The Giants of Modernity from Amadís to Don Quijote

Abstract

Cervantes adapts and transforms the giant of the Iberian romance of chivalry three times in Part I of Don Quijote. The writers of the Amadís series, Cervantes' principal model, distance their giants from earlier versions of the monster through a proto-ethnographic, sympathetic depiction that renders ‘giantism’ a metaphor for marginality of religion, race or class. Both the Amadís series and Cervantes use their giants to work towards social inclusion. Cervantes abstracts from the monster of the libros de caballerías in order to argue for economic and social justice. In the windmills episode, Don Quijote himself is the giant; he fails because his actions damage his community's economy. In the Pandafilando and ‘cueros de vino’ episodes, Don Quijote is victorious because he works on behalf of the weak against the strong, as a knight who has defeated the monstrous impulses of pride and greed should. In both Amadís and Don Quijote, the dynamic figure of the giant points toward the modern, both in terms of the novel and in terms of the development of Spanish society beyond the baroque century.