El Quijote de Montalvo

This article analyzes Juan Montalvo’s national project based on Cervantes’ hypotext, Don Quixote de la Mancha. It takes into account some key concepts of nineteenth-century discourse such as truth and verisimilitude, nature and art, civilization and barbarism, virtue and ethic. Cervantes’ novel serves the Ecuadorian writer to establish his civilizing project and to found a humanist tradition in Latin America.