The first two chapters of the Second Part of Don Quixote: humanist culture at the service of the narrative task.

Abstract

In the first two chapters, that serve as a prelude to the Second Part of Don Quixote, we can already observe the creative path that the new literary adventure will take. As we shall point out, the large number of references, arguments and examples issued from Cervantes’ classical readings allow him to outline in these chapters the evolution of Don Quixote, who acquires a twofold profile oscillating between wise sanity and crazy wisdom. The author delves into the human conflict between thought and action or between literature and life, a conflict that also affects Cervantes himself and appears to us readers as a contradictory mixture typical of the Baroque period in which both the character and its creator cohabit.