Adventures in Paradox
Cervantes’s Don Quixote confronts us with a series of enigmas that, over the centuries, have divided even its most expert readers: Does the text pursue a serious or comic purpose? Does it promote the truth of history and the untruth of fiction, or the truth of poetry and the fictiveness of truth its...
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| Format: | Online |
| Language: | English |
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Penn State University Press
2025
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| Online Access: | ONIX_20250417_9780271072234_3 |
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| _version_ | 1869529307635777536 |
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| author | Presberg, Charles D. |
| author_browse | Presberg, Charles D. |
| author_facet | Presberg, Charles D. |
| author_sort | Presberg, Charles D. |
| collection | Directory of Open Access Books |
| description | Cervantes’s Don Quixote confronts us with a series of enigmas that, over the centuries, have divided even its most expert readers: Does the text pursue a serious or comic purpose? Does it promote the truth of history and the untruth of fiction, or the truth of poetry and the fictiveness of truth itself? In a book that will revise the way we read and debate Don Quixote, Charles D. Presberg discusses the trope of paradox as a governing rhetorical strategy in this most canonical of Spanish literary texts. To situate Cervantes’s masterpiece within the centuries-long praxis of paradoxical discourse in the West, Presberg surveys its tradition in Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the European Renaissance. He outlines the development of paradoxy in the Spanish Renaissance, centering on works by Fernando de Rojas, Pero Mexía, and Antonio de Guevara. In his detailed reading of portions of Don Quixote, Presberg shows how Cervantes’s work enlarges the tradition of paradoxical discourse by imitating as well as transforming fictional and nonfictional models. He concludes that Cervantes’s seriocomic "system" of paradoxy jointly parodies, celebrates, and urges us to ponder the agency of discourse in the continued refashioning of knowledge, history, culture, and personal identity. This engaging book will be welcomed by literary scholars, Hispanisists, historians, and students of the history of rhetoric and poetics. |
| format | Online |
| id | doab-20.500.12854ir-158549 |
| institution | Directory of Open Access Books |
| language | eng |
| publishDate | 2025 |
| publishDateRange | 2025 |
| publishDateSort | 2025 |
| publisher | Penn State University Press |
| publisherStr | Penn State University Press |
| record_format | ojs |
| spelling | doab-20.500.12854ir-1585492025-04-18T04:01:59Z Adventures in Paradox Presberg, Charles D. Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers Literature: history and criticism Cervantes’s Don Quixote confronts us with a series of enigmas that, over the centuries, have divided even its most expert readers: Does the text pursue a serious or comic purpose? Does it promote the truth of history and the untruth of fiction, or the truth of poetry and the fictiveness of truth itself? In a book that will revise the way we read and debate Don Quixote, Charles D. Presberg discusses the trope of paradox as a governing rhetorical strategy in this most canonical of Spanish literary texts. To situate Cervantes’s masterpiece within the centuries-long praxis of paradoxical discourse in the West, Presberg surveys its tradition in Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the European Renaissance. He outlines the development of paradoxy in the Spanish Renaissance, centering on works by Fernando de Rojas, Pero Mexía, and Antonio de Guevara. In his detailed reading of portions of Don Quixote, Presberg shows how Cervantes’s work enlarges the tradition of paradoxical discourse by imitating as well as transforming fictional and nonfictional models. He concludes that Cervantes’s seriocomic "system" of paradoxy jointly parodies, celebrates, and urges us to ponder the agency of discourse in the continued refashioning of knowledge, history, culture, and personal identity. This engaging book will be welcomed by literary scholars, Hispanisists, historians, and students of the history of rhetoric and poetics. 2025-04-18T04:01:57Z 2025-04-18T04:01:57Z 2025-04-17T09:47:13Z 2000 book ONIX_20250417_9780271072234_3 https://library.oapen.org/handle/20.500.12657/100893 9780271072234 9780271020396 https://directory.doabooks.org/handle/20.500.12854/158549 eng Studies in Romance Literatures open access image/jpeg Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International https://library.oapen.org/bitstream/20.500.12657/100893/1/9780271072234.pdf Penn State University Press Penn State University Press e4e05b94-0f85-49a1-ba66-543b1dd40087 Penn State University 25eaec65-b556-4602-ba6d-ed286e74dde5 9780271072234 9780271020396 Penn State University Press 264 University Park [...] open access |
| spellingShingle | Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers Literature: history and criticism Presberg, Charles D. Adventures in Paradox |
| title | Adventures in Paradox |
| title_full | Adventures in Paradox |
| title_fullStr | Adventures in Paradox |
| title_full_unstemmed | Adventures in Paradox |
| title_short | Adventures in Paradox |
| title_sort | adventures in paradox |
| topic | Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers Literature: history and criticism |
| topic_facet | Literary studies: fiction, novelists and prose writers Literature: history and criticism |
| url | ONIX_20250417_9780271072234_3 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT presbergcharlesd adventuresinparadox |