This study examines the comic vision of Miguel de Cervantes as manifested in his masterpiece, Don Quixote de la Mancha. Employing theories stemming principally from Mikhail Bakhtin and Michel Foucault, I look at how Cervantes creates humor in his novel and how, in turn, his novel fits into the long tradition of comic literature. The heart of this study is Cervantess use of carnivalesque laughter and how it showcases the various cultural identities related to the Spanish Baroque. I focus on reading Don Quixote as forming part of the history of Menippean satire and likewise its relationship to carnivalesque humor. This type of humor intimates the defense of a different type of world that is not dominated by one particular identity or power (whether political, philosophical, religious, or even literary) and as a result is destabilizing in nature. Journey is an essential characteristic to both carnivalesque laughter and Menippean satire, because it necessitates displacement as well as creates spaces for the mixing and clashing of identities. Because it is also a central motif throughout Don Quixote, I examine its effect on the text and how it functions to create different types of humor. The Avellaneda-Cervantes dynamic is another important aspect in understanding the direction of comicality in Don Quixote, in that Cervantess humor was multi-directional whereas Avellanedas tended to accentuate laughter emanating from the top down. Avellaneda represents the type of humor associated with hierarchy and power whereas Cervantess has leveled the playing field. I not only analyze the authors differences with regard to comic strategies, but emphasize the importance of reading both works in order to better understand how Cervantess comic vision incorporates carnivalesque laughter and therefore enriches his text. The relationship between madness and laughter is another avenue of discussion in this study and I investigate the historical and ethical dimensions of laughter, especially with regard to madness from the vantage point of Erasmus and Humanism.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:VANDERBILT/oai:VANDERBILTETD:etd-12022007-214100 |
| Date | 13 December 2007 |
| Creators | Bauer, Rachel Noël |
| Contributors | Dr. Edward H. Friedman, Dr. Earl Fitz, Dr. Andres Zamora, Dr. William Franke |
| Publisher | VANDERBILT |
| Source Sets | Vanderbilt University Theses |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | http://etd.library.vanderbilt.edu/available/etd-12022007-214100/ |
| Rights | unrestricted, I hereby certify that, if appropriate, I have obtained and attached hereto a written permission statement from the owner(s) of each third party copyrighted matter to be included in my thesis, dissertation, or project report, allowing distribution as specified below. I certify that the version I submitted is the same as that approved by my advisory committee. I hereby grant to Vanderbilt University or its agents the non-exclusive license to archive and make accessible, under the conditions specified below, my thesis, dissertation, or project report in whole or in part in all forms of media, now or hereafter known. I retain all other ownership rights to the copyright of the thesis, dissertation or project report. I also retain the right to use in future works (such as articles or books) all or part of this thesis, dissertation, or project report. |
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