"The Quixotes of this Age fight with the Wind-mills of their owne
Heads, quell Monsters of their creation, plots and then discover them.”
The
line not only reminds us of John Cleveland’s
most famous attack on the Commonwealth leaders in Character
of London Diurnall (1647) but the dangers of Quixotry vividly portrayed
in its lexicological source that is none other than Cervantes’ Don Quixote in which his idealistic
protagonist displays impracticality, naïve romanticism and the
utopianism .It is a work of Nihilism and Anarchism as the ‘ingenioso’ author as well as his protagonist
tries to invent and re-establish certain obsolete conventions debarring their
respective stately and societal norms
and codes of conduct.
Don Quixote fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman
Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spanish: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha ), is a Spanish
novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Remembering
that the prime model of knight-errantry Amadis of Gaul had added the name of
his kingdom, the author adds ‘de La Mancha’ to his title. Translators such as John
Ormsby have declared La Mancha to be
one of the most desert like, unremarkable regions of Spain, the least romantic
and fanciful place that one would imagine as the home of a courageous knight. While the province of La Mancha was something of a
poverty and remoteness, Quijote is a
word for thigh armour , thus the title as a whole embodies a parodic intention. It was
published in two volumes: the first part was published in 1605 followed by the
publication of the second part in 1615. The
first English translation by Thomas Shelton, The history of the valorous
and wittie knight errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, appeared in
1612, and the first French translation in 1614.
 |
| Title page of first edition (1605) |
The
novel emerged at an era of the fountainhead of scientific revolution
intertwined with socio-cultural changes. It was an era with epoch making events commenced
by the invention of Telescope(1609) coincided by the Galileo’s theory of
Heliocentrism that emphasized the time and again Copernican theory leading to
the complete disintegration of the superstitious Ptolemaic Geocentrism. Birth
of such scientific inventions now urged literature to reflect realism. Thus the
school of metaphysical poetry and the authorship of the novel by its feminine
pioneers emerged as a reaction against
the fantasy of the superstitious medieval romances and the absurdity of the
exaggerated courtly literature. Thus, Don Quixote ostensibly
parodies chivalric romance while exploring the nature of storytelling and
questions of truth, history, madness, the imagination, and the relation of life
and art. The highly
sophisticated ethics ofchivalric romances are completely devalued when it is
shown to be obsolete in the 16th century world and thus absurd.
The story follows the adventureof a poor gentleman named Alonso Quixano
of La Mancha who had dried out his brain and lost his sanity reading chivalric
romances with inordinate devotion which leads him to revive chivalry, undo
wrongs and bring justice to the world under the name Don Quixote. Thus, he
roams the world in search of adventures on his old horse, Rosinante accompanied
by a squire named, Sancho Panza. He also gives up food, shelter and comfort all
in the name of a peasant woman, Dulcinea del Toboso, whom he envisions as a
princess.
Cervantes maintains an ironic
distance from the characters and events in the novel, discussing them at times with mock seriousness. Also, he maintains an
individualism of characters. It acts as a great foil for bringing out Don Quixote's
most extreme qualities. While Don Quixote cares only about abstract things like
honor and love, Sancho cares only about practical things like food, sleep, and
money. Don Quixote speaks like a knight from a medieval adventure story, while
Sancho speaks in a mishmash of proverbs and curses that don't really make any
sense. While Don Quixote is tall and thin, Sancho is short and fat. Don Quixote
rides a horse, while Sancho rides a donkey.They really make a great pair, and
Sancho's unique blend of skepticism and gullibility allows Don Quixote to
continue in his adventures while constantly explaining to Sancho (and to us)
the reasons behind all the stuff he does.
Cervantes came up with
the story while he was in jail. He like don Quixote had long wished to be a
war-hero which was not possible because he was injured from war. Thus
many of Don Quixote’s
recurring elements are autobiographical: the presence of Algerian pirates on
the Spanish coast, the exile of the enemy Moors, the frustrated prisoners whose
failed escape attempts cost them dearly, the disheartening battles displaying
Spanish courage in the face of plain defeat, and even the ruthless ruler of
Algiers. Cervantes’s biases pervade the novel as well, most notably in the form
of a mistrust of foreigners. The main character ‘Alonso Quixano’ is also named after his wife’s
uncle Alonso de Quesada y Salazar who is
believed to have inspired not only the name but also the general characterization
of the novel’s hero. A particularly empathetic sequence in the novel sees the
hero and Sancho Panza freeing a group of galley slaves from captivity.
Cervantes’ special sensitivity to these recipients of Don Quixote’s chivalry
likely stems from his own experiences in servitude in the 1570s. He spent five
years as a slave in Algiers, attempting escape on more than one occasion.
The tale of the captive, which begins in Chapter XXXIX of the First Part of Don Quixote, recounts
in detail many of the historical battles in which Cervantes himself
participated as Spain also suffered some of its most crippling defeats during
this time, including the crushing of its seemingly invincible armada by the
English in 1588. In this sense, Don Quixote is very much a historical novel.
Sources for Don Quixote include the Castillian novel Amadis
de Gaula,
which had enjoyed great popularity throughout the 16th century. Another
prominent source, which Cervantes evidently admires more, is Tirant
lo Blanch,
which the priest describes in Chapter VI of Quixote as "the best book in the world."
