Don Quixote is one of the most famous and widely read books in the whole world; therefore its capacity to generate critical literature seems to have no limits. Both the reading and the writing have undergone a revision that will inevitably transform the idea of literature and of the represented fiction. During the course we will focus on questions that belong to the critical canon, questions that will be discussed in the light of recent studies: The consideration that Don Quixote is the first modern novel; the fundamental idea that it breaks the inherited literary rules; its belonging to the category of playful and burlesque literature (the carnival, the parody of the classic paradigms, the ironic critique of the ideological structure, the mockery of its contemporary ones ...), etc... (1 unit)

Required text: Miguel de Cervantes, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de La Mancha, ed. Luis Andrés Murillo (Madrid: Castalia) 2 vols.