- Instructor
- Steven Wagschal
- Location
- BH 232
- Days and Times
- MW 1:15P-2:30P
- Course Description
Prerequisite: HISP-S 328.
If you read Spanish, then you are prepared to read one of the most important and potentially life-altering books every written! Take it from Thomas Jefferson, who read Cervantes' novel in the original and counseled his daughters to learn Spanish so they could too. Jefferson and the founding fathers often referred to the current events of their day through the prism of conversations between the gentleman from La Mancha and his squire Sancho Panza. Mary Wollstonecraft viewed the fight for feminism as “Quixotic,” while her daughter, Mary Shelley, compared herself to Sancho. Or take it from Sigmund Freud, who learned Spanish so that he could read Don Quixote in the original. In fact, Freud was so obsessed with Cervantes that, in letters to a friend, he would regularly sign his name "Berganza" after one of the Spanish author’s characters. John Steinbeck named his truck "Rocinante" after Don Quixote's horse. When asked about influences on his film-making, Martin Scorcese explained that Cervantes did “everything” first. Don Quixote continues to be a crucial point of reference for modern and postmodern culture, with films, novels, posters, restaurants, bars, operas, ballets, video games, musicals, theatrical works, documentaries, travel routes, paintings, sculptures, cocktails, comic books, ceramics, and more all bearing the name or the profound influence of Cervantes' creation. This course explores the complex fictional worlds of Miguel de Cervantes’ El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha. We will read the complete novel in the original language, in its social, cultural and historical contexts, and investigate the questions it continues to raise about human existence, literary creation, and self-consciousness in fiction, as well as explore.
Note: This course meets with S498 (30571)
This course carries CASE A&H Breadth of Inquiry credit.
HISP-S 450 #30374 1:15P - 2:30P MW BH 232 Prof. Steve Wagschal
Don Quijote
The College of Arts