Description: Caroline Jewers contests the widespread notion among critics that the novel originated after Don Quixote, and she argues for the reinstatement of the medieval romance into the current histories of the genre. She maintains that Cervantes cleverly manipulated existing conventions rather than merely reversing them, and that the roots of the novel are instead to be found in earlier romances beginning with those of Chretien de Troyes. Jewers sketches a prehistory of the novel from the Old French romance to the Occitan romans chevaleresques (focusing on the roman de Flamenca and on Jaufre) to the Catalan Tirant lo Blanc and beyond.

In tracing the early history of the genre, Jewers focuses on its habits of self-consciousness and parody, and her analysis, unlike most studies grounded in a single national literature, illustrates the novel's development through several different vernacular traditions (French, Occitan, Catalan), with a brief consideration of Spanish literature. She combines a broad range of primary and secondary material with a mastery of contemporary theory, plus lucid and sensitive readings of individual passages.

By bringing to light the elements of continuity between medieval romance and the novel, Jewers bridges a long-standing gap between studies of early and later literatures. Her account will appeal to scholars and students of medieval narrative working in the western tradition as well as to those engaged in searching for the roots of the novel.

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