SPAN W3541 - Don Quixote de la Mancha

Institution:

Columbia University in the City of New York

Subject:

Description:

Miguel de Cervantes' El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha has been credited with giving rise to a genre (the novel), a national identity (imagine a Spain without the Quijote), and two archetypal figures who immediately leapt from Cervantes' pages into the popular and literary imaginary. It has been read as parody, satire, social critique, allegory, realist novel, psychological novel, and postmodern novel. It is always found on any list of "Great Works" yet unlike most of its neighbors on those lists, it has also been adapted into cartoons, comic books, and a Broadway musical. It is comic, it is tragic; it is erudite, it is simple; it is a picture of 17th century Spain, it is a timeless tale of the human spirit. During the course of this class, students will be able to come to their own decisions about some of these issues. Rather than attempt to abridge the work or squeeze it into part of a larger survey, we will dedicate almost our entire semester to a close reading of the work. As a supplement to the text, I will provide critical material the on literary and historical traditions which inform the work as a whole or particular episodes, but the main focus of class discussion will be the text itself. In the last weeks of the semester, we will focus on the different ways that Don Quijote has been interpreted and adapted in the centuries since its publication-by authors, visual artists, cinematographers, and philosophers--reflecting on what these interpretations say both about the work and the moment of interpretation.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.columbia.edu

Phone Number:

(212) 854-1754

Regional Accreditation:

Middle States Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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