Literary Narratives and the Cultural Imagination: King Arthur and Don Quixote as National Heroes by María Odette Canivell Arzú (review)

Richard Barber’s foreword to this monograph is correct to warn readers that ‘María Canivell offers an unusual approach to the Arthurian legend’ (p. ix). Using techniques common to comparative literature and cultural studies, Canivell-Arzú tries to find common ground between England’s national hero, King Arthur, and Don Quijote de la Mancha, whom she dubs Spain’s national hero.

The monograph is divided into an introduction, five chapters, a conclusion, and a bibliography. The introduction contrasts the historical individualism of the Spanish people with the British ability to unite when their nation is in need (p. xiii). Thanks to such an emphasis on individualism for ‘a single-minded group of intellectuals, the Generation of 1898, Quijote became the embodiment of the Spanish spirit and of its soul . . . In time, Don Quijote himself and his status as a hero overflowed national boundaries to become a universal symbol’ (emphasis mine; pp. xvi–xvii). That this monograph’s interest for Arthurian scholars may lie in what it has to say about Don Quijote, rather than about King Arthur, is immediately emphasized by its cover, which features three illustrations related to Cervantes and only one to Arthur.

Chapter One, ‘Is the Hero Still Worshipable?’ (pp. 1–39), provides the monograph’s theoretical background in terms of myth and the heroic, using multiple examples based on both Arthur and Quijote. Chapter Two, ‘To Be or Not to Be Arthur—Is That the Question?’ (pp. 41–81), traces possible evidence for an historical Arthur through Welsh sources, Latin texts, French romances, Malory, and so on and ends by surveying treatments of the legend of Arthur from the nineteenth century on.

Chapter Three, ‘In a Place of La Mancha Whose Name I Cannot Recall . . .’ (pp. 83–137), begins with a brief account of the history of the conflict between England and Spain and their respective empires. As an aside, the chapter also seems to support the much-disputed theory of the peaceful coexistence of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam during medieval Spain. The chapter then offers a detailed description of the geography of La Mancha region, including the tourist route of Don Quijote, and summarizes the various theories that have tried to solve the mystery of the place name that Cervantes did not want to recall. Canivell-Arzú finds here a parallel between Arthur’s possible historicity and the claim that Don Quijote may have been a real individual living in a La Mancha village who might have been a source of inspiration for Cervantes.

The complex chapter also offers a biography of Cervantes and an account of his literary fame, comparing Cervantes’ lengthy literary output with the enormous number of Arthurian texts. Canivell-Arzú’s goal is clear as she comes full circle at the end of this chapter: ‘In the same fashion that Arthur came to represent the ideals, needs, and hopes of Great Britain, in spite of being a regional hero who initially had been seen as the idol of a geographically bound community, Don Quijote came to symbolize the idea of Spain, both as a nation and as the fulfillment of what a nation should be. Examined under that perspective, this “new reading” of Don Quijote created something that Cervantes could not have anticipated: the representation of the collective imaginary of the Spain the writer would never manage to see’ (pp. 122–123). Indeed!

Chapter Four, ‘The Path to Herodom’ (pp. 139–185), returns to Arthur and Don Quijote but deals with them separately, repeating a number of ideas previously raised in the monograph. Canivell-Arzú is especially keen to reemphasize her points that the Generation of 1898 turned Don Quijote into ‘a national icon’ (emphasis mine; p. 159) and that ‘Don Quijote de la Mancha is not a prototype of...