The Novel as ‘Moletta’: Cervantes and Defoe
This chapter examines the idea that Cervantes's Persiles provided the ‘germ’ of Robinson Crusoe. Aiming for coevolutionary histories of the novel as alternatives to evolutionary ones, it focuses less on historical origins than on geographical entities; specifically, places and people in the New Wolrd that challenged old forms of thought. It examines Defoe's continued interest in the Spanish Indies for both his colonial propaganda and his novelizing. It also suggests here, the debt of both writers to the Caribbean cannibals.
Keywords: moletta, Defoe, Cervantes, Crusoe's hispanicity, ritual cannibalism, gustatory cannibalism, Robinson Crusoe
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