The Diabolical Adventures of Don Quixote, or Self-Exorcism and the Rise of the Novel

2002 ◽  
Vol 55 (1) ◽  
pp. 192-223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Hllaire Kallendorf
Keyword(s):  
Religious Belief ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
Autonomous Action

This study explores Cervantes’ appropriations of the terminology and imagery of Catholic exorcists and demonologists in the Spanish Golden Age. The “lucid intervals” of Don Quixote, his constant sense that someone pursues him, and his explicit voicing of the words of the exorcism ritual can only be understood fully in relation to contemporaneous religious belief. This essay also argues that the devilishly-described Don Quixote exorcized himself. This action anticipated self-exorcism as preached by the Franciscan Diego Gómez Lodosa. In Cervantes studies, Don Quixote's selfexorcism will become paradigmatic of the autonomous action of this first novelistic character.

The Spanish Baroque Novel

2018 ◽  
pp. 496-515
Author(s):  
Enrique García Santo-Tomás
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Short Story ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
The Novel ◽  
Miguel De Cervantes ◽  
Modern Culture ◽  
European Tradition ◽  
Spanish Baroque ◽  
Novela Cortesana

Don Quixote’s immediate success in Spain and abroad provides us with many tools to analyze the development of the novel in early modern culture not only from aesthetic and political perspectives, but from social and financial ones as well. This novel is also a pioneer for other reasons: the publication of its first part in 1605 coincides with what traditional historiography has considered the “Spanish Baroque,” a period covering a century of unparalleled artistic achievements but also of relentless historical decay. In masterpiece after masterpiece, through genres like the picaresque and the novela cortesana and formats like the short story and the comedia novelada, authors from Miguel de Cervantes (1547–1616) to Francisco Santos (1623–1698) elevate the novel where their Renaissance fathers had taken poetry a century earlier, to a veritable “Golden Age.” Framing the analysis in the wider European tradition, this chapter examines some of the greatest achievements of this era in Spain, taking into account those same parameters cited above that made Cervantes’s creation such a successful one.

Thine and Mine: The Spanish “Golden Age” and Early Modern Studies

PMLA ◽  
2011 ◽  
Vol 126 (1) ◽  
pp. 217-224 ◽  
Author(s):  
Margaret R. Greer
Keyword(s):  
Early Modern ◽  
Golden Age ◽  
Don Quixote ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
The Earth ◽  
Definition Of

Don Quixote, having shared the goatherds' rustic meal on his second sally, takes up a handful of acorns and launches into his lecture on the Golden Age: “Dichosa edad y siglos dichosos aquellos a quien los antiguos pusieron nombre de dorados, y no porque en ellos el oro, que en esta nuestra edad de hierro tanto se estima, se alcanzase en aquella venturosa sin fatiga alguna, sino porque entonces los que en ella vivían ignoraban estas dos palabras de tuyo y mío” ‘Blessed the time, and blessed the centuries, called by the ancients the Golden Age—and not because, then, the gold which we in our age of iron so value came to men's hands without effort, but because those who walked the earth in that time knew nothing of those two words, thine and mine.’ Bewildering as his harangue was for the listening goatherds, Don Quixote's introduction invites consideration of the location, ownership, and definition of the Spanish “Golden Age.” These aspects illuminate the challenge the period presents to early modern studies and vice versa.

Pre-Rehearsal Questions of Performance Tradition and Play-Selection

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Jeffs
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Selection Process ◽  
The United States ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
Royal Shakespeare Company ◽  
The Public ◽  
Performance Tradition ◽  
Performance Traditions ◽  
Public Consciousness

This chapter asks the questions: ‘what is the Spanish Golden Age and why should we stage its plays now?’ The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) Spanish season of 2004–5 came at a particularly ripe time for Golden Age plays to enter the public consciousness. This chapter introduces the Golden Age period and authors whose works were chosen for the season, and the performance traditions from the corrales of Spain to festivals in the United States. The chapter then treats the decision taken by the RSC to initiate a Golden Age season, delves into the play-selection process, and discusses the role of the literal translator in this first step towards a season. Then the chapter looks at ‘the ones that got away’, the plays that almost made the cut for production, and other worthy scripts from this period that deserve consideration for future productions.

Staging the Spanish Golden Age

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen Jeffs
Keyword(s):  
Golden Age ◽  
Common Goal ◽  
Collaborative Model ◽  
Spanish Golden Age ◽  
Creative Processes ◽  
Collaborative Strategies ◽  
And Performance

This book offers first-hand experiences from the rehearsal room of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s 2004–5 Spanish Golden Age season in order to put forth a collaborative model for translating, rehearsing, and performing Spanish Golden Age drama. Building on the RSC season, the volume proposes translation and communication methodologies that can feed the creative processes of working actors and directors, while maintaining an ethos of fidelity with regards to the original texts. A successful theatrical ensemble thrives on the mingling of these different voices directed towards a common goal. The work carried out during this season has repercussions in the areas comedia critics debate on the page; each of the chapters engages with one area of these overlapping disciplines. Now that the Royal Shakespeare Company’s Spanish Golden Age season has closed, this book posits a model for future productions of the comedia in English, one that recognizes the need for the languages of the scholar and the theatre artist to be made mutually intelligible by the use of collaborative strategies, mediated by a consultant or dramaturg proficient in both tongues. This model applies more generally to theatrical collaborations involving a translator, writer, and director, and is intended to be useful for translation and performance processes in any language.

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