San Antonio College Library

In this important book, P.E. Russell interprets Don Quixote as a parody of chivalric romance that rapidly outgrew the traditional limits of parody. He discusses the madness of Don Quixote, the folly of Sancho Panza, the types of comic technique employed in the book, and the invalid reinterpretation of the work as a fundamentally tragic tale.

The famous writer challenges popular views of Cervantes' classic masterpiece in nine discourses based on lectures given at Harvard from 1951-1952.

Traces the history of chivalric fiction in Western Europe, from early Celtic tales to the conflict between romance and realism in Don Quixote. Looks at similar rhetorical devices in the works of Chretien de Troyes and in Don Quixote, and provides a new formula for reading Don Quixote, one that reinterprets the question of what makes or unmakes a hero, what is free will in relation to destiny, and how the language of women differs from that of men....

Widely regarded as one of the funniest and most tragic books ever written, Don Quixote chronicles the adventures of the self-created knight-errant Don Quixote of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza, as they travel through sixteenth-century Spain.