"¿A qué viene aquí la geometría, señor D. Quijote?": Don Quijote and the History of Curiosity in Spain

Abstract

Spanish Enlightenment academician Juan Luis Roche (1718-1794) defined curiosity as a deseo extraordinario de investigar una verdad (qdt. in Dubuis 292). But while scientific curiosity from the novatores onward has garnered considerable critical attention, the transition from Baroque wonderment to Enlightenment curiosity has yet to be fully explored. In the following pages I examine Don Quijote's well-reasoned apology for giants in chapter 1 of the second part as a paradigmatic example of hybrid Baroque reasoning which invokes, and at the same time repudiates, scientific curiosity. When Don Quijote's defense of giants is held up against Enlightenment commentators' attempts to debunk the Knight's arguments, however, no clear winner emerges. By drawing attention to Cervantes's future critics' failure to practice the dispassion, curiosity, and scientific objectivity that they claimed to profess, I hope to create the critical space necessary to approach the transition from Baroque marvel to Enlightenment curiosity in a more nuanced, less teleological manner than has hitherto been the general norm.