Year: 2006
Editorial: Fondo de Cultura Económica
Language: Español, Catalán
Synopsis: There is not doubt Miguel de Cervantes believed in the devil. But which one? Did he believe, along with Erasmus, that the devil was all that which drives us away from good? Was he totally convinced that Satan was only an instrument of inquisitorial rhetoric? Plurality and invisibility have always been satanic attributes, and Don Quixote’s century was no exception. For years, a number of thinkers searched in vain for a line which would explain in a coherent manner the religious thinking of the Spanish writer. They nevertheless forget that art and the human spirit, like Satan, establishes its strength on contradiction.
And this is where Ignacio Padilla, author of these treatises, begins, in order to throw light on the prodigious hell of Cervantes’ oeuvre, a hell where the devil and his acolytes take on expected shapes, yet almost always unpredictable. The devilish possession, the exorcism ritual, the Faustian objects, the satanic treatment of minorities and, the bestiary’s diabolical intricacies are only some of the themes compiled in this voyage into the heart of literary darkness. Rooted in the purest Cervantes tradition, this book is nevertheless a succession of amazements, another indication of how much more the oeuvre and the complex faith of Miguel de Cervantes has to tells us regarding God, Satan, and above all, literature.
