Don Quixote fills the roles...

During one of the first class sessions Dr. Sexton asked us, "Why are we reading Don Quixote?" even though i'm fairly sure that he did not say that, or exactly that, i remember generally that we were called upon to recognize why Don Quixote- of all books -is significant in a literary criticism class. As i have only begun to get at Don Quixote, Antinomy of Criticism and all the other required reading I feel as though i'm not fully qualified to answer that. However while reading Don Quixote i keep coming up with correlation and consistencies with class and the various other readings. In Frye's Archetypes he claims that literature, even good literature is often subject to personal variables. He states, "Casual value-judgments belong not to criticism but to the history of taste, and reflect, at best, only the social and psychological compulsions
which prompted their utterance." (pg 700?) I feel as though Frye brings up this point as some what of a cautionary, that it is important to recognize predispositions and to look beyond them. And i use the word cautionary intentionally because i feel it can be dangerous. Such trivial things have no place in criticism -at least on this level that Frye persists- and as a result can often be quite damaging if not cataclysmic.(see picture above...)

As serious and sullen as book burning is ...I found it hilarious! that the priest and maid are running through books to be tossed into the fire. i think on page 47 the priest is condemning many, while at the same time praising few, "The olive branch should be cut up immediately and burned until there's nothing left but ashes, but the palm branch of England should be kept and preserved as something unique...for two reasons: one, because it is very good i and of itself, and two, because it is well-known that it was composed by a wise and prudent king of Portugal."
And of course i was cracking up when it goes on, "And not wishing to tire himself further with the perusal of books of chivalry, he ordered the house keeper to take all the large ones to the corral." I don't think the priest would be allowed in Sexson's Book club.