Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination: King Arthur and Don Quixote as National Heroes

295 Pages·2018·2.08 MB·English

by  María Odette Canivell Arzú

Literary Narratives and
the Cultural Imagination

Literary Narratives and
the Cultural Imagination
King Arthur and Don Quixote
as National Heroes
María Odette Canivell Arzú
Foreword by
Richard Barber
LEXINGTON BOOKS
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Cover images © MaewChansilpa/iStock/Getty Images (windmills),
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ISBN 9781498536950 (cloth : alk. paper)
ISBN 9781498536967 (electronic)
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Contents
List of Figures vii
Foreword ix
Acknowledgments xi
Introduction: 35 Million Kings xiii
1 Is the Hero Still Worshipable? 1
2 To Be or Not to Be Arthur: Is That the Question? 41
3 In a Place of la Mancha Whose Name I Cannot Recall . . . 83
4 The Path to Herodom 139
5 How to Win Friends and Influence Others 187
Conclusion 227
Bibliography 233
Index 247
About the Author 253
v

List of Figures
Figure 1.1 Panorama of Nineteenth-Century Bavarian
Neuschwanstein Castle 22
Figure 3.1 Baptismal Birth Certificate of Juan Carrasco 93
Figure 4.1 King Arthur, from the Nine Heroes Tapestries 155
Figure 4.2 “El sueño de la razón produce monstruos,”
Los Caprichos by Francisco De Goya 171
vii

Foreword
María Canivell offers an unusual approach to the Arthurian legend, by look-
ing at his role as a national hero, and comparing it to Spanish attitudes to the
figure of Don Quijote. Heroes of this kind are not fashionable: they are much
too long-lived, and have none of the instant gratification provided by the
heroes of social media. But this is perhaps all the more reason why we should
look at them again. There are both contrasts and parallels in the comparison
of Arthur, whose historical and mythical origins lie in an obscure period of
history, with the Spanish hero, deliberately created by one man, Miguel de
Cervantes, whose origins are clearly recorded. The classic work of Lord
Raglan provides the defining framework for this analysis.
This perspective on Arthur and Quijote as heroes leads on to an analysis of
the characteristics of a national hero, and what it tells us about the countries
that created the two of them. The question of Arthur’s existence as a real his-
torical figure is of course relevant to this; though it is impossible to resolve,
the various theories are laid out, including the idea that he may have been
an anthropomorphized minor Celtic deity. The discussion of the romances
of Arthur which follows is an essential link to the creation of Don Quijote.
In Cervantes’s novel, Quijote is a fictional literary figure for whom reality
is exactly this world of romance. Whereas the image of Arthur is built up over
a long time span, the historical context for Cervantes is much more precise,
the years of the war between Spain and England and the attempted invasion
of England by the Spanish armada. Quijote is “more than a literary creation,”
and has very real roots in la Mancha.
Moving on to the spreading of their fame and reputation spread, María
Canivell examines this process as a form of “marketing,” while bearing in
mind the work of Joseph Campbell on the relation between stories of heroes
and mythology. The ways in which the tales about them were celebrated in
ix