Law and History in Cervantes' Don Quixote (Toronto Iberic) - Softcover

Byrne, Susan

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1442626402 ISBN 13: 9781442626409

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2013

Synopsis

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.

About this title

About the Author:

Susan Byrne is an associate professor in the Department of Spanish and Portuguese at Yale University.

Review:

‘Byrne’s erudite and thoroughly researched book is an indisputable contribution to Cervantes’ studies.’

(Mary Quinn Bulletin of Spanish Studies, vol 93:01:2016)

‘Susan Byrne succeeds in the ever-more-challenging task of shedding new light on Don Quixote through her careful tracing of the ways in which his dialogue with Giovio and Baeza helped Cervantes to forge the modern novel.’ (Barbara Simerka Renaissance Quarterly vol 66:04:2013)

‘Byrne's study and her conclusions constitute an essential contribution toward our understanding of the conception of the Quijote as a fully modern work.

This is, conclusively, another must-read study for all Cervantistas and for all scholars of the history of the Spanish novel.’

(J. A. G. Ardila Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90.7:2013)

‘This is a substantive work of investigation, analysis, and metacriticism. Highly recommended.’ (E.H. Friedman Choice Magazine, vol 50:08:2013)

‘Learned and insightful, Susan Byrne’s book provides a new look at Cervantes’s masterpiece through the lenses of law and history in order to highlight and clarify how the novel engages in specific arguments that foreground these topics. Her book is one more testimony of Cervantes’s wide learning and willingness to engage in the most important issues of his day as he composed what came to be considered as the first modern novel.’

(Frederick A. de Armas Revista de Estudios Hispanicos)

‘Susan Byrne’s scholarship is dispassionate and informative, refreshingly unlike interpretations of Cervantes that read like baseball rule books riddled with Freudian gobbledygook. She strikes an enviable balance between sophisticated analysis and warm exposition.’ (Eric C. Graf Modern Philology, 17 June 2014)

‘Byrne's study and her conclusions constitute an essential contribution toward our understanding of the conception of the Quijote as a fully modern work. This is, conclusively, another must-read study for all Cervantistas and for all scholars of the history of the Spanish novel.’

(J. A. G. Ardila Bulletin of Hispanic Studies 90.7:2013)

About this edition

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2013
• ISBN 10: 1442626402
• ISBN 13: 9781442626409
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 256