Law and History in Cervantes' Don Quixote

Law and History in Cervantes Don Quixote is a deep consideration of the intellectual environment that gave rise to Cervantes seminal work. Susan Byrne demonstrates how Cervantes synthesized the debates surrounding the two most authoritative discourses of his era those of law and history into a new aesthetic product, the modern novel. Byrne uncovers the empirical underpinnings of Don Quixote through a close philological study of Cervantes sly questioning of and commentary on these fields. As she skilfully demonstrates, while sixteenth-century historiographers and jurists across southern Europe sought the philosophical nexus of their fields, Cervantes created one through the adventures of a protagonist whose history is all about justice. As such, Law and History in Cervantes Don Quixote illustrates how Cervantes art highlighted the inconsistencies of juridical-historical texts and practice, as well as anticipated the ultimate resolution of their paradoxes.