Escarafunchando Quixote: Indícios de sua biblioteca

Abstract

The present essay has as a goal to contribute with one of the rereading paths (there are many) of Dom Quixote de la Mancha. The focus reflects on the reading of the so called “cavalry books” that bewitched him, as a voracious reader of the gender, to the point it  made  him  get  into  madness.  But  it  is  not  about  an  evaluation  ofQuixote character, under the effect of the referred reading, once, for sure,  there  are  many  analyzes  about  this  matter.  The  interest  is  on the   search   of   comprehending   the   importance   of   this   cavalry literature, under the fact of its influence on the readers’ mind, specially  on  those  who  had  an  important  role  on  the  colonization process  and  the  occupation  of  Americas.  The  ideological  content  of this    literature    justifies    violence    against    the    gentiles    (moors, indigenous),  under  the  bless  of  kings  and  popes,  at  the  same  time that, to attract adherence and workforce to the conquests, stimulate the  illusion  onthe  existence  of  mysterious  islands,  silver  and  gold mines  and  other  paradise  myths.  As  for  Quixote  as  a  reader,  that would  be  the  translation,  as  a  parody,  of  the  knightly  world,  by  the genius  of  Miguel  de   Cervantes.  A  female   author  and  two  male authors were  fundamental  for  the  elaboration  of  this  work:  Jerusa Pires Ferreira, Irving Leonard and Martín de Riquer.