San Antonio College Library

The story tells of a bachelor, Calisto, who uses the old procuress Celestina to start an affair with Melibea, an unmarried girl kept in seclusion by her parents. Though the two use the rhetoric of courtly love, sex - not marriage - is their aim. When he dies in an accident, she commits suicide. The name Celestina has become synonymous with "procuress" in Spanish, especially an older woman used to further an illicit affair, and is a literary archetype...

Tells the adventures of an eccentric hidalgo who adopted the name of Don Quixote de la Mancha when his brain became addled from reading too many romances on knighthood. Don Quixote has known most of the misfortunes that can befall a man and yet remains of good humor and stout heart.

The purpose of this book is to help the English-speaking reader, with an interest in Spanish literature but without specialised knowledge of Cervantes, to understand his long and complex masterpiece: its major themes, its structure, and the inter-connections between its component parts. Beginning from a review of 'Don Quixote's' relation to Cervantes's life, literary career, and its social and cultural context, Anthony Close goes on to examine the...