{"id":302,"date":"2020-05-26T16:01:05","date_gmt":"2020-05-26T16:01:05","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-hum140\/?post_type=chapter&p=302"},"modified":"2023-09-02T13:52:08","modified_gmt":"2023-09-02T13:52:08","slug":"3-71-don-quixote","status":"publish","type":"chapter","link":"https:\/\/courses.lumenlearning.com\/suny-fmcc-hum140\/chapter\/3-71-don-quixote\/","title":{"raw":"3.51: de Cervantes and Don Quixote","rendered":"3.51: de Cervantes and Don Quixote"},"content":{"raw":"Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember\u2026<\/em>\r\n
\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"415\"]\"\"<\/a> Portrait of Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (1547-1615) is commonly attributed to Juan de J\u00e1uregui, yet no portrait of Cervantes has ever been authenticated.\u00a0Wikimedia Commons[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
<\/div><\/figure>\r\nThis line, arguably the most famous in the history of Spanish literature, is the opening of The Ingenious Nobleman Don Quixote of La Mancha<\/em> by Miguel de Cervantes,\u00a0the first modern novel<\/a>.\r\n\r\nPublished in two parts in 1605 and 1615, this is the story of Alonso Quijano, a 16th-century Spanish\u00a0hidalgo<\/em><\/a>, a noble, who is so passionate about reading that he leaves home in search of his own chivalrous adventures. He becomes a knight-errant himself: Don Quixote de la Mancha. By imitating his admired literary heroes, he finds new meaning in his life: aiding damsels in distress, battling giants and righting wrongs\u2026 mostly in his own head.\r\n\r\nBut Don Quixote<\/em> is much more. It is a book about books, reading, writing, idealism vs. materialism, life \u2026 and death. Don Quixote is mad. \u201cHis brain\u2019s dried up\u201d due to his reading, and he is unable to separate reality from fiction, a trait that was appreciated at the time as\u00a0funny<\/a>. However, Cervantes was also using Don Quixote\u2019s insanity to probe the eternal debate between free will and fate. The misguided hero is actually a man fighting against his own limitations to become who he dreams to be.\r\n\r\nOpen-minded, well-travelled, and very well-educated, Cervantes was, like Don Quixote himself, an avid reader. He also served the Spanish crown in adventures that he would later include in the novel. After defeating the Ottoman Empire in the\u00a0battle of Lepanto<\/a>\u00a0(and losing the use of his left hand, becoming \u201cthe one-handed of Lepanto\u201d), Cervantes was captured and held for ransom in Algiers.\r\n\r\nThis autobiographical episode and his escape attempts are depicted in \u201cThe Captive\u2019s Tale\u201d (in Don Quixote Part I), where the character recalls \u201ca Spanish soldier named something de Saavedra\u201d, referring to Cervantes\u2019s second last name. Years later, back in Spain, he completed Don Quixote in prison, due to irregularities in his accounts while he worked for the government.\r\n

