In Forms of Modernity, Rachel Schmidt examines how seminal theorists and philosophers have wrestled with the status of Cervantes' Don Quixote is as an 'exemplary novel', in turn contributing to the emergence of key concepts within genre theory.

Prologue
Abbreviations for Cited Material
Note on Translations and Quotations

1. Don Quixote and the Problem of Modernity
2. Arabesques and the Modern Novel: Friedrich Schlegel’s Interpretation of Don Quixote
3. The Emptiness of the Arabesque: Georg LukÁcs and the Theory of the Novel
4. Ideas and Forms: Hermann Cohen’s Novelistics
5. The Poetics of Resuscitation: Unamuno’s Anti-Novelistics
6. Form Foreshortened: Ortega y Gasset’s Meditations on Don Quixote
7. Don Quixote in Bakhtin
8. Revolutions and the Novel

Bibliography

Highly significant and original, Forms of Modernity presents a wide-ranging synthesis of philosophical and theoretical receptions of Cervantes' Don Quixote. Rachel Schmidt impressively sheds new light on the book as a touchstone that has defined both the idea of the novel and the problem of modernity. Readers will find that Forms of Modernity holds their attention and interest extremely well while teaching them a tremendous amount.

Forms of Modernity will have a major influence on how we read Cervantes, the idea of modernity, and the genre of the novel. This major scholarly accomplishment provides understandings of theorists such as Bakhtin and Cohen that are often brilliant, and includes the best presentation of Schlegel's theory of the novel I have ever seen. Rachel Schmidt's rich knowledge of the literature on Don Quixote makes this a serious advance in state-of-the-art research. -- Howard Mancing, professor of Spanish, Purdue University and President, Cervantes Society of America Highly significant and original, Forms of Modernity presents a wide-ranging synthesis of philosophical and theoretical receptions of Cervantes' Don Quixote. Rachel Schmidt impressively sheds new light on the book as a touchstone that has defined both the idea of the novel and the problem of modernity. Readers will find that Forms of Modernity holds their attention and interest extremely well while teaching them a tremendous amount. -- Anthony Cascardi, professor of Comparative Literature, Rhetoric, and Spanish, University of California at Berkeley