Don Quixote as Chivalric Satire

Pages from the Approbation in Part II.

Although those who disliked legends of chivalry could not stop their circulation among the masses, they could urge the wealthier noblemen reading Don Quixote to read it as a tale demonstrating the hypocrisy of the knight-errant.  Publishing authorities, for instance, physically changed the text of the second part of the novel to emphasize that Don Quixote should be read as a satirical commentary on overly-embellished medieval legends.  The 1615 edition of Part II of Don Quixote contains an additional preface, not present in the 1605 edition of Part I, in which the Licentiate Márquez Torres praises the novel for its “bien seguido asunto” or “well-developed theme” of “extirpar los vanos y mentirosos libros de caballerias” (29) or “the eradication of worthless and mendacious books of chivalry” (Ormsby 411).   Like Cervantes’ own prologue, the additional preface in Part II prompts the reader to see the novel as a satire of chivalry rather a work that attempts to bring about nostalgia for the chivalric past.

Additionally, the approbation attempts to portray Cervantes as an author writing to further the agendas of Christianity and morality.  The Licentiate commends Cervantes not only for his effort towards “la correccion de vicios” or “the correction of vices,” but the way in which his “dulce y sabroso” “sweet…and pleasant” satire “guarda...las leyes de reprehension cristiana” (29)“respects the laws of Christian admonition” (Ormsby 411).  Licentiate Márquez Torres, along with many other “moralists and clerics” conceived of Don Quixote as a character who demonstrated the folly of a Chivalric culture that put aside Christian virtues for hedonistic vanity and romance (De Riquer 904).  In hopes of persuading other readers to read Cervantes’ novel as a Christian-influenced satire on chivalry as well, the licentiate changed the physical framing of Don Quixote with his note of approbation.

Works Cited

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de. El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote De La Mancha II. Ed. Luis Andres Murillo. Madrid: Clasicos Castalia, 1978. Print.

———. Don Quixote: The Ormsby Translation, Revised, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. Ed. Joseph R. Jones and Kenneth Douglas. Trans. John Ormsby. New York: W.W. Norton, 1981. Print.

Riquer, Martin De. "Cervantes and the Romances of Chivalry." Don Quixote: The Ormsby Translation, Revised, Backgrounds and Sources, Criticism. Ed. Joseph R. Jones and Kenneth Douglas. Trans. John Ormsby. New York : W.W. Norton, 1981. Print.