The scene of the book burning gives us an excellent list of Cervantes's likes
and dislikes about literature. Cervantes makes a number of references to the
Italian poem Orlando furioso. In chapter 10 of the first part of the
novel, Don Quixote says he must take the magical helmet of Mambrino, an episode
from Canto I of Orlando, and itself a reference to Matteo Maria Boiardo's Orlando innamorato. The interpolated story in chapter 33 of
Part four of the First Part is a retelling of a tale from Canto 43 of Orlando, regarding a man who tests the
fidelity of his wife. Another important source appears to have been Apuleius's The Golden Ass, one of the earliest known novels, a
picaresque from late classical antiquity. The wineskins episode near the end of
the interpolated tale "The Curious Impertinent" in chapter 35 of the
first part of Don
Quixote is a clear reference to
Apuleius, and recent scholarship suggests that the moral philosophy and the
basic trajectory of Apuleius's novel are fundamental to Cervantes's program Similarly, many of both Sancho's adventures
in Part II and proverbs throughout are taken from popular Spanish and Italian
folklore.
A number of idioms and phraseology used in
this novel was later adopted in the vernacular language. The character of Don
Quixote became so well known in its time that the word ’quixotic’ was quickly adopted
by many of the languages. The
term Quixote derived from the name of the famous hero was used to describe a person who does not distinguish between reality
and imagination. The word Quixotism was mentioned, for the first time, in Pulpit
Popery, True Popery (1688):
"All the
Heroical Fictions of Ecclesiastical Quixotism"
The phrase ‘Tilting
at windmills’ derived from an episode in the
novel wherein the protagonist fights windmills that he imagines are giants- means attacking imaginary enemies. It is
in Don Quixote that
Cervantes coined the popular phrase (por
la muestra se conoce el paño):
"the proof of the pudding
is in the eating"
which still sees
heavy use in the shortened form of "the proof is in the pudding", and
"who walks much and reads much, knows much and sees much" .It is
a regular fixture in the vernacular: meaning 'the evidence that demonstrates a
truth'
Besides, the novel's farcical elements make
use of punning and similar verbal playfulness. Character-naming in Don Quixote makes ample figural use of contradiction,
inversion, and irony, such as the names Rocinante (a reversal) and Dulcinea (an allusion to illusion), and the word Quixote itself, possibly a pun on quijada (jaw) but certainly cuixot (Catalan: thighs), a reference
to a horse's rump. As a military term, the word quijote refers to cuisses, part of a full suit of plate
armour protecting the thighs. La Mancha is a region of Spain, but mancha (Spanish word) means spot, mark, stain.
Don Quixote is one of the most
influential works of literature from the Spanish
Golden Age in the Spanish literary
canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly appears
high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. It has been the inspiration for a wide array of cultural adaptations: literature, drama, opera,
ballet, film and art. The
1612 drama The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont has been described as
"the first English imitation of Don Quixote". Joseph Andrews Don Quixote is one of the
most influential works of literature from the Spanish Golden Age in the Spanish
literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly
appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. It has been the
inspiration for a wide array of cultural adaptations: literature, drama, opera, ballet,
film and art. The 1612
drama The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont has been described as "the first English imitation
of Don Quixote".
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding notes on the
title page that it is "written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes,
Author of Don Quixote". The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman by Laurence Sterne was influenced
by Cervantes' novel in several ways, including its genre-defying structure and
the Don Quixote-like character of Uncle Toby. Intentional nods include Sterne's
own description of his characters' "Cervantic humour" and naming
Parson Yorick's horse 'Rocinante'. The protagonist of Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is one of “the most original, profound and influential”
feminine “incarnations of Don Quixote” in the view of the critic Howard
Mancing.
The text inspired many illustrators, painters and sculptors, including Gustave Doré, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Antonio de la Gandara.
Written in the picaresco style, it takes place
over a long period of time, including many adventures united by common themes
of the nature of reality, reading, and dialogue in general. It is a satire
of orthodoxy, veracity and even nationalism. It stands in a unique
position between medieval chivalric
romance and the modern novel
.Don Quixote is a staple of
classic literature as it is often considered the “first modern novel” because
it was one of the first to have a fictional narrative. it has served as the prototype of the comic
Part Two of Don Quixote explores
the concept of a character understanding that he is written about: an idea much
explored in the 20th century The characterization throughout the novel is also
considered groundbreaking because it set into motion a series of changes in how
people began to understand the world around them. the
Russian author Fyodor
Dostoyevsky called it "the
ultimate and most sublime work of human thinking" Harold Bloom says that Don Quixote is
a work of radical nihilism and anarchism-As the full
title is indicative of the tale's object, as ingenioso (Spanish)
means "quick with inventiveness", marking the transition of
modern literature from dramatic to thematic unity. In the
years since its publication, Don Quixote has been
translated into at least fifty languages: :
Spanish, Catalan, Galician, Basque, Latin, English, French, Italian,
Portuguese, German, Romanian, Russian, Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Thai,
Tagalog, Vietnamese, Arabic, Hebrew, Persian, Hindi, Irish, Gaelic, Finnish,
Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic, Hungarian, Polish, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Greek,
Turkish, Serbian, Albanian, Bulgarian, Croatian, Slovenian, Latvian, Estonian,
Lithuanian, Maltese, Georgian, Esperanto, Yiddish, and Braille. It inspired
numerous creative works in many art forms–other literature, drama, opera,
ballet, film and art. Due to its popular readership i.e. of 500 million, it
might be the bestselling novel of all time. The Bokklubben World Library distinguishes it as "the best literary work ever written."
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