Don Quixote’s penitence and the modern literary experience

Abstract

The episode of Sierra Morena, in the Quixote, offers important keys to understand in what sense Cervantes’ novel can be considered the prototype of the modern literary work. Don Quixote’s penitence can be understood to mean a prefiguration of the modern literary experience and don Quixote, the «figure» (Auerbach) of the modern writer. The hypothesis has been developed by analyzing three issues: first, the problem of imitation, a specifically literary subject of the episode, in relation to the parody of the chivalric romance and its «tactical simulation» (Robert); second, the singular penitence of don Quixote, in which a paradoxical experience of the absolute as literary absolute is put into play; finally, the specifically literary identity that don Quixote acquires in that episode, by which it is possible to interpret the cervantine hero as the prime figure of the writer.