TABLE OF CONTENTS
Introduction: Great and humble. Historical perspective. Desacralization of violence. The
end of the traditional antiheroe. The genius of the story. Cervantes' compassion.
Don Quixote's old understanding. Comparison with Sophocles' Oedipus, King,
symbol of a genre. Between truth and concealment. By way of contrast:
Avellaneda's Quixote. Deceiving singularity or the desire of the crowd.
Chapter I. A story "naked and unadorned": The Prologue to Part I. The "hermetic" or
"intranscendental" character of the modern novel. Literature desacralized. The
case of the Persiles.
Chapter II. The picaresque point of reference I: Guzm n de Alfarache. From folklore to
literature. Guzm n's conversion. The fundamental contradiction. The lesson from
Saint Augustin's Confessions. The victimizing character of Aristotelian or poetic
catharsis.
Chapter III. The picaresque point of reference II: El Buscón. Aesthetic detachment or
cruelty? The spirit of carnival. A critique of Mikhail Bakhtin. The paradox of El
Buscón. Satan expelling Satan.
Chapter IV. Don Quixote's madness and modernity: Old madness and the sacred.
Desacralization of madness. Don Quixote, "mad in patches." A critique of
Foucault's historical view of madness in reference to Cervantes and Shakespeare.
Don Quixote's cure and his death. A reflection on Quixotic admirers and self-
seeking liberators.
Chapter V. De te fabula narratur: The compassionate versus the poetic view. Contagious
singularity and the power of self-deception. Don Quixote's singularity in the eyes
of Am¿rico Castro.
Chapter VI. Unamuno's enthusiastic quijotismo and the envy of Cain: Unamuno's heroic
Don Quixote. A hero is not a saint: Unamuno versus Kierkegaard. Unamuno's
Cain. Don Quixote in the eyes of Unamuno's Cain.
Chapter VII. From Don Quixote's penitence to the episode of the lion: Radiant Amadís
in a world full of enchanters. "Lion cubs you say to me, and at this time of day?"
An antiheroic gentleman for an antiheroic lion. Natures's innocence and Don
Quixote's paranoia. The historical background. Don Diego's exemplary behavior
in context. Conclusion: The intersubjective place of madness.
Chapter VIII. Unamuno's modern Cain and the story of El curioso impertinente (The
story of foolish curiosity): Cain's desire. The plot of Abel S nchez. Analysis of El
curioso. Historical precedents: The story of King Candaules. The Orlando furioso
and the magic goblet. The Jealous Extremaduran. Cervantes' Galatea: "it
proposes something, but concludes nothing."
Chapter IX. The pastoral precedent: General observations. The story of Selvagia. "Amor
loco.yo por vos y vos por otro" (foolish love... I for you, you for another).
Absent Diana. Gil Polo's Diana. Back to Don Quixote.
Chapter X. The desire of the obstacle: Challenging adventures. The inherent failure. Don
Quixote, the snob. From knightly to pastoral madness. The story of Marcela and
Grisóstomo. The story of Cardenio, et al. Logical progression among the three
main interpolated stories. Don Fernando. The desire of the obstacle and mimetic
theory.
Chapter XI. Juan Palomeque's inn: Providential coincidences. Cervantes' providential
realism versus Heliodorus' poetic providence. The story of the Christian captive
in contrast to all the other stories. "Where the remarkable events at the inn
continue." The "basihelm" (baciyelmo).
Chapter XII. Tricksters tricked: From the First to the Second Part. The obstacle yet
again. Trickster Sansón Carrasco. Trickster Altisidora. Tricksters tricked and the
transition from antihero to hero. Cervantes, the authorial trickster, before his own
character. A contrary example: Unamuno's Niebla. Ancestral echoes. Don
Quixote's transparent depth.