De la belleza hiperbo?lica a la mujer grotesca : estudio de los ca?nones de este?tica femenina en El Quijote, de Miguel de Cervantes y en Los locos y los cuerdos, de Marco Denevi

by 1970- Mizzi-Terol, Mari?a

In 1965 René Girard in his book Deceit, Desire and the Novel develops a theory of desire as leit-motiv in every work of fiction. The French critic claims that, in the most complex works of fiction, there is a line that joins the desiring subject and the object, which is called the mediator. Girard regards Don Quixote as a typical example of this triangular desire, in which Don Quixote is the subject, Dulcinea is the object, and the chivalric knight Amadís de Gaula is the mediator. In my research I will use this model to relate the role that feminine beauty plays in Don Quixote’s madness. As long as the presence of beautiful women is secured, the triangular desire is successfuclly maintained. But as Cervantes enters into the Baroque vision of the world, the caricaturesque takes its place and beautiful women disappear. At this point, the triangular desire begins to fail. Finally, Marco Denevi, in his play Los locos y los cuerdos, recreates the character of Don Quixote in the 20th. Century. In this play the idealist vocation of the character is replaced by scepticism. The play culminates with the complte destruction of the triangular desire, which involves the end of the validity of Don Quixote’s idealism.