Law and History in Cervantes' Don Quixote

By Susan Byrne

Law and History in Cervantes' Don Quixote is a deep consideration of the intellectual environment that gave rise to Cervantes' seminal work. Susan Byrne demonstrates how Cervantes synthesized the debates surrounding the two most authoritative discourses of his era - those of law and history - into a new aesthetic product, the modern novel. Byrne uncovers the empirical underpinnings of Don Quixote through a close philological study of Cervantes' sly questioning of and commentary on these fields. As she skilfully demonstrates, while sixteenth-century historiographers and jurists across southern Europe sought the philosophical nexus of their fields, Cervantes created one through the adventures of a protagonist whose history is all about justice. As such, Law and History in Cervantes' Don Quixote illustrates how Cervantes' art highlighted the inconsistencies of juridical-historical texts and practice, as well as anticipated the ultimate resolution of their paradoxes.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1442626402
• ISBN13: 9781442626409
• Release Date: August 2013
• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Length: 256 Pages
• Weight: 0.88 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.8" x 6.0" x 8.9"