Chivalrous fetishes and simulacra of memory in Alonso Quijano: reflections on a potential typology of Cervantes' humour

Abstract

With quintessential mimetic attitude, Don Quijote becomes character and poses to his traveling companions certain ethical problems that, inevitably, are also aesthetic. Wanderer, uprooted, in perpetual exile from himself, he surrounds himself with fetishes and images from the past that he finds difficult to handle. We propose in this paper - only by way of example and draft - to observe this aspect within the Cervantes humorous system, in which Alonso Quijano is in a crisis with objects that he has the need to transform into the simulacra of his reading (already simulacra of a reality imagined by others).

Con disposición mimética por antonomasia, don Quijote se vuelve personaje y plantea a sus compañeros de viaje problemas éticos y estéticos a la vez. Errante, desarraigado, en exilio incesante de sí mismo, se rodea de fetiches e imágenes del pasado que él mismo maneja con dificultad. Estas reflexiones –tan solo en forma demostrativa y en estado de esbozo– quieren observar este aspecto dentro del sistema humorístico de Cervantes, en el que Alonso Quijano está en crisis con objetos que tiene la necesidad de transformar en simulacros de sus lecturas (simulacros, a su vez, de una realidad imaginada por otros).