True Lies: Tweaking the Saints' Tales in DON QUIJOTE

FAIN: FT-53266-05

Patricia E. Grieve
Columbia University (New York, NY 10027-7922)

This proposal is for one long chapter in a book project on how both Cervantes and Maria de Zayas creatively manipulate saints' lives and other kinds of spiritual writings in their own secular stories. Specifically, in DON QUIJOTE (1605), the women whose stories we hear have much in common with tales of saintly heroines. Because of the tremendous power and impact of religious traditions on the daily lives of 17th-c. Spaniards, I argue that stories we no longer recognize are at play in the work, enabling Cervantes to experiment with social issues about women, and to create ironic, subversive and parodic mini-tales.