CERVANTES A N D - - - DON QUIXOTE A SOC~I O-HIa STORI• CAL • INTERPRETATION BY PAVEL I. NOVITSKY THE CRITICS' GROUP SERIES NUMBER ONE-------- OtaAEKTLK~_books CERVANTES and DON QUIXOTE OLUAEKTLK~_books EDITORIAL COMMITTEE ANGEL FLORES • Chairman CHARLES BIRCHALL E. P. GREENE s. PAUL LEITNER JOSEPH LISS LoLA H. SACHS ALBERT M. SHAPIRO 0LaA£KTLK~_books CERVANTES and DON QUIXOTE A Socio-Historical Interpretation by p A VEL I. NOVITSKY Translated from the Russian by Sonia P'olocho'lla Dialectical_ boo ks THE CRITICS' GROUP BOX 78, STATION D NEW YORK CITY, N. Y. 1 9 3 6 Copyright 1936 by THE CRITICS' GROUP All rights reserved. No part of this monograph may be reproduce.d without permission except by a reviewer who may quote brief passages in a revif!<W to be printed in a magazine or newspaper. 0LaA£KTLK~_books Manufactured in the United States of America LIBERAL PRESS, INC. .....1 57 NEW YORK, N. Y. INTRODUCTORY NOTE With this essay on Cervantes, THE CRITICS' GROUP inaugurates a series of critical monographs, the purpose of which is to re-evaluate outstanding figures in the field of literature, and thereby provide a sound basis and direction for the development of criticism in this country. THE CRITICS' GROUP is actively interested in literary criticism and dissatisfied with the inadequate nature of the mass of critical work which makes no attempt to explain the fundamental causes of the growth, fruition, and decay of cultural epochs, nor the influence of this dynamic process on the creators of literature. vVhile such problems as form, style, or the personal reactions of the writer, have received exclusive attention the question of the basic relation of form to content has been evaded. The increasing desire and need for a new evaluation of our cultural heritage, for a comprehensive understanding of the influence of social, political, and economic factors on the literature of the age, is demonstrated by the increasing number of books dealing with the principles and methods of literary criticism. In this series, we intend to publish essays on Shakespeare, Voltaire, Goethe, Tolstoy, Joyce, and others. Through the utilization of this type of critical approach, we hope to en rich the understanding and enjoyment of all literature by contemporary readers. Don Quixote of Cervantes is the most significant literary production of the Golden Age in Spain, that era in which Spanish culture put forth its most precious and beautiful blossoms. This epoch was not confined to Spain alone. It was the time of the Renaissance, that wave which surged north from Italy into the farthest corners of western Eu- [5] OLaAeKTLK~_books rope. The rismg merchant class, proud in its growing strength, was preparing to wrest the sceptre of power from the irresolute and trembling hands of the feudal aristocracy. Cervantes was a man of the Renaissance, a product of this , struggle. He felt in his face the great wind that was tearing into fragments the outworn feudal system which had ruled Europe for almost a thousand years. Like the leading figures of his day, he did not meditate in cloistered seclusion, but played an active role both as writer and soldier in the life of his time. OLUAfKTLK~_books [6] CERVANTES AND DON QUIXOTE THE AGE. Cervantes' Don Quixote was an inevitable product of definitely determined socio-historical conditions. This off spring of a well-defined culture fully and clearly expressed the true spirit of its age, effected enormous changes in the practical life of its time and gave rise to a new literary genre. It retains its ideological freshness to this day. It was the age of the Renaissance that gave birth to Don Quixote. The economic upheavals of the XVth and XVIth centuries put an end to the reign of the military and land owning aristocracy, scattered the nobility, formed new social groups, and created a new cultural ideology, new tastes, and new art-forms. With the development of a money economy, the centers of art and culture shifted from the feudal estates and castles to the mercantile towns. The merchants, the artisans, and the new bourgeois intelligentsia were now the creators and builders of life. Glamor no longer attached itself to military glory; to fealty to God, lord and lady. Reckless bravado and meaningless hazards ceased to be a driving force. The animated cultural life of the cities fos tered acute individualism. This new psychology was characterized by a receptiveness to all the phenomena of life, by a passionate attachment to the sensuous joys of mortal existence, and by a growth of initiative, resourcefulness, and enterprise. The men of this age were of a practical turn of mind, sober in their ra- [ 7] tionalism and deliberate in their persistence. They wanted to savor life at its richest and fullest. But the restrictions of provincial life interfered with the sweep of their ener gies. National boundaries crowded them. They wanted to conquer the world, and they did conquer it when Flanders and Spain became the centers of world culture and world commerce. The opening of new worlds, through a direct sea-route to India, and the economic disintegration of Italy, weakened by wars and plundering activities of its princes, broadened into the grandiose and universal the narrow social perspective of old, patriarchal, provincial Spain. Dis coveries, inventions, and the unearthing of vast quantities of gold contributed to the enormous power of the merchant bourgeoisie and enabled Spain to attain absolute supremacy. The Spanish bourgeoisie, with confidence in its own strength, with a proud consciousness of its historical role, and its sensual naturalism, created new tastes in art as well as new art-forms. Spain became the birthplace of the naturalistic novel of manners. THE STRUGGLE FOR A NEW GENRE. The new literary form was not immediately victorious. It acquired strength only after a long, intricate struggle. The quest for new forms to supplant the old, and the bitter struggle attending their creation are the basic forces which come to life in times of cultural crises. At present we can hardly quarrel with the thesis that a cultural group creates its own specific art-forms and genres which reflect the socio psychological characteristics of the ruling class. The "ma jor" forms of the past were those which conformed to the cultural maturity of the ruling class and thus, during the period of the cultural and political deterioration of that class, these forms begin to crumble and decay. Their place tends to be usurped by the more flexible "minor" forms better suited to the newly arisen class which is in the process of accumulating cultural riches. [8]