SOURCE: Close, Anthony. “Don Quixote as Burlesque Novel.” In The Romantic Approach to Don Quixote: A Critical History of the Romantic Tradition in ‘Quixote’ Criticism, 1-28. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1977.

In the following excerpt, Close takes issue with the Romantic approach to Don Quixote that was established in the 1800s and views the work rather as a burlesque, a study of character, and a precursor of the modern novel.

Introduction

Most criticism of Don Quixote since about 1800 has followed the main lines of the approach to the novel initially adopted by the German Romantics. This I call the Romantic approach to Don Quixote. What follows is a critical history of it. I believe it to be misguided in each of its basic tendencies. These are:

• a) the idealisation of the hero and the denial of the novel's satiric purpose;
• b) the belief that the novel is symbolical and...