Many critics regard Cervantes's Don Quixote as the most influential literary book on British literature. Indeed the impact on British authors was immense, as can be seen from 17th-century plays by Fletcher, Massinger and Beaumont, through the great 18th-century novels of Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, and Lennox, and on into more modern and contemporary novelists. 20th-century critics, fascinated by Cervantes, were moved to write what we now see as the classical works of Cervantes scholarship.
Through their previous publications, the eminent contributors to this volume have helped to determine the reception of Cervantes in Britain. Together they now offer a comprehensive and innovative picture of this topic, discussing the English translations of Cervantes's works, the literary genres which developed under his shadow, and the best-known authors who consciously emulated him. Cervantes's influence upon British literature emerges as decidedly the deepest of any writer outside of English and, very possibly, of any writer since the Renaissance.
Reviews:
‘Resulta reconfortante para cualquier investigador interesado en los textos de Miguel de Cervantes comprobar que, tras la explosión de estudios surgidos en torno a las celebraciones del año 2005, cuarto centenario de la publicación del Quijote, el cervantismo está más vivo que nunca. De hecho, es precisamente ahora, tras el paso del ciclón de publicaciones que trajo consigo dicho aniversario, cuando surge la oportunidad de realizar análisis nacidos más al calor de la curiosidad real y el rigor y menos de la oportunidad o el oportunismo. Este libro supone una muy valiosa aportación para el campo de los estudios cervantinos pero también para el estudio de la literatura británica, y especialistas de ambos campos encontrarán en él material ineludible y original con el que ganar en conocimiento y sobre todo, una herramienta con la que continuar avanzando en el no siempre bien conocido ni estudiado campo de las relaciones literarias y culturales hispano-británicas.’ — Ana M. Rodríguez-Rodríguez, Iberoamericana IX.36, 2009, 189-91
‘Rather than emanating from the Cervantesmania that has informed most of the book-length studies on Cervantes's influence on English-speaking writers [since the 2005 anniversary year], the present volume benefits from the fact that its contributors come from among the pre-2005 generation of critics, who have drawn on their experience of digging out Cervantes's actual influence on British literature.’ — unsigned notice, Forum for Modern Language Studies 47.1, January 2011
Contents:
2-31
The Influence and Reception of Cervantes in Britain, 1607–2005 J. A. G. Ardila
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