Futurities, Empire, and Censorship: Cervantes in Conversation with Ovid and Orwell

This chapter, written by Frederick A. de Armas, on Don Quixote turns to specific futurities, such as the way in which Cervantes's visions of censorship and practice of self-censorship are implicated in future concerns and even our own. It also points to societal control as it is reflected in Don Quixote and echoes through different empires. Cervantes's novel also points to the way in which expansionism often leads to perpetual war, the manner in which fake news seeps into the text, and even the way in which enhanced interrogation can be formulated. Through imperial overreach, the novel embodies the declining future of empire and even echoes Orwellian dystopia.