| Summary: | This study analyzes the functions of the references to Cervantes's works in German literature. These references have a historical significance in the early 17th century, serving as a projection of the conflictive Spanish-German relationship that would lead to the Thirty Years' War. During the 18th and the 19th centuries, however, the re-use of Cervantes's production coincided with the emergence of a new cultural, philosophical and literary paradigm privileging individual genius over reason. If Thomas Mann inherited this vision of Don Quixote and its relegation of the critical component of the novel to the background, in the 21st century Peter Handke has returned to Cervantes in order to criticize the obsession with images typical of postmodern culture and society.
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