Today, as cultural studies are increasingly marked by identity politics (race, gender, ethnicity), and issues of 'alterity' and 'hybridity' are brought to the fore, Cervantes's writing has become a field of contention between critics who adhere to traditional humanist and/or historicist readings and those whose work is largely informed by avantgarde, poststructuralist theory. Its antiauthoritarian bent has been a source of inspiration to scores of well-known writers, among them the Mexican novelist Carlos Fuentes, who has written eloquently on Cervantes's critique of reading, and the Czech Milan Kundera, who reminds us that with Don Quixote the world ceases to be a given and becomes a problem.

325),Įncompassing a diversity of voices, social speech types, and even languages (Bakhtin, pp. Don Quixote has been called 'the classic and purest model of the novel as genre' (Bakhtin, p. The madman who tilted at windmills and read the world in accordance with the conventions of books of chivalry was to become a symbol of spiritual values and, in the case of Spain, the embodiment of a national ethos (Close, p. Read largely as a funny book in Cervantes's time, the Romantics and their later brethren were to focus on Don Quixote's pathos and his quest for impossible dreams. Cervantes is known especially for his novel Don Quixote (1605 1615). CERVANTES, MIGUEL DE ( Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1547 –1616)ĬERVANTES, MIGUEL DE ( Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra 1547 –1616), Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet.

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