Don Quixote

Don Quixote, or in full The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, a satirical novel and one of the masterpieces of world literature, by Miguel de Cervantes Savedra, originally published in two parts (1605 and 1615). According to tradition, Cervantes began to work on Don Quixote while serving a term in prison. His purpose in writing the book was, in his own words, "to diminish the authority and acceptance that books on chivalry have in the world and among the vulgar".

The principal character of the novel is Don Quixote, an elderly village gentleman of modest means. An avid reader of old-fashioned tales of chivalry, he becomes obsessed with the idea of reintroducing the practice of knight-errantry into the world. Don Quixote equips himself with arms and armor and rides forth on Rosin ante, a caparisoned old nag, to challenge evil wherever he may find it. He is accompanied on foot by the loyal and shrewd, but credulous, peasant Sancho Panza, who serves him as squire.

In his deranged state, Don Quixote sets himself the task of defending orphans, protecting maidens and widows, befriending the helpless, serving the causes of truth and beauty, and re-establishing justice. His adventures and skirmishes are often grotesquely inappropriate to the situation at hand, e.g., he attacks a windmill, thinking it a giant, and a flock of sheep, thinking it an army. The obstinacy of his illusions never permits him to yield to the warnings of Sancho Panza, whose attitude is as realistic as his master’s is idealistic. The philosophical perception of the novel lies in the suggested balance of their contrasting views.

In part 11 the contrast between Don Quixote’s romanticism and Sancho Panza's practical wisdom is less striking. Don Quixote becomes a trifle more reasonable, and Sancho Panza begins to understand rather dimly his master’s illusions. In the end Don Quixote returns to his village and abandons knighthood. He realizes the error of his ways, declaring that "in the neat of yesteryear there are no birds today", falls ill, and dies. Critics generally agree that part two of Don Quixote is superior because of its more compact organization.

Don Quixote has had an enormous influence on the development of prose fiction; it has been translated into all modern languages and has appeared in some seven hundred editions. Its first publication in English was in translation by Thomas Shelton in 1612. It has been the subject of a variety of works in other fields of art, including operas by the Italian composer Giovanni Paisiello, the French composer Jules Massenet, and the Spanish composer Manuel de Falla; a tone poem by the German composer Richard Strauss; a German movie directed by George Wilhelm Pabst, and a Soviet-Russian movie directed by Grigori Kozintzev; book illustrations by the French artist Gustave Dore; and a number of paintings by the French artist Honore Daumier.





Miguel de Cervantes leather bound books