Cervantes and Don Quixote. A Socio-Historical Analysis.

33 Pages·1936·4.167 MB·English

by  Pavel I. Novitsky

CERVANTES
A N D - - -
DON QUIXOTE
A SOC~I O-HIa STORI• CAL • INTERPRETATION
BY
PAVEL I.
NOVITSKY
THE CRITICS' GROUP SERIES
NUMBER ONE--------
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CERVANTES and DON QUIXOTE
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EDITORIAL COMMITTEE
ANGEL FLORES • Chairman
CHARLES BIRCHALL
E. P. GREENE
s.
PAUL LEITNER
JOSEPH LISS
LoLA H. SACHS
ALBERT M. SHAPIRO
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CERVANTES
and
DON QUIXOTE
A Socio-Historical Interpretation
by
p A VEL I. NOVITSKY
Translated from the Russian by Sonia P'olocho'lla
Dialectical_ boo ks
THE CRITICS' GROUP
BOX 78, STATION D NEW YORK CITY, N. Y.
1 9 3 6
Copyright 1936 by THE CRITICS' GROUP
All rights reserved. No part of this monograph may be reproduce.d without
permission except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a revif!<W
to be printed in a magazine or newspaper.
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Manufactured in the United States of America
LIBERAL PRESS, INC. .....1 57 NEW YORK, N. Y.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
With this essay on Cervantes, THE CRITICS' GROUP
inaugurates a series of critical monographs, the purpose of
which is to re-evaluate outstanding figures in the field of
literature, and thereby provide a sound basis and direction
for the development of criticism in this country.
THE CRITICS' GROUP is actively interested in literary
criticism and dissatisfied with the inadequate nature of the
mass of critical work which makes no attempt to explain
the fundamental causes of the growth, fruition, and decay
of cultural epochs, nor the influence of this dynamic process
on the creators of literature. vVhile such problems as form,
style, or the personal reactions of the writer, have received
exclusive attention the question of the basic relation of
form to content has been evaded.
The increasing desire and need for a new evaluation of
our cultural heritage, for a comprehensive understanding of
the influence of social, political, and economic factors on the
literature of the age, is demonstrated by the increasing
number of books dealing with the principles and methods of
literary criticism.
In this series, we intend to publish essays on Shakespeare,
Voltaire, Goethe, Tolstoy, Joyce, and others. Through the
utilization of this type of critical approach, we hope to en
rich the understanding and enjoyment of all literature by
contemporary readers.
Don Quixote of Cervantes is the most significant literary
production of the Golden Age in Spain, that era in which
Spanish culture put forth its most precious and beautiful
blossoms. This epoch was not confined to Spain alone. It
was the time of the Renaissance, that wave which surged
north from Italy into the farthest corners of western Eu-
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rope. The rismg merchant class, proud in its growing
strength, was preparing to wrest the sceptre of power from
the irresolute and trembling hands of the feudal aristocracy.
Cervantes was a man of the Renaissance, a product of this
, struggle. He felt in his face the great wind that was tearing
into fragments the outworn feudal system which had ruled
Europe for almost a thousand years. Like the leading figures
of his day, he did not meditate in cloistered seclusion, but
played an active role both as writer and soldier in the life
of his time.
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CERVANTES
AND
DON QUIXOTE
THE AGE.
Cervantes' Don Quixote was an inevitable product of
definitely determined socio-historical conditions. This off
spring of a well-defined culture fully and clearly expressed
the true spirit of its age, effected enormous changes in the
practical life of its time and gave rise to a new literary
genre. It retains its ideological freshness to this day.
It was the age of the Renaissance that gave birth to Don
Quixote. The economic upheavals of the XVth and XVIth
centuries put an end to the reign of the military and land
owning aristocracy, scattered the nobility, formed new social
groups, and created a new cultural ideology, new tastes, and
new art-forms. With the development of a money economy,
the centers of art and culture shifted from the feudal estates
and castles to the mercantile towns. The merchants, the
artisans, and the new bourgeois intelligentsia were now the
creators and builders of life. Glamor no longer attached
itself to military glory; to fealty to God, lord and lady.
Reckless bravado and meaningless hazards ceased to be a
driving force. The animated cultural life of the cities fos
tered acute individualism.
This new psychology was characterized by a receptiveness
to all the phenomena of life, by a passionate attachment to
the sensuous joys of mortal existence, and by a growth of
initiative, resourcefulness, and enterprise. The men of this
age were of a practical turn of mind, sober in their ra-
[ 7]
tionalism and deliberate in their persistence. They wanted
to savor life at its richest and fullest. But the restrictions
of provincial life interfered with the sweep of their ener
gies. National boundaries crowded them. They wanted to
conquer the world, and they did conquer it when Flanders
and Spain became the centers of world culture and world
commerce. The opening of new worlds, through a direct
sea-route to India, and the economic disintegration of Italy,
weakened by wars and plundering activities of its princes,
broadened into the grandiose and universal the narrow
social perspective of old, patriarchal, provincial Spain. Dis
coveries, inventions, and the unearthing of vast quantities
of gold contributed to the enormous power of the merchant
bourgeoisie and enabled Spain to attain absolute supremacy.
The Spanish bourgeoisie, with confidence in its own strength,
with a proud consciousness of its historical role, and its
sensual naturalism, created new tastes in art as well as new
art-forms. Spain became the birthplace of the naturalistic
novel of manners.
THE STRUGGLE FOR A NEW GENRE.
The new literary form was not immediately victorious.
It acquired strength only after a long, intricate struggle.
The quest for new forms to supplant the old, and the bitter
struggle attending their creation are the basic forces which
come to life in times of cultural crises. At present we can
hardly quarrel with the thesis that a cultural group creates
its own specific art-forms and genres which reflect the socio
psychological characteristics of the ruling class. The "ma
jor" forms of the past were those which conformed to the
cultural maturity of the ruling class and thus, during the
period of the cultural and political deterioration of that
class, these forms begin to crumble and decay. Their place
tends to be usurped by the more flexible "minor" forms
better suited to the newly arisen class which is in the process
of accumulating cultural riches.
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