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Don Quixote as Anti-Romance |
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Key elements in a medieval romance: |
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| Romance stresses tales involving knightly adventures |
| Romance's values are those of a chivalric age |
| Motivations include courtly love, pious faith, and desire for deeds of valor |
| Romance stresses the values of fantasy and mystery |
| Romance tends to light-hearted |
| Romance tends to be loose in structure |
Cervantes' Don Quixote reverses these values yet also ironically reaffirms some of them: |
| Don Quixote offers tales involving knightly adventures, but they are illusionary and Quixote's adventure always seems to result in disgrace for Sancho and himself. |
| Quixote's values are those of a chivalric age, but no one else's is. Chivalric values are out-of-place at best; at worst they result in injustice and harm. Yet, they also haunt the scenes; perhaps, suggesting what might be. |
| Quixote's motivations include courtly love, pious faith, and desire for deeds of valor. But each of these is overturned. Dulcinea is a farm hand. Quixote's faith seems more like madness, and his valorous deeds include tilting at windmills and attacking herds of sheep. |
| Cervantes stresses the dangers of fantasy. Quixote at least deserves our laughter and pity. Does he offer anything more? |
| Don Quixote tends to light-hearted because it stresses the disparity between Quixote's dreams and reality, as well as Sancho's low class humor. |
| Don Quixote tends to be loose in structure; it moves from episode to episode with little overall structure or plan. |