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Academic Year 2005/2006


Cervantes: The Representation of Outsiders
FIST 234 SP

Crosslistings:
SPAN 234
COL 224

Cervantes is known chiefly for DON QUIXOTE, often described as the first modern novel and fountainhead of one of the great modern myths. In fact, besides the chivalric novel he reinvented virtually every fashionable genre of his time: verse, theater, novella, and the pastoral and Hellenistic adventure novels. In this course we will pay particular attention to the many works (particularly his less-well known plays, novellas, and final novel) that take as their chief subject the representation of outsiders: Turks, North African Arabs, Northern European "Goths", gypsies, Romans in Celtiberian Spain, unconventional women, recent Christian converts, renegades, fools or lunatics, poets, thieves, and prostitutes. We will examine how these texts are positioned with respect to what they represent. Do they suggest subversive or contestatory responses to the normative codes and practices of the official culture? Characteristic themes: social "reality" as artifact or fiction, the counterintuitive or paradoxical nature of truths, the irreducible diversity of taste and perception, the call for consent in politics and love. We will read, discuss, and write about the entire range of his work, along with a sampling of narrative, critical and philosophical responses it has inspired.

MAJOR READINGS

Miguel de Cervantes,
Selections from PROLOGUES and THE VOYAGE OF PARNASSUS
Selected Plays: THE MARVELLOUS PUPPET SHOW, THE DESTRUCTION OF NUMANTIA
Selected Novellas: THE GYPSY GIRL, THE LIBERAL LOVER, RINCONETE AND CORTADILLO, THE ENGLISH-SPANISH LADY, THE GLASS GRADUATE, THE DECEITFUL MARRIAGE, THE DIALOGUE OF THE DOGS
Selected episodes from the final novels: DON QUIXOTE and THE LABORS OF PERSILES AND SIGISMUNDA.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Four 2-3 pp. papers. One 5-7 pp. final paper. One 5-7 min. oral presentation.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: HA RLAN    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-30-2006


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