Course: Cervantes' Don Quixote with Roberto González Echevarría Dnatube
share this page with the world.
Lec 1 - Introduction - Cervantes Don Quixote
"Lec 1 - Introduction " Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The professor introduces himself and the course. He starts explaining the reasons why Don Quixote is a masterpiece and its place and relevance in the history of Western literature. He then comments on the proper pronunciation of the word "Quixote" and the reasons of mispronunciations in French and English. A full explanation of the...
Lec 2 - Don Quixote, Part I: Front Matte ...
"Lec 2 - Don Quixote, Part I: Front Matter and Chapters I-X" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) Overview: Why does the Quixote have such common currency today? González Echevarría believes that the Quixote is about the effect that literature has on its readers and about the creation of literature. Its story does not belong to any previous tradition but it is a new story, and this act of...
Lec 3 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters I- ...
"Lec 3 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters I-X (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) González Echevarría continues from the end of his last lecture by referring to the self invention and self legitimation of Don Quixote, which is the most innovative aspect of the book. The main character is, as it is suggested in the famous first sentence of the book, beyond family and social...
Lec 4 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XI-XX
"Lec 4 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XI-XX" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) González Echevarría starts out by commenting on what he calls the two overarching plots of the Quixote: the story about the writing of the novel, and the story about the mad hidalgo. The first is based upon several levels of narratives that distance Cervantes from his own creation. He does so as the painter...
Lec 5 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XI ...
"Lec 5 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XI-XX (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) After pointing out the prosaic world depicted in the Quixote with subtle but sharp irony, González Echevarría analyzes the episode at Juan Palomeque's inn, which may well be seen as a representation of the whole first part of the novel. The episodes at the inn are an instance of the social being...
Lec 6 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XX ...
"Lec 6 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXI-XXVI" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) Important meditations about the nature of literature and the real take place in the chapters commented on in this lecture. Reality appears strange enough even to Don Quixote in the episode of the corpse, where death becomes a presence. Don Quixote appears aware that his adventures are being written as we read...
Lec 7 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XX ...
"Lec 7 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXI-XXVI (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) Professor González Echevarría resumes his commentary on the galley slaves episode by talking about Ginés' cross-eyedness as a metaphor for congenital internal perspectivism. This is a new model of conflictive being, capable of seeing simultaneously in two ways. The character among the galley slaves...
Lec 8 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XX ...
"Lec 8 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXVII-XXXV" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) In this part of the Quixote, Cervantes makes a boast of narrative mastery by combining the sequential structure of the chivalric romance with the multiple story design of collections of novellas. The stories invented by the characters, who create meta-characters, lead to the revelation of other stories not...
Lec 9 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XX ...
"Lec 9 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXVII-XXXV (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The insertion of the Novel of the Curious Impertinent at the end of part one of the Quixote may be explained by Cervantes' intention of meshing both the forms of the chivalric romance and of the collection of Italian novelle. The result, though awkward, leads to the creation of the modern novel. This...
Lec 10 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters X ...
"Lec 10 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXXVI-LII" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) González Echevarría starts by commenting on three of the returns and repetitions (characters who reappear and incidents that, if not repeated, recall previous incidents) that take place at the end of part one of the Quixote and which give density to the fiction: the galley slaves, Andrés, and the...
Lec 11 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters X ...
"Lec 11 - Don Quixote, Part I: Chapters XXXVI-LII (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The lecture focuses on the ending of the first part of the Quixote, which for the seventeenth-century reader was, simply, the end because no second part existed yet or was envisioned. Probably because it represents a difficult process (since the Quixote is not an ordinary story with a clear...
Lec 12 - Don Quixote, Introduction to Pa ...
"Lec 12 - Don Quixote, Introduction to Part II" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) González Echevarría talks about the transition that we, as present-day readers undergo, between Part I, published in 1605, and Part II of the Quixote, published in 1615. He first reviews the grand themes of part one: 1) ambiguity and perspectivism, 2) the idea that the self can impose its will but only to a...
Lec 13 - Don Quixote, Part II: Front Mat ...
"Lec 13 - Don Quixote, Part II: Front Matter and Chapters I-XI" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The modern novel that develops from the Quixote is essentially a political novel and an urban genre dealing with cities. In Part II there is a sense of the text being written and performed in the present because it incorporates current events, such as the expulsion of the moriscos, a critic of...
