"Don Quixote" and the War of the Alpujarras
The Historical Debasement of Chivalry as a Correlative to Its Literary Parody
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 9869006 |
|---|---|
| Authors | William Childers (0000-0001-5109-4981, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2005 |
| Volume | 88 |
| Issue | 1 |
| Pages | 11 |
| Publication date | 2005-03-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | No |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Hispania (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0018-2133 • E-ISSN: 2153-6414 |
| Publisher | JSTOR (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.2307/20063071 |
| OpenAlex | W2005522918 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 5 |
Don Quixote parodies the anachronism of chivalric romance: individual on horseback had long since lost their military significance. Yet the ideology of chivalry still served to support the dominant classes. This contradic tion came to the fore in the War of the Alpujarras, in which thousands of Spanish knights deserted once they had as much booty as they could carry home, while other caballeros aventureros went down to Granada on their own initiative to sack Morisco towns. The caballeros de cuant?a, obligated to keep a horse and armor always ready to serve the king, were shamefully unprepared. Yet the very same men who shirked their duty later sued for their back wages. In their ludi crous twisting of the language of knightly service, they represent a real-life parody of chivalry as absurd as any Don Quixote could dream up. But in their greed and self-interested behavior, they more resemble Sancho Panza
Art · Chivalry · Correlative · Linguistics · Literature · Early Modern Spanish Literature · Hispanic-African Historical Relations · History · Medieval Iberian Studies · Philosophy
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |