{"schema_version":"bf_book_companion_v1","release_id":"20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh","book":{"amazon_purchase_url":"https://www.amazon.com/dp/B013VG3I8K?tag=bookfrontier-20","asin":"B013VG3I8K","authors":["Charles D. Presberg"],"book_id":"9780271023649","canonical_url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/adventures-in-paradox-B013VG3I8K","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780271023649.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","description":"Cervantes’s Don Quixote confronts us with a series of enigmas that, over the centuries, have divided even its most expert readers: Does the text pursue a serious or comic purpose? Does it promote the truth of history and the untruth of fiction, or the truth of poetry and the fictiveness of truth itself? In a book that will revise the way we read and debate Don Quixote , Charles D. Presberg discusses the trope of paradox as a governing rhetorical strategy in this most canonical of Spanish literary texts. To situate Cervantes’s masterpiece within the centuries-long praxis of paradoxical discourse in the West, Presberg surveys its tradition in Classical Antiquity, the Middle Ages, and the European Renaissance. He outlines the development of paradoxy in the Spanish Renaissance, centering on works by Fernando de Rojas, Pero Mexía, and Antonio de Guevara. In his detailed reading of portions of Don Quixote , Presberg shows how Cervantes’s work enlarges the tradition of paradoxical discourse by imitating as well as transforming fictional and nonfictional models. He concludes that Cervantes’s seriocomic \"system\" of paradoxy jointly parodies, celebrates, and urges us to ponder the agency of discourse in the continued refashioning of knowledge, history, culture, and personal identity. This engaging book will be welcomed by literary scholars, Hispanisists, historians, and students of the history of rhetoric and poetics. Read more","forthcoming":false,"isbn13":"9780271023649","publication_date":"20031015","publisher":"Penn State University Press","slug":"adventures-in-paradox","subtitle":"Don Quixote and the Western Tradition","title":"Adventures in Paradox"},"discovery":{"categories":{"all":[{"bisac_code":"LIT004280","confidence_band":"high","label":"Iberian Lit Crit","score":0.8091,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT024020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"17th-Century Literary Criticism","score":0.7497,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004130","confidence_band":"medium","label":"European Lit Crit","score":0.7388,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"hint":[{"bisac_code":"LIT004280","confidence_band":"high","label":"Iberian Lit Crit","score":0.8091,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT024020","confidence_band":"medium","label":"17th-Century Literary Criticism","score":0.7497,"source":"bisac_hint_model"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004130","confidence_band":"medium","label":"European Lit Crit","score":0.7388,"source":"bisac_hint_model"}],"publisher":[{"bisac_code":"LIT004130","confidence_band":"high","label":"European Lit Crit","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004180","confidence_band":"high","label":"Gothic & Romance Lit Crit","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"},{"bisac_code":"LIT004280","confidence_band":"high","label":"Iberian Lit Crit","score":1,"source":"onix_publisher_code"}]},"genres":[{"label":"Iberian Lit Crit","score":0.8091,"slug":"iberian-lit-crit"},{"label":"17th-Century Literary Criticism","score":0.7497,"slug":"17th-century-literary-criticism"},{"label":"European Lit Crit","score":0.7388,"slug":"european-lit-crit"}],"reader_fit":["Good for readers who enjoy Iberian Lit Crit","Good for readers interested in literary","Good for readers who enjoy Iberian Lit Crit and 17th-Century Literary Criticism."],"related_lists":[],"series":null,"similar_books":[{"authors":["Cory A. Reed"],"book_id":"9781487566036","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781487566036.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":12.8692,"title":"Cervantes, Technology, and the Novel","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781487566036"},{"authors":["Michael Iarocci"],"book_id":"9780826515223","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780826515223.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":11.2147,"title":"Properties of Modernity","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780826515223"},{"authors":["Maria Rosa Menocal","María Rosa Menocal"],"book_id":"9780316092791","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780316092791.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":10.3047,"title":"The Ornament of the World","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780316092791"},{"authors":["Maria Alessia Rossi","Alice Isabella Sullivan"],"book_id":"9783110693164","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9783110693164.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":10.2504,"title":"Eclecticism in Late Medieval Visual Culture at the Crossroads of the Latin, Greek, and Slavic Traditions","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9783110693164"},{"authors":["Vladimir Nabokov","Fredson Bowers","Guy Davenport"],"book_id":"9780156495400","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780156495400.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":9.652,"title":"Lectures on Don Quixote","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780156495400"},{"authors":["George Mariscal"],"book_id":"9780801426049","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780801426049.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":8.9817,"title":"Contradictory Subjects","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780801426049"},{"authors":["Luis Martín-Estudillo"],"book_id":"9780826505323","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9780826505323.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":8.8703,"title":"Goya and the Mystery of Reading","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9780826505323"},{"authors":["Frederick A. de Armas"],"book_id":"9781487542399","cover_image_url":"https://img.bookfrontier.com/9781487542399.jpg?v=20260418T080002Z-pairingsrefresh%3A2026-04-18T08%3A00%3A02Z","score":8.7996,"title":"Cervantes' Architectures","url":"https://bookfrontier.com/books/9781487542399"}],"topics":[{"evidence_refs":["keyword:spanish literary texts"],"label":"Literary","score":0.0955,"slug":"literary"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:middle ages"],"label":"Ages","score":0.0774,"slug":"ages"},{"evidence_refs":["keyword:middle ages"],"label":"Middle","score":0.0689,"slug":"middle"}],"what_you_get":["Themes: Literary, Ages, Middle.","Reading lane: Iberian Lit Crit and 17th Century Literary Criticism.","Publisher: Penn State University Press."]},"llm_signals":null,"source_presence":{"amazon":true,"book_detail":true,"goodreads":true,"llm_signals":false,"similarity_seed":true},"stats":{"amazon_ratings_count":0,"goodreads_ratings_count":2,"goodreads_reviews_count":1,"quality_score":0.8162}}