Content area
Full Text
Abstract
In the midst of a political and literary battle, radical and anti-radical authors employed Cervantes' Don Quixote to serve their ideological purposes. In particular, anti-Jacobin novelists used quixotism to identify the illusions of the Quixote with revolutionary ideas, to condemn them as foolishness or sedition, and to use the unavoidable cure of their characters' quixotism as a call for political conservatism and for the preservation of British traditional values. The present paper will focus on three novels which were published at this time and which have at their core a political Quixote: The History of Sir George Warrington; or the Political Quixote (1797), The Infernal Quixote (1801), The Heroine, or the Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader (1813). It will highlight how quixotism becomes a foundation for the anti-radical discourse, how these novels adapt quixotism and how they contribute to the relevant and rich tradition of the reception of Don Quixote in Britain.
Keywords: quixotism, literary adaptation, intertextuality, war of ideas, radical fiction, anti-radical fiction.
Resumen
En medio de una batalla política y literaria tanto los autores radicales como los antiradicales usaron el Don Quijote de Cervantes como herramienta ideológica. En concreto, los novelistas anti-Jacobinos usaron el quijotismo para identificar las ilusiones del Quijote con los ideales revolucionarios, para condenarlos por su absurdidad o traición, y para usar la irrevocable cura de sus Quijotes como una llamada al conservatismo político y a la preservación de los valores tradicionales británicos. Este artículo analizará tres novelas publicadas en esta época y que tienen como protagonista a un Quijote político: The History of Sir George Warrington; or the Political Quixote (1797), The Infernal Quixote (1801), The Heroine, or the Adventures of a Fair Romance Reader (1813). El artículo enfatizará cómo el quijotismo se convierte en una de las bases del discurso antiradical, cómo estas novelas adaptan el quijotismo y cómo contribuyen, por tanto, a la relevante y rica tradición quijotesca en Gran Bretaña.
Palabras clave: quijotismo, adaptación literaria, intertextualidad, guerra de ideas, narrativa radical, narrativa anti-radical.
Submission: 01/12/2011- Acceptance: 13/03/2012 ES 33 (2012): 7-25
It was said by Fletcher of Saltoun, 'Let me make the ballads of a nation, and I care not who makes the laws.' Might it not be said with as much propriety,...