of chivalry books in Cervantes’s   Don Quixote. The very plot of the novel is based on the collision of foolish fantasies contained in chivalry books with the realities of the author’s time. But Cervantes not only clearly presents to the public all drawbacks and shortcomings of chivalry […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":357,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"rop_custom_images_group":[],"rop_custom_messages_group":[],"rop_publish_now":"initial","rop_publish_now_accounts":[],"rop_publish_now_history":[],"rop_publish_now_status":"pending","_themeisle_gutenberg_block_has_review":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-356","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-articles"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/03\/Don-Quixote.jpeg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p9td7q-5K","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":360,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356\/revisions\/360"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/histonaut.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}