Don Quixote

:This page is about the fictional character. For the spacecraft, see Don Quijote (space mission).

The book

The novel actually consists of two parts: the first, titled El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, was published in 1605 (off Juan de la Cuesta's printing press in Madrid on December 20, 1604, and made available to the public on January 16, 1605) and the second, Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero Don Quijote de la Mancha, in 1615 (a year before the author's death). In 1614, between the first and second parts, a fake Don Quixote sequel was published by somebody using the pen-name Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda. For this reason, Part II contains several references to an imposter, whom Quixote rails against, and Part II ends with the death of Don Quixote (so no imposter could experiment again with Cervantes's character).

Related Topics:
1605 - Juan de la Cuesta - December 20 - January 16 - 1615 - 1614 - Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda

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Cervantes tells that the first chapters come from the "chronicles of La Mancha", and the rest was translated by a morisco from a found manuscript by the original Arabic author Cide Hamete Benengeli ("Mr. Hamid Eggplant"). This and other narrative resources parody the knight genre.

Related Topics:
Morisco - Found manuscript - Eggplant

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The plot covers the journeys and adventures of Don Quixote and his squire, Sancho Panza. Alonso Quijano is an ordinary Spaniard (an hidalgo, the lowest rank of the Spanish nobility) who is obsessed with stories of knights errant (libros de caballerías), especially those written by Feliciano de Silva. His friends and family think he is crazy when he decides to take the name of Don Quijote de la Mancha and become a knight errant himself (a don being a title of a higher nobility, and a quixote in Spanish was a piece of armor).

Related Topics:
Sancho Panza - Hidalgo - Knight - Libros de caballerías - Feliciano de Silva

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Then he sorties to wander Spain on his thin horse Rocinante, righting wrongs and protecting the oppressed.

Related Topics:
Spain - Rocinante

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Don Quixote is visibly crazy to most people. He believes ordinary inns to be enchanted castles, and their peasant girls to be beautiful princesses. He mistakes windmills for oppressive giants sent by evil enchanters. He imagines a neighboring peasant to be Dulcinea del Toboso, the beautiful maiden to whom he has pledged love and fidelity.

Related Topics:
Dulcinea - Toboso

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Sancho Panza, his simple squire, believes his master to be a bit crazy, in particular he knows that there is "really" no Dulcinea, but he plