Novel Friendships and Community in Cervantes's "Don Quixote"

Novel Friendships analyzes Don Quixote through the critical lens of friendship studies. This book ties amity to the emergence of the first modern novel in the West, while demonstrating that the interlocking themes of amity and community form a throughline in Cervantes's fiction.

Marsha S. Collins is a Professor of Comparative Literature and Chair of the Department of English and Comparative Literature at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. A Hispanist and comparatist, she studies the Literature of Early Modern Spain in its European and global contexts. She has written on romance, pastoral, and other idealizing fictional forms; literature and the visual arts; early modern lyric poetry; and Early Modern European court culture. Known for her research on Cervantes, Lope, Góngora, and others, she currently serves as Vice President and President-Elect of the Cervantes Society of America and is a member of the Executive Committee of the Asociación de Cervantistas.

Acknowledgments Preface: Cervantes, Friendship, and a Community of Readers 1 Cervantes's World of Friendship and Community 2 "I was the first" ... before Don Quixote 3 Don Quixote and Sancho, a Novel Friendship 4 Don Quixote's Gallery of Friendships 5 Cervantes, Community, and Don Quixote Conclusion: Persiles, Cervantes's Last Words on Amity and Community Index