Tilting at windmills<\/h2>\r\nIn Part I, Quijano with his new name, Don Quixote, gathers other indispensable accessories to any knight-errant: his armour; a horse, Rocinante; and a lady, an unwitting peasant girl he calls Dulcinea of Toboso, in whose name he will perform great deeds of chivalry.\r\n\r\nWhile Don Quixote recovers from a disastrous first campaign as a knight, his close friends, the priest and the barber, decide to examine the books in his library. Their comments about his chivalric books combine literary criticism with a parody of the\u00a0Inquisition<\/a>\u2019s practices of burning texts associated with the devil. Although a few volumes are saved (Cervantes\u2019s own\u00a0La Galatea<\/a>\u00a0among them), most books are burned for their responsibility in Don Quixote\u2019s madness.\r\n
\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"441\"]\"\"<\/a> Jules David, \u2018Don Quixote and Sancho Panza\u2019, 1887.\u00a0Wikimedia Commons[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
<\/div><\/figure>\r\nIn Don Quixote\u2019s second expedition, the peasant Sancho Panza joins him as his faithful squire, with the hopes of becoming the governor of his own island one day. The duo diverges in every aspect. Don Quixote is tall and thin, Sancho is short and fat (panza<\/em>\u00a0means \u201cpot belly\u201d). Sancho is an illiterate commoner and responds to Don Quixote\u2019s elaborate speeches with popular proverbs. The mismatched couple has remained as a key literary archetype since then.\r\n\r\nIn perhaps the most famous scene from the novel, Don Quixote sees three windmills as fearful giants that he must combat, which is where the phrase \u201ctilting at windmills\u201d comes from. At the end of Part I, Don Quixote and Sancho are tricked into returning to their village. Sancho has become \u201cquixotized\u201d, now increasingly obsessed with becoming rich by ruling his own island.\r\n
\r\n\r\n[caption id=\"\" align=\"alignnone\" width=\"422\"]\"\" The cover of Don Quixote Part II (1615)[\/caption]\r\n\r\n
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\nDon Quixote<\/em> was an enormous success, being translated from Spanish into the main European languages and even reaching North America. In 1614 an unknown author, Alonso Fern\u00e1ndez de Avellaneda, published an apocryphal second part. Cervantes incorporated this spurious Don Quixote and its characters into his own Part II, adding yet another chapter to the history of modern narrative.\r\n\r\nWhereas Part I was a reaction to chivalric romances, Part II is a reaction to Part I. The book is set only one month after Don Quixote and Sancho\u2019s return from their first literary quest, after they are notified that a book retelling their story has been published (Part I).\r\n\r\nThe rest of Part II operates as a game of mirrors, recalling and rewriting episodes. New characters, such as aristocrats who have also read Part I, use their knowledge to play tricks on Don Quixote and Sancho for their own amusement. Deceived by the rest of the characters, Sancho and a badly wounded Don Quixote finally return again to their village.\r\n\r\nAfter being in bed for several days, Don Quixote\u2019s final hour arrives. He decides to abandon his existence as Don Quixote for good, giving up his literary identity and physically dying. He leaves Sancho \u2013 his best and most faithful reader \u2013 in tears, and avoids further additions by any future imitators by dying.\r\n

The original unreliable narrator<\/h2>\r\nThe narrator of Part I\u2019s prologue claims to write a sincere and uncomplicated story. Nothing is further from reality. Distancing himself from textual authority, the narrator declares that he merely compiled a manuscript translated by some Arab historian \u2013 an untrustworthy source at the time. The reader has to decide what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not.\r\n\r\nDon Quixote<\/em> is also a book made of preexisting books. Don Quixote<\/em> is obsessed with chivalric romances, and includes episodes parodying other narrative subgenres such as\u00a0pastoral romances<\/a>,\u00a0picaresque novels<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Italian novellas<\/a>\u00a0(of which Cervantes himself wrote\u00a0a few<\/a>).\r\n\r\nDon Quixote\u2019s transformation from nobleman to knight-errant is particularly profound given the events in Europe at the time the novel was published. Spain had been\u00a0reconquered by Christian royals<\/a>\u00a0after centuries of Islamic presence. Social status, ethnicity and religion were seen as determining a person\u2019s future, but Don Quixote defied this. \u201cI know who I am,\u201d he answered roundly to whoever tried to convince him of his \u201ctrue\u201d and original identity.\r\n

