How Don Quixote drew on Celestina
A documented line of influence: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra demonstrably engaged Fernando de Rojas’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Celestina
Fernando de Rojas · 1499
RenaissanceThe influenced
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · 1605
RenaissanceRelevance
7/10
On Don Quixote’s page
- Don Quixote opens by tipping its hat to Celestina — Cervantes praises de Rojas's book as "divine" in his prefatory verses, then teasingly wishes it hid more of "the human"
- That backhanded tribute marks de Rojas as one of the Spanish ancestors standing behind Cervantes
- Reading Celestina first shows you the earthy, human-comedy strain Cervantes admired and was measuring himself against
On Celestina’s page
- Cervantes singled out Celestina by name in the opening verses of Don Quixote
- He called it "a book, in my opinion, divine — if it concealed more of the human" — admiration with a needle in it
- A whole scholarly line ("Cervantes as a reader of Celestina") traces how de Rojas's tragicomedy worked on him