"Towards a Revaluation of Avellaneda's False Quijote," by E. T. Aylward
Cervantes really did a number on Avellaneda. Certainly if Cervantes himself hadn't come out with his own Part II, and especially if he hadn't destroyed Avellaneda starting with Chapter 59 of Part II, Avellaneda's continuation would doubtless have become the accepted continuation of Cervantes' work.
As it stands, most students of the Quijote, it seems, have staunchly believed Cervantes and never have even looked at Avellaneda's book.
Remembering what Cervantes said, that no book that is so bad that there is not something good in it, Professor Aylward sets out to study Avellaneda's work. His startling conclusion, contrary to what Cervantes succeeded in making the public believe during these four centuries, is that the False Quixote is in fact a thoroughly enjoyable piece of fiction, a work quite faithful to the satirical concept of Cervantes' 1605 original.
Further, the book also deserves attention because it is a remarkable continuation of the spirit of the first twenty-two chapters of Part I, and it ironically presents us with an excellent tool with which to measure Cervantes' novelistic techniques.
Here is your chance to give Avellaneda a chance.
"A more thorough analysis than others have given to Avellaneda's case,"
- Frank Pierce, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
Series: Documentación cervantina, Nº 9
ISBN: 0-936388-43-9 (PB, 102 pp.)$20
Cervantes really did a number on Avellaneda. Certainly if Cervantes himself hadn't come out with his own Part II, and especially if he hadn't destroyed Avellaneda starting with Chapter 59 of Part II, Avellaneda's continuation would doubtless have become the accepted continuation of Cervantes' work.
As it stands, most students of the Quijote, it seems, have staunchly believed Cervantes and never have even looked at Avellaneda's book.
Remembering what Cervantes said, that no book that is so bad that there is not something good in it, Professor Aylward sets out to study Avellaneda's work. His startling conclusion, contrary to what Cervantes succeeded in making the public believe during these four centuries, is that the False Quixote is in fact a thoroughly enjoyable piece of fiction, a work quite faithful to the satirical concept of Cervantes' 1605 original.
Further, the book also deserves attention because it is a remarkable continuation of the spirit of the first twenty-two chapters of Part I, and it ironically presents us with an excellent tool with which to measure Cervantes' novelistic techniques.
Here is your chance to give Avellaneda a chance.
"A more thorough analysis than others have given to Avellaneda's case,"
- Frank Pierce, Bulletin of Hispanic Studies
Series: Documentación cervantina, Nº 9
ISBN: 0-936388-43-9 (PB, 102 pp.)$20