Content area
Full Text
Mockery in Spanish Golden Age Literature: Analysis of Burlesque
Representation. By Kimberly Contag. Lanham, MD: UP of America, 1996. 260 pages.
Many readers of Kimberly Contag's study of the burlesque in Golden Age Spanish literature will agree that the purpose of burlesque "is to mock the outrageous and absurd pretense of everyday individuals who, through bogus subscription to commonplace ideologies, wittingly or unwittingly, make fools of themselves" (3). Many will agree also that this is done "in order to lay bare possible perspectives, ambiguities and preconceptions concerning the historical practices of those familiar ideals and standards in everyday society" (10). These statements certainly apply to Cervantes' Don Quijote de la Mancha, which Contag examines in the second half of her book (119-207), following closely the arguments of Anthony Close in The Romantic Approach to "Don Quijote. " The novel is indeed "a laughable representation of traditional values of chivalry and heroism, whereby idealistic messages, themes...