Law and History in Cervantes' Don Quixote

Law and History in Cervantes’ Don Quixote is a deep consideration of the intellectual environment that gave rise to Cervantes’ seminal work. Susan Byrne demonstrates how Cervantes synthesized the debates surrounding the two most authoritative discourses of his era – those of law and history – into a new aesthetic product, the modern novel.

Byrne uncovers the empirical underpinnings of Don Quixote through a close philological study of Cervantes’ sly questioning of and commentary on these fiel...