Don Quixote as a Romantic Literary Critic -- Mimetic Theory and Literary Study

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Date Posted: 07:31:56 01/23/08 Wed
Author: Kiernan
Subject: Don Quixote as a Romantic Literary Critic

In the introduction to "To Double Business Bound," Girard says that Romanctics who turn literature into an absolute believe in "the ultimately inconsequential nature of all works of art as far as real knowledge is concerned." They don't believe that art is real, that it genuintely treats of human relations. In Part I, Chapter XXV of "Don Quixote," the Don reveals himself to be one of these truly skeptical critics. He begins the chapter by praising Amadis of Gaul, saying that he is the best knight and that he will emulate him in order to rise to the height of his profession.

But on pg. 216 he says, "Do you really elieve that the Amaryllises, Phyllises, Sylvias, Dianas, Galateas, Alidas and others that fill books, ballads, barbers' shops and theatre states were real ladies of flesh and blood, and the mistresses of those that praise and have praised them? No, of course not, the poets themselves invent most of them, to have something to write their poetry about, and to make people think that they are in love and that they have it in the to be lovers. And so it is enough for me to be convinced that the good Aldonza Lorenzo is beautiful and virtuous, and the question of lineage is not very important, because nobody is going to be enquiring into it to see whether she is entitled to robes of nobility, and for me she is the greatest princess in the world."

Hweat! pointed out in an earlier post that, beyond merely imitating Launcelot and Guinevere, Paulo and Francesca are imitating an idealized view of love embodied in that story. Here, Don Quixote does the same thing with Dulcinea del Toboso - she serves his purpose of having an maiden to idealize. He does not believe in any inherent qualities in her, however; in a manner of speaking, he does not even believe that she exists. She is a mere manifestation of his own desire to prove that he has it in him to be a lover, as he says of the poets. Thus, he knows that his interpretation of her - his reading of her, if you will - is false, yet he persists in it because it aids his understanding of himself. Such an example leads into questions of our individual methods of reading and of viewing ourselves. Don Quixote seems so caught in himself and how he wishes to seem himself that his readings of others seem to be only manifestations of how he wishes to be able to view himself. Though he knows that these readings are false, he clings to them out of vanity - like Girard's literary critics who cling to their readings, not because they believe in their actual significance, but because such a reading tell them something that they wish to know for their own lives.

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