Don Quixote<\/em> through the ages<\/h2>\r\nMany writers have been inspired by Don Quixote<\/em>: from Goethe, Stendhal,\u00a0Melville<\/a>,\u00a0Flaubert<\/a>\u00a0and Dickens, to\u00a0Borges<\/a>, Faulkner and Nabokov.\r\n\r\nIn fact, for many critics, the whole history of the novel could justifiably be considered \u201ca variation of the theme of Don Quixote<\/a>\u201d. Since its early success, there have also been many valuable English translations of the novel.\u00a0John Rutherford<\/a>\u00a0and more recently\u00a0Edith Grossman<\/a>\u00a0have been praised for their versions<\/a>.\r\n
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\r\nApart from literature, Don Quixote<\/em> has inspired many\u00a0creative works<\/a>. Based on the episode of the wedding of Camacho in Part II,\u00a0Marius Petipa<\/a>\u00a0choreographed a\u00a0ballet<\/a>\u00a0in 1896. Also created for the stage,\u00a0Man of La Mancha<\/a>, the 1960s\u2019 Broadway musical, is one of the most popular reimaginings. In 1992, the State Spanish TV launched a highly successful\u00a0adaptation of Part I<\/a>. Terry Gilliam\u2019s much-awaited\u00a0The Man Who Killed Don Quixote<\/a>\u00a0is only the most recent addition to a long list of\u00a0films inspired by Don Quixote<\/a>.\r\n
\r\n
\r\n\r\n[embed]https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=XVTEkVBMfiI[\/embed]\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n
Lecture about and performance of Don Quixote<\/em> by the American Ballet Theatre.<\/span><\/div><\/figure>\r\nMore than 400 years after its publication and great success, Don Quixote<\/em> is widely considered\u00a0the world\u2019s best book<\/a>\u00a0by other celebrated authors. In our own times, full of windmills and giants, Don Quixote\u2019s still-valuable message is that the way we filter reality through any ideology affects our perception of the world.\r\n\r\nExcerpt from the \"windmill scene\" of Don Quixote<\/em>\r\n
\r\n\r\nJust then, they discovered thirty or forty windmills in that plain. And as soon as don Quixote saw them, he said to his squire: \u201cFortune is guiding our affairs better than we could have ever hoped. Look over there, Sancho Panza, my friend, where there are thirty or more monstrous giants with whom I plan to do battle and take all their lives, and with their spoils we\u2019ll start to get rich. This is righteous warfare, and it\u2019s a great service to God to rid the earth of such a wicked seed.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cWhat giants?\u201d said Sancho Panza.\r\n\r\n\u201cThose that you see over there,\u201d responded his master, \u201cwith the long arms\u2014some of them almost two leagues long.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cLook, your grace,\u201d responded Sancho, \u201cwhat you see over there aren\u2019t giants\u2014they\u2019re windmills; and what seems to be arms are the sails that rotate the millstone when they\u2019re turned by the wind.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cIt seems to me,\u201d responded don Quixote, \u201cthat you aren\u2019t well-versed in adventures\u2014they are giants; and if you\u2019re afraid, get away from here and start praying while I go into fierce and unequal battle with them.\u201d\r\n\r\nAnd saying this, he spurred his horse Rocinante without heeding what his squire Sancho was shouting to him, that he was attacking windmills and not giants. But he was so certain they were giants that he paid no attention to his squire Sancho\u2019s shouts, nor did he see what they were, even though he was very close. Rather, he went on shouting: \u201cDo not flee, cowards and vile creatures, for it\u2019s just one knight attacking you!\u201d\r\n\r\nAt this point, the wind increased a bit and the large sails began to move, which don Quixote observed and said: \u201cEven though you wave more arms than Briar\u00e6us, you\u2019ll have to answer to me.\u201d\r\n\r\nWhen he said this\u2014and commending himself with all his heart to his lady Dulcinea, asking her to aid him in that peril, well-covered by his shield, with his lance on the lance rest \u2014he attacked at Rocinante\u2019s full gallop and assailed the first windmill he came to. He gave a thrust into the sail with his lance just as a rush of air accelerated it with such fury that it broke the lance to bits, taking the horse and knight with it, and tossed him rolling onto the ground, very battered.\r\n\r\nSancho went as fast as his donkey could take him to help his master, and when he got there, he saw that don Quixote couldn\u2019t stir\u2014such was the result of Rocinante\u2019s landing on top of him. \u201cGod help us,\u201d said Sancho. \u201cDidn\u2019t I tell you to watch what you were doing; that they were just windmills, and that only a person who had windmills in his head could fail to realize it?\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cKeep still, Sancho, my friend,\u201d responded don Quixote. \u201cThings associated with war, more than others, are subject to continual change. Moreover, I believe\u2014and it\u2019s true\u2014that the sage Frest\u00f3n\u2014he who robbed me of my library\u2014has changed these giants into windmills to take away the glory of my having conquered them, such is the enmity he bears me. But in the long run, his evil cunning will have little power over the might of my sword.\u201d\r\n\r\n\u201cGod\u2019s will be done,\u201d responded Sancho Panza.\u201d\r\n\r\n<\/div>\r\n ","rendered":"

Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember\u2026<\/em><\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Portrait of Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra (1547-1615) is commonly attributed to Juan de J\u00e1uregui, yet no portrait of Cervantes has ever been authenticated.\u00a0Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

This line, arguably the most famous in the history of Spanish literature, is the opening of The Ingenious Nobleman Don Quixote of La Mancha<\/em> by Miguel de Cervantes,\u00a0the first modern novel<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, this is the story of Alonso Quijano, a 16th-century Spanish\u00a0hidalgo<\/em><\/a>, a noble, who is so passionate about reading that he leaves home in search of his own chivalrous adventures. He becomes a knight-errant himself: Don Quixote de la Mancha. By imitating his admired literary heroes, he finds new meaning in his life: aiding damsels in distress, battling giants and righting wrongs\u2026 mostly in his own head.<\/p>\n

But Don Quixote<\/em> is much more. It is a book about books, reading, writing, idealism vs. materialism, life \u2026 and death. Don Quixote is mad. \u201cHis brain\u2019s dried up\u201d due to his reading, and he is unable to separate reality from fiction, a trait that was appreciated at the time as\u00a0funny<\/a>. However, Cervantes was also using Don Quixote\u2019s insanity to probe the eternal debate between free will and fate. The misguided hero is actually a man fighting against his own limitations to become who he dreams to be.<\/p>\n

Open-minded, well-travelled, and very well-educated, Cervantes was, like Don Quixote himself, an avid reader. He also served the Spanish crown in adventures that he would later include in the novel. After defeating the Ottoman Empire in the\u00a0battle of Lepanto<\/a>\u00a0(and losing the use of his left hand, becoming \u201cthe one-handed of Lepanto\u201d), Cervantes was captured and held for ransom in Algiers.<\/p>\n

This autobiographical episode and his escape attempts are depicted in \u201cThe Captive\u2019s Tale\u201d (in Don Quixote Part I), where the character recalls \u201ca Spanish soldier named something de Saavedra\u201d, referring to Cervantes\u2019s second last name. Years later, back in Spain, he completed Don Quixote in prison, due to irregularities in his accounts while he worked for the government.<\/p>\n

Tilting at windmills<\/h2>\n

In Part I, Quijano with his new name, Don Quixote, gathers other indispensable accessories to any knight-errant: his armour; a horse, Rocinante; and a lady, an unwitting peasant girl he calls Dulcinea of Toboso, in whose name he will perform great deeds of chivalry.<\/p>\n

While Don Quixote recovers from a disastrous first campaign as a knight, his close friends, the priest and the barber, decide to examine the books in his library. Their comments about his chivalric books combine literary criticism with a parody of the\u00a0Inquisition<\/a>\u2019s practices of burning texts associated with the devil. Although a few volumes are saved (Cervantes\u2019s own\u00a0La Galatea<\/a>\u00a0among them), most books are burned for their responsibility in Don Quixote\u2019s madness.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Jules David, \u2018Don Quixote and Sancho Panza\u2019, 1887.\u00a0Wikimedia Commons<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

<\/div>\n<\/figure>\n

In Don Quixote\u2019s second expedition, the peasant Sancho Panza joins him as his faithful squire, with the hopes of becoming the governor of his own island one day. The duo diverges in every aspect. Don Quixote is tall and thin, Sancho is short and fat (panza<\/em>\u00a0means \u201cpot belly\u201d). Sancho is an illiterate commoner and responds to Don Quixote\u2019s elaborate speeches with popular proverbs. The mismatched couple has remained as a key literary archetype since then.<\/p>\n

In perhaps the most famous scene from the novel, Don Quixote sees three windmills as fearful giants that he must combat, which is where the phrase \u201ctilting at windmills\u201d comes from. At the end of Part I, Don Quixote and Sancho are tricked into returning to their village. Sancho has become \u201cquixotized\u201d, now increasingly obsessed with becoming rich by ruling his own island.<\/p>\n

