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Cervantes and the coming of modern times.

#82: April - May 2010 (Fiction)
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Robert Tulip

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Re: Cervantes and the coming of modern times.

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DWill wrote:Maybe in errantry's modern incarnation, crusaders became interested in social justice. In the original knight errantry--which, let's be clear, is entirely a literary invention--I'm not aware that these heroes were in any true sense democratic warriors, but rather vassals of the power structure.
From my post above dated 5 June
Maidens and modesty, as I have said, wandered at will alone and unattended, without fear of insult from lawlessness or libertine assault, and if they were undone it was of their own will and pleasure. But now in this hateful age of ours not one is safe, not though some new labyrinth like that of Crete conceal and surround her; even there the pestilence of gallantry will make its way to them through chinks or on the air by the zeal of its accursed importunity, and, despite of all seclusion, lead them to ruin. In defence of these, as time advanced and wickedness increased, the order of knights-errant was instituted, to defend maidens, to protect widows and to succour the orphans and the needy.
It is all about rescuing damsels in distress, with a Christian dash of prophetic care for widows and orphans.
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DWill

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Re: Cervantes and the coming of modern times.

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Quick response! I concede the point. I wish we had seen Don do more of this in the novel; it wouldn't have been as entertaining to the audience, though. He's wrong about the golden age, but it hardly matters.
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giselle

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Re: Cervantes and the coming of modern times.

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I've found DQ's talk of 'letters and arms' in the second novella (and elsewhere) really intriguing. His cogent argument belies his apparent mad state of mind and I think Cervantes is already showing that there is more to DQ than madness and buffoonery. I suppose that Cervantes is speaking directly to the reader here. I'm wondering about other reading on letters and arms? I'm thinking about the development of the state, emerging from the age of powerful church institutions.

Also, Cervantes use of 'generic' character labels, like 'judge' and 'captive' and 'priest' is interesting. I think repeated identification in this way reinforces the character role more strongly than the use of names. In contrast to modern times, where I think this idea seems a bit antiquated, a person's lineage and/or role in life would be their identity and what matters most in life. Modern, western society is so individualistic and me-centered that we expect our personal identities to be enough in most situations.
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Grim

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Re: Cervantes and the coming of modern times.

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Supposing that one is able to distinguish between the madness of Quixote as a fictional character and visionary intuition of the author - in the case of Quixote this moment of distinction implies a suspension of reality, not reality as in a definition of the world physically around us, but the form of reality as the validity of the realistic nature. Ffor the very impulse towards such a collected concept as madness to become real in a fictional context. As a result of the identification of similarly corrective if not collective actions typified by the madness we encounter inside of the very madness we imagine - to be in a state of existence without causality, undiagnosable under scrutiny, mistaken or otherwise. His every mistaken act of madness reinforces the role of the mad man in our social history to the revered position of spiritual leader, the undeniable interesting other, the platform for invention a significantly deep message from the medium of one who is neither significant nor possessing depth of character. Simplistically speaking, it seems an example of the way we model the lessons we take from the mistakes of others. On the other hand Quixote was mistaken yet thought himself honourable where we may find ourselves correct yet feel unscrupulous in the depth of a trying situations. We are deserted by our sanity when it matters most where Quixote remains firm in his tragic weakness. The inexplicability of his actions to some rational cause inspires us to, in an act of imitation like the madman's imitation of the books he had read, question the validity of our own conceptions not only of reality but of our reflexive (a la Foucault & Popper) or principal views towards phychologically motivated characters. The very stiffness of the mediums characterization forms an axiomatic essence of the Don Quixote character, the aesthetic abstinence from fluidity, the resistance to personal diagnosis challenges us. As if being agreeable is contrary to Quixote's chief characteristics.

A lover of Quixote may well take in the narrative of facts and care very little on contemplating the intention of the character (qua the author) giving preference to the amusing characterization. Perhaps in my reading the uppermost archetypal facet of Quixote will prove to be his to amuse, his madness when taken as a metaphor prosaic. Our own desire to obtain a portion of the story, to take on a shadow of Quixote's inspirational madness, to look from the book as if one will be granted the romantically forcefull capability of force fiction onto the patterns of reality with the effect translating our mundane frames of reference much in the same manner the translator has produced a modern formulation of Cervantes magnum opus. The living through of another's work to a language one is fluent, of placing one's name next to Quixote's. The illustrious form of madness described by Foucault in "Madness and Civilization" as madness by romantic identification.

"In appearance, this is nothing but the simple-minded critique of novels of fantasy, but just under the surface lies an enormous anxiety concerning the relationships, in a work of art, between the real and the imaginary, and perhaps also concerning the confused communication between fantastic invention and the fascinations of delirium."

So we can assume that the madness of Quixote will be infectious. On this assumption we can base the source of his madness not in his fictional actions, but on the readers ability to come of something out of the nothingness of Quixote's phycological non-reality. Contact with the blurred forms, of the historical contexts and spurious innovations contextualized fundamentally in our own imaginations grants a transitional suspension. This eager peering onto this very temptation, this single minded wonder in company of the preposterous, the love of embellishment. Is it not this transitional suspension, the reliance on The Book which is truth, that can no better define Quixote's conundrum and our own?

The fallacy of transitional suspension of reality seems only dramatic when the madness of the passion goes contrary to reality, any other form is simply a choice favouring punishment or despair within a dimension of error. Illusions come to their climax and turned against their inventor, the madness is the false punishment of a false solution by its own virtue bringing to light the real problem that is the taking of false illusions for truth. Foucault tells us that, “n madness equilibrium is established, but it masks that equilibrium beneath a cloud of illusion, beneath feigned disorder; the rigour of the architect is concealed beneath the cunning arrangement of these disordered violences.”
Last edited by Grim on Mon Jun 28, 2010 2:22 pm, edited 6 times in total.
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