POSTMODERN AESTHETICS AND DOUBLE-CODING IN EARLY NARRATIVE TEXTS: “FROM ONE THOUSAND AND ONE NIGHTS” TO “DON QUIXOTE”

Abstract

This article explores the emergence of postmodern aesthetic principles in early narrative texts that predate the formal rise of postmodernism as a literary movement. Works such as One Thousand and One Nights, The Decameron, Candide, and particularly Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes are examined as precursors of postmodern narrative techniques. The study focuses on literary devices such as double-coding, irony, parody, satire, and stylistic heterogeneity, demonstrating how these elements function simultaneously on multiple semantic levels. Special attention is given to the contrast between elevated and colloquial discourse in Don Quixote, which anticipates postmodern narrative playfulness and reader-oriented multiplicity of meaning. The article argues that these early texts not only influenced modern narrative forms but also laid the conceptual groundwork for postmodern literary experimentation.