Don Quixote: Narrative Structure and Golden Age Context

Themes and Meaning of the Work

At first, it was seen as a satirical comic book; however, after the Romantics analyzed it, the novel Don Quixote was considered a symbol of the conflict between the real and the ideal. Among the most important themes of literature, the hero goes mad when he confuses life with literature and sets out to travel the world as a knight errant.

Review, Reading, and Writing

• Review: The book discusses literature; the priest and the canon engage in dialogue about books of chivalry and the theater, while the priest and the barber prosecute the books of Don Quixote.
• Read: In the novel, we read literature: the priest reads at the inn, the Dukes have read the story of Don Quixote, and other characters have read the book by Avellaneda.
• Writing: Don Quixote is written into literature: Ginés, the Canon, and even Cervantes himself are mentioned. These elements are interspersed and satirize the literary styles of the period.

Storytelling and Storytellers

Main narrative: This possesses a higher level external to the history and is omniscient; the narrator uses the first person to designate himself as directly responsible for the narrative. In Chapter IX, he is introduced as a character to tell how he found and edited the manuscript of Don Quixote.

Fictional Authors and Narrator-Characters

Fictional Authors: The most important is the Arabic historian Cide Hamete Benengeli, the author of the found manuscript. The original is translated by a Moorish translator of Aljamiado. Narrator-characters: The characters tell stories of various kinds in which they perform different functions. The stories are interspersed with narrator-characters who act as witnesses, others who participate in the stories, and some who are the protagonists.

Types of Discourses and Languages

Don Quixote, as the first modern novel, features a polyphonic structure—a work in which there are many different languages.

• Narrator's discourse: This consists of comments by the narrator both on the action and on the discourse of the fictional authors.
• Speeches of the characters: These appear within the dialogues.
• Speeches of the characters-narrators: These are introduced when the various characters involved tell their own stories.

Don Quixote's language is archaic, reflecting a chivalric style and oratory, though it suits the conversational style when necessary. In the speech of Sancho Panza, the most striking features are the proverbs.

Baroque Culture and the Golden Age

The crisis of the seventeenth century coincided with a period of great cultural splendor; therefore, this period, together with the Renaissance, is known as the Golden Age. Cultural manifestations are influenced by the Spanish Baroque and the Catholic principles of the Counter-Reformation.