La magia y Dios en “Don Quijote”. Un análisis de la metalepsis mágica en “Don Quijote” de Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra.

Abstract

The topic of Magic in the work in "Don Quijote" has been somewhat under-investigated. One of the few authors that have commented on it is Michel Foucault, who wrote that the work reflects the difference between an episteme based on the idea that the meaning of signs was to be found in a fixed and sometimes occult connection between the signifier and the referent, and the classical episteme that let go of this idea, in which meaning was fixed by an external dominant force. In his analysis he states that magic is the model of dissimilitude that lends stability to Don Quijotes world. Foucault also claims that the dominance of the latter episteme caused the emergence or two figures in modern western literature, the madman and the poet, of which he says that are they located on opposite ends of the cultural space, although they are brought close by symmetry.

Not only does this work find a solid base in Foucaults description of the epistemes for the intuitively plausible conclusion that Don Quijote is an example of the Foucaultian Madman, but it also shows very clearly that Sancho Panza can be associated with the Foucaultian Poet, because of his use of language and his attitude.

Furthermore, the works reflects a binary opposition between the occult and the divine, in which the divine is the centered term.