Miguel de Cervantes, writer of Don Quixote, has frequently been portrayed in fictionalized contexts across various mediums. In A Character Named Cervantes, Howard Mancing and Tatevik Gyulamiryan explore how Cervantes’s life is depicted in biographies and fiction and how he, as a (bio)fictional character, contributes to our understanding of reality and fiction, fact and invention, history and imagination, and above all, our perceptions of these concepts.
The book reveals that Cervantes’s life was unlike anyone else’s. Characterized by an array of extraordinary experiences – both triumphant and tumultuous, adventurous and misfortunate, impassioned and disillusioned – his life events mirror the quixotic spirit he famously imbued in his iconic character. Despite the wealth of documented events, a lot about Cervantes remains uncovered, which allows for human imagination, interpretation, and creation to intervene, attempting to provide a more comprehensive biography. The book highlights how Cervantes’s life has inspired multiple interpretations and recreations by historians, biographers, and novelists alike. It emphasizes the crucial role of human imagination in the crafting of biographies, particularly within literary and scholarly traditions. Ultimately, A Character Named Cervantes examines Cervantes through the dual lenses of fiction and fictionalized history.
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This book examines Miguel de Cervantes's appearances in film, literature, theatre, and art, exploring the multifaceted ways he is depicted as both a historical figure and a fictional character.

List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Fictional Lives of Miguel de Cervantes
Howard Mancing and Tatevik Gyulamiryan

Critical Perspectives

1. The First Two Centuries of Cervantes in Fiction
Howard Mancing

2. Don Quixote Lurks Behind Miguel de Cervantes: The Portrait Tradition from the Eighteenth to the Twenty-First Centuries
Rachel Schmidt

Cervantes in Fiction

3. "An Adventure of the Strangest Kind": Dialogue across the Centuries in Paul Scheerbart’s Fantasy Novella Cervantes
Jennifer Marston William

4. "La dolorosa gloria": Cervantes’s Character in Manuel Mujica  Láinez’s Bomarzo
Yelsy Hernández Zamora and Nils Longueira Borrego

5. "Parecía reír el ave": The Fictive Miguel de Cervantes’s Use of Constructive Anthropomorphism in "Las gallinas de Cervantes" by Ramón J. Sender
Steven Wagschal

6. Fictionalizing Historical Cervantes: Stephen Marlowe’s The Death and Life of Miguel de Cervantes
Joan Cammarata

7. Miguel de Cervantes, Biofictional Superhero
Michael J. McGrath

8. A Certain Cervantes: Reimagining an American Cervantes in the French Graphic Novel
Sarah Gordon

9. Ariel Dorfman’s Cautivos: Channelling the Search for Truth, Justice, and Reconciliation through Miguel de Cervantes
Bradley J. Nelson

Cervantes on Stage and on Screen

10. Cervantes through the Women in His Family: Pingüinas by Fernando Arrabal and Las Cervantas by Inma Chacón and José Ramón Fernández
Aroa Algaba Granero

11. Time Travel Cervantes: Sci-Fi, Rivalry, and Theory of Mind in El ministerio del tiempo and Cervantes contra Lope
Isabel Jaén and Julien Jacques Simon

12. A Bone of Contention: The Contested Exhumation of Miguel de Cervantes
Carmen Moreno-Nuño

13. Towards the Creation of a Myth of a Hero: Cervantes, War, and Captivity
Tatevik Gyulamiryan

14. Second(ary) Acts: Cervantes on the Page
Edward H. Friedman

Conclusion: Lo que quedó en el tintero
Howard Mancing and Tatevik Gyulamiryan

Appendix 1: A Cervantes Chronology
Appendix 2: Works by Cervantes
Appendix 3: Cervantes on Stage
Appendix 4: Cervantes in the Novel (more than 15,000 words) 
Appendix 5: Cervantes in Short Fiction (fewer than 15,000 words)
Appendix 6: Cervantes on Screen
Contributors
Index  

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Produktdetaljer

ISBN
9781487558888
Publisert
2025-04-16
Utgiver
Vendor
University of Toronto Press
Vekt
560 gr
Høyde
231 mm
Bredde
157 mm
Dybde
28 mm
Aldersnivå
U, P, 05, 06
Språk
Product language
Engelsk
Format
Product format
Innbundet
Antall sider
277

Om bidragsyterne

Howard Mancing is a professor emeritus of Spanish at Purdue University.

Tatevik Gyulamiryan is an associate professor of Spanish at Hope College.