
Affective Geographies
Cervantes, Emotion, and the Literary Mediterranean
Paul Michael Johnson(Author)
University of Toronto Press
Published on 19. February 2021
Book
Hardback
328 pages
978-1-4875-0751-0 (ISBN)
Description
For Miguel de Cervantes, to narrate a Mediterranean experience is to necessarily speak of an emotional experience. Affective Geographies takes as its point of departure the premise that literature is as influential in constructing the Mediterranean as are its geographic, climatic, or economic features. As the writer with the most vast and varied Mediterranean experience of his era, Cervantes is exceptionally well-suited for the critical task of recovering the literary Mediterranean.
Engaging with the interdisciplinary fields of Mediterranean studies, affect theory, and the history of emotion, Paul Michael Johnson reads Cervantes's texts alongside the affective structures that inscribe the Mediterranean as a space of conflict, commerce, expansion, and empire. In particular, he argues that Cervantes's writing, with its uncommon focus on the Moorish, Islamic, and North African experience, can serve to realign misconceptions about the Mediterranean we have inherited today. Affective Geographies proposes that, with a more than four-hundred-year history of impacting the hearts and minds of readers, Cervantes's works constitute a literary longue duree, ramifying beyond fiction to alter the popular imaginary and long-term cultural landscape.
Engaging with the interdisciplinary fields of Mediterranean studies, affect theory, and the history of emotion, Paul Michael Johnson reads Cervantes's texts alongside the affective structures that inscribe the Mediterranean as a space of conflict, commerce, expansion, and empire. In particular, he argues that Cervantes's writing, with its uncommon focus on the Moorish, Islamic, and North African experience, can serve to realign misconceptions about the Mediterranean we have inherited today. Affective Geographies proposes that, with a more than four-hundred-year history of impacting the hearts and minds of readers, Cervantes's works constitute a literary longue duree, ramifying beyond fiction to alter the popular imaginary and long-term cultural landscape.
Reviews / Votes
"Johnson is adept at distinguishing the portrayal of the inwardness and interiority of Cervantine characters from counterparts in 19th-century European realism. A highlight of the volume-one of many-is discussion of the encounter, in part 2 of Don Quixote, of Sancho Panza and the Morisco Ricote as a source of commentary on humor. Analyzing feelings is a challenge. Johnson has done his homework and far more. His approach to the Mediterranean takes the reader all over the map of criticism, metacriticism, interdisciplinarity, and the Cervantine corpus."- E. H. Friedman, Vanderbilt University (CHOICE) "This fascinating and original scholarly contribution to Early Modern literary studies - presented with an exquisite written expression - not only invites readers to reconsider many canonical works by Miguel de Cervantes, but also helps to lay the groundwork for a new direction of scholarly inquiry into a wide array of classical fiction."
- Philip Allen, Midwestern State University (Hispanofila)
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Toronto
Canada
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
sewn/stitched
Cloth over boards
With dust jacket
Illustrations
12 b&w illustrations
Dimensions
Height: 214 mm
Width: 60 mm
Thickness: 12 mm
Weight
376 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-4875-0751-0 (9781487507510)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Paul Michael Johnson is an associate professor of Hispanic Studies at DePauw University.
Content
List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments
Part One: Casting Off
1. Introduction
2. Connected (Hi)stories: The Cervantine, Literary, and Affective Mediterranean
The Historical Mediterranean
The Literary Mediterranean
The Affective Mediterranean
Contesting a Sea of Discourses
Deviations from Reason in a Sea of Diversity
Part Two: Quixotic Passages
3. Shadows of the Inquisition: Honour, Shame, and a Cervantine View of Mediterranean "Values"
Anthropologies of Mediterranean Honour and Shame
Visual Topographies of Shame
Shame Punishments and Cervantes
Blood Purity and the Art of Infamy in Don Quijote's Encagement
Conclusion
4. A Mediterranean (Tragi)comedy: Sancho, Ricote, and the Emotional Politics of Laughter
Gelotological Genealogies
The Emotional Effects of Laughter, and Laughter as Affect
Sancho and Schadenfreude, or Courtly Comedics
From Sadism to Satire
Laughing with Sancho and Ricote
Conclusion
Part Three: Other Ports of Call
5. Suspended Admiration: Wonder, Surprise, and Emotional Exemplarity in La espanola inglesa
Aesthetics of the Unexpected
Early Modern Cultures of Suspension
Tempering Fears, Tempering Sails 153 Ethical Solutions through Admiratio
Conclusion
6. Aporias of Love: Articulating the Ineffable in Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda
Beyond Sentimentalism
Aporias
Ineffability
Materiality
Conclusion
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index
Acknowledgments
Part One: Casting Off
1. Introduction
2. Connected (Hi)stories: The Cervantine, Literary, and Affective Mediterranean
The Historical Mediterranean
The Literary Mediterranean
The Affective Mediterranean
Contesting a Sea of Discourses
Deviations from Reason in a Sea of Diversity
Part Two: Quixotic Passages
3. Shadows of the Inquisition: Honour, Shame, and a Cervantine View of Mediterranean "Values"
Anthropologies of Mediterranean Honour and Shame
Visual Topographies of Shame
Shame Punishments and Cervantes
Blood Purity and the Art of Infamy in Don Quijote's Encagement
Conclusion
4. A Mediterranean (Tragi)comedy: Sancho, Ricote, and the Emotional Politics of Laughter
Gelotological Genealogies
The Emotional Effects of Laughter, and Laughter as Affect
Sancho and Schadenfreude, or Courtly Comedics
From Sadism to Satire
Laughing with Sancho and Ricote
Conclusion
Part Three: Other Ports of Call
5. Suspended Admiration: Wonder, Surprise, and Emotional Exemplarity in La espanola inglesa
Aesthetics of the Unexpected
Early Modern Cultures of Suspension
Tempering Fears, Tempering Sails 153 Ethical Solutions through Admiratio
Conclusion
6. Aporias of Love: Articulating the Ineffable in Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda
Beyond Sentimentalism
Aporias
Ineffability
Materiality
Conclusion
Afterword
Notes
Bibliography
Index