"The Knight-errant of Faith": Graham Greene's Monsignor Quixote

Graham Greene’s Monsignor Quixote exemplifies the intertextual nature of literature, engaging in a dialogic relationship with Miguel de Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Drawing on Mikhail Bakhtin’s theory of the novel as a dynamic, evolving form and Gérard Genette’s concept of transtextuality, this paper examines how Greene reinterprets Cervantes’ themes, characters, and narrative structures within a contemporary socio-political framework. The paper studies how the novel explores the tensions between faith and doubt, Catholicism and Marxism, and reality and fiction, positioning Father Quixote as a modernized Quixotic figure and a critique of institutionalized religion. Greene’s engagement with existentialist thought further highlights the ideological and theological underpinnings of the novel. By analyzing Monsignor Quixote as a hypertext, this paper demonstrates how literature continuously reinvents itself, reinforcing that novels are deeply rooted in historical and literary precedents.