Lec 14 - Don Quixote, Part II: Front Mat ...
"Lec 14 - Don Quixote, Part II: Front Matter and Chapters I-XI (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) Commentary of the key concepts of Spanish Baroque, desengaño, introduces González Echevarría's suggestion that the plot of the Quixote follows a Baroque unfolding from deceit (engaño) to disillusionment (desengaño). The discussion of Don Quixote and Sancho about knight-errants and...
Lec 15 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 15 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XII-XXI" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) González Echevarría starts by reviewing the Spanish baroque concept of desengaño. He proposes that the plot of the Quixote and some of the stories in part two unfold from deceit (engaño) to disillusionment (desengaño). He then turns his attention to Auerbach and Spitzer's essays included in the Casebook...
Lec 16 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 16 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XII-XXI (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The loose format of the Quixote allows for the incorporation of different stories and texts, such as the Camacho's wedding, which was going to be a play. The episode, a form of epithalamium based on the myth of Pyramus and Thisbe, states one of the main themes of part two, that art corrects nature. As...
Lec 17 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 17 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXII-XXXV" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) This lecture covers two of the most important episodes of Part II of the Quixote: the descent into Montesinos cave and Master Peter's puppet show. The first one, on the one hand, engages the main literary topics and sources of the novel. Cervantes, by submitting Don Quixote's fantasies to natural law,...
Lec 18 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 18 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXII-XXXV (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The fact that the second part of the Quixote is the first political novel is manifested in several ways. The second part adds (taken from the picaresque novel) geographic concreteness to its realistic portrayal of Spanish life and sociopolitical background to the novel: the episode of the boat shows...
Lec 19 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 19 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXXVI-LIII" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) The developments of Part II of the Quijote are based and measured against Part I. In the episode of the afflicted matron, the story about Countess Trifaldi, and Clavileño, we see these expansions (the presence of love and death, the black color, the monsters, the clashing elements, the cross-dressing, the...
Lec 20 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 20 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters XXXVI-LIII (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) According to González Echevarría, Don Quixote's epic task within the novel is to control his madness by accepting the vanity of his dreams and the futility of his quest. The protagonist's change started with Sancho's enchantment of Dulcinea, and peaked in the cave of Montesinos. Now, he displays...
Lec 21 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 21 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LIV-LXX" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) Three issues related to the impending end of the novel define this lecture. The first one is improvisation, as we see it in the confluence of actual geography with current historical events: the expulsion of the moriscos, and the Turkish and Huguenots menaces. With the story of Ricote, a kind of morisco novel...
Lec 22 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 22 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LIV-LXX (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) As we approach the end of the novel, Cervantes compresses and combines elements from different types of romances (morisco, Greek, pastoral) in what seems to be an attempt to create a new literary genre; the modern novel. In the episodes in Barcelona, the prank with the talking head makes literal the...
Lec 23 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters ...
"Lec 23 - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LXXI-LXXIV" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) González Echevarría focuses on the end of the Quixote. He starts referring to Cervantes' humor, which allows us to see humanity in contrast to the mad hero and thus appreciate everyone's folly. The novel's plot, with Don Quixote's repeated returns home, suggests that life consists of going and coming...
Lec Last - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapter ...
"Lec Last - Don Quixote, Part II: Chapters LXXI-LXXIV (cont.)" Cervantes' Don Quixote (SPAN 300) Would have Cervantes deserved such recognition, had he not written the Quixote? The answer is no. However, he would probably be remembered for some of his other works. Two of The Exemplary Stories, significantly connected together, are commented in this lecture. "The Deceitful Marriage"...
Cervantes' Don Quixote with Roberto González Echevarría
Source of these courses is Yale
The course facilitates a close reading of Don Quixote in the artistic and historical context of renaissance and baroque Spain. Students are also expected to read four of Cervantes' Exemplary Stories, Cervantes' Don Quixote: A Casebook, and J.H. Elliott's Imperial Spain. Cervantes' work will be discussed in relation to paintings by Velázquez. The question of why Don Quixote is read today will be addressed throughout the course. Students are expected to know the book, the background readings.
Yale Website: http://www.dnatube.com/school/yale
COURSE NAME: Cervantes' Don Quixote with Roberto González Echevarría