| This thesis, written in Spanish, analyzes the possible influences which the great Spanish writer of the Golden Age, Miguel de Cervantes, utilized in creating his novelistic masterpiece known as Don Quijote de la Mancha. As an exercise in comparative literature, this study proposes to examine possible sources of influence of various types from Italian writers of the fourteenth, fifteenth and sixteenth centuries with the objective of finding parallels both in style and content.; The major writers of the humanist tradition of Italian letters used in this study are the following: Dante, Petrarch, Boccaccio, Pulci, Boiardo, and Ariosto. By linking Cervantes with the ideals and philosophies of Italian Humanism, the references to specific works of the writers admired by the Spaniard, claim to illustrate how, consciously or subconsciously, what one reads becomes a fundamental part of one's creative self. As it is in this case, when years later, it all resurfaces in a transformed manner through the genius of a true poet, in the form of the modern novel, whose purpose is the search for the self and the meaning of being. Don Quijote, the main character of this colossal literary creation, suffers of illusions; he is a victim of “folly” caused by the excessive reading of literature of chivalry. Is not the writer a type of fool who aspires to becoming immortal through his work? This is the point of view which permeates this thesis. The Humanists strived to come to conclusions about what makes a man human after examining the writings of the classical writers like Plato, Aristotle, Ovid, Virgil, Lucian, etc., and Cervantes strived for the same by examining the writings of the Italian Humanists.; This study first presents the Italian environment that Cervantes lived in for six years in his twenties, then the writers he read—especially Ariosto—and then how their echos appear in his novel. The philosophical and the literary influences are explored with the aim of adding to the appreciation of its universal human values. |
