Fifteenth-century Spanish sentimental fiction can be described as a palimpsest, a dense web of entangled, faded readings and a challenge to the reader. While the parameters of writing sentimental fiction and its textuality have been explored with great success, its readers and how they approached these works have been largely neglected.

Based on a reconstruction of the medical notion of love-as-sickness (amor heroes), premodern reading habits, and interpretive strategies, this book approaches canonical works of sentimental romance from the perspective of a medical-sensitive reader. An analysis of Don Quijote silhouetted against the subtext of sentimental romance reveals how faculty psychology and lovesickness resonate in Golden Age literature.