Eros and Empire: Politics and Christianity in Don Quixote

The sixteenth century was an extremely critical time for Christianity and politics in Europe; the birth of Protestantism and Machiavelli’s new approach to politics, morality, and religion are only two examples of the turbulence of the time. Don Quixote, argues Henry Higuera, was a response to this turbulence. Too few readers realize that Cervantes’s immortal hero wanted to conquer the world. Through a careful examination of the novel against the background of Christian theology and European moral and political theory, Higuera demonstrates that Don Quixote portrays, analyzes, and criticizes how Christianity tends towards a kind of imperialism fueled by eros. He shows first just how erotic the relation between the soul and God was in the Catholic tradition; second, how theological Don Quixote’s understanding of Dulcinea is; and third, how closely the Books of Chivalry are related to contemporary controversies about the Bible. The resulting study is an important one for scholars and students of political theory, intellectual history, and literature.