Don Quixote Miguel de Cervantes

1. Don QuixoteMiguel de Cervantes

2. The Author • Was born in 1547 near Madrid, Spain • Noble family, however his father was imprisoned for debts • He became a soldier and lost his left hand in battle • When sailing home, he was captured by Barbary pirates and was a slave in Algiers for 5 years; he was not freed until 1580 when his family paid ransom • He married a girl of 19 in 1584 (unhappy result) and began writing plays and poetry • Worked for government as a tax inspector but still ran into financial problems/debt and was imprisoned – twice in the Seville gaol

3. In 1590, he was turned down for a post in the American colonies • The first volume of Don Quixote was published in 1604; second volume in 1615. • Cervantes died on April 23, 1616 - the same day as William Shakespeare (unreformed calendar) • He has had an enormous influence on European literature for centuries • Don Quixote is the best-selling non-religious, non-political work of fiction of all time

4. Historical Background • A satire on the old romances of chivalry, to a certain extent • Cervantes satirizes the extravagances of chivalry, yet lived his whole life in the spirit of the knight-errant • Don Quixote is considered by many to be the greatest romance of chivalry (irony?) because its action is placed in the real world

5. Code of chivalry – chivalry symbolizes moral idealism and Don Quixote is its embodiment • Against the panorama of characters that Quixote meets – the vicious and brutal, the morally corrupt and sophisticated, or those who cannot or will not understand him – his idealism is helpless • Is Cervantes showing us – as some maintain – the inevitable failure of idealism in a modern world of science and industry?

6. Don Quixote is insane and insanity is wrong; he distorts the ethical world and the sensory world • Madness in literature is often the vehicle and symbol of truths and attitudes that cannot be conveyed by normality • Don Quixote, from this viewpoint, is a tragic hero • He adopts his ideals and his means of interpreting reality from novels of chivalry

7. The novel is not anti-Christian, but is written outside of the circle of Christianity • DQ never goes to church, never appeals to God, Jesus or Mary; in his hours of testing he calls only upon Dulcinea, who symbolizes the purely human, willfully created ideal • DQ involves this world, not the next; Dulcinea not Christ; self-creation not grace. • “Chivalry is a religion” he tells us • DQ rides with Sancho Panza, squire and apprentice

8. Sancho represents the average mold of man; unsophisticated and unpolished, he has the natural human vices and also the natural virtues; he has moments of uplifting idealism • While DQ is an ascetic, neglecting the physical body for the spirit, Sancho is pictured as a glutton

9. One aspect of the story involves the nature of reality and knowledge - delusion, deceit and disguise are woven throughout the novel • But despite shifting appearances, subjective interpretations cannot change basic reality • If man cannot alter and change reality, he cannot escape the prison of a fixed destiny (think Hamlet) • This world cannot accept DQ’s metaphysical perspective or his ethical ideals: freedom and responsibility; justice and the surpassing of oneself by devotion to a cause

10. The path of disillusionment is clearly marked out • Alonso Quixano, the undistinguished hidalgo • Cervantes, though he sympathizes with DQ and has put much of himself into him, consistently rejects and mocks him • Elements of tragedy and comedy are artfully fused in the story

11. Terms to know • Satire • Sally – a venture or excursion usually off the beaten path • Knight-errant – a knight traveling in search of adventures in which to exhibit military skill, prowess, and generosity (Alonso Quixano steps into his literary world and becomes a knight-errant, just like those in his books of chivalry) • Quixotic- foolishly impractical, especially in the pursuit of ideals