\n
\"\"<\/p>\n

The cover of Don Quixote Part II (1615)<\/p>\n<\/div>

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Don Quixote<\/em> was an enormous success, being translated from Spanish into the main European languages and even reaching North America. In 1614 an unknown author, Alonso Fern\u00e1ndez de Avellaneda, published an apocryphal second part. Cervantes incorporated this spurious Don Quixote and its characters into his own Part II, adding yet another chapter to the history of modern narrative.<\/p>\n

Whereas Part I was a reaction to chivalric romances, Part II is a reaction to Part I. The book is set only one month after Don Quixote and Sancho\u2019s return from their first literary quest, after they are notified that a book retelling their story has been published (Part I).<\/p>\n

The rest of Part II operates as a game of mirrors, recalling and rewriting episodes. New characters, such as aristocrats who have also read Part I, use their knowledge to play tricks on Don Quixote and Sancho for their own amusement. Deceived by the rest of the characters, Sancho and a badly wounded Don Quixote finally return again to their village.<\/p>\n

After being in bed for several days, Don Quixote\u2019s final hour arrives. He decides to abandon his existence as Don Quixote for good, giving up his literary identity and physically dying. He leaves Sancho \u2013 his best and most faithful reader \u2013 in tears, and avoids further additions by any future imitators by dying.<\/p>\n

The original unreliable narrator<\/h2>\n

The narrator of Part I\u2019s prologue claims to write a sincere and uncomplicated story. Nothing is further from reality. Distancing himself from textual authority, the narrator declares that he merely compiled a manuscript translated by some Arab historian \u2013 an untrustworthy source at the time. The reader has to decide what\u2019s real and what\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

Don Quixote<\/em> is also a book made of preexisting books. Don Quixote<\/em> is obsessed with chivalric romances, and includes episodes parodying other narrative subgenres such as\u00a0pastoral romances<\/a>,\u00a0picaresque novels<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Italian novellas<\/a>\u00a0(of which Cervantes himself wrote\u00a0a few<\/a>).<\/p>\n

Don Quixote\u2019s transformation from nobleman to knight-errant is particularly profound given the events in Europe at the time the novel was published. Spain had been\u00a0reconquered by Christian royals<\/a>\u00a0after centuries of Islamic presence. Social status, ethnicity and religion were seen as determining a person\u2019s future, but Don Quixote defied this. \u201cI know who I am,\u201d he answered roundly to whoever tried to convince him of his \u201ctrue\u201d and original identity.<\/p>\n

Don Quixote<\/em> through the ages<\/h2>\n

Many writers have been inspired by Don Quixote<\/em>: from Goethe, Stendhal,\u00a0Melville<\/a>,\u00a0Flaubert<\/a>\u00a0and Dickens, to\u00a0Borges<\/a>, Faulkner and Nabokov.<\/p>\n

In fact, for many critics, the whole history of the novel could justifiably be considered \u201ca variation of the theme of Don Quixote<\/a>\u201d. Since its early success, there have also been many valuable English translations of the novel.\u00a0John Rutherford<\/a>\u00a0and more recently\u00a0Edith Grossman<\/a>\u00a0have been praised for their versions<\/a>.<\/p>\n

<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Apart from literature, Don Quixote<\/em> has inspired many\u00a0creative works<\/a>. Based on the episode of the wedding of Camacho in Part II,\u00a0Marius Petipa<\/a>\u00a0choreographed a\u00a0ballet<\/a>\u00a0in 1896. Also created for the stage,\u00a0Man of La Mancha<\/a>, the 1960s\u2019 Broadway musical, is one of the most popular reimaginings. In 1992, the State Spanish TV launched a highly successful\u00a0adaptation of Part I<\/a>. Terry Gilliam\u2019s much-awaited\u00a0The Man Who Killed Don Quixote<\/a>\u00a0is only the most recent addition to a long list of\u00a0films inspired by Don Quixote<\/a>.<\/p>\n

\n
\n