Dulcinea Del Toboso: On the Occasion of Her Four-Hundredth Birthday

This essay consists of a review of the life and adventures of Dulcinea del Toboso after Cervantes's "Don Quijote", particularly in twentieth-century literature. Attention is called to the importance of Gaston Baty's "Dulcinée" (1939), Dale Wasserman's "Man of La Mancha" (1965), and some short fictional works by Marco Denevi (1966-75). Over a dozen other works of theater, poetry, and prose fiction are also examined more briefly. Dulcinea, the character who does not really exist in Cervantes's novel, has been brought to life repeatedly since 1605. Final comments relate the character's many appearances in modern literature to M. M. Bakhtin's concepts of re-accentuation, novelistic image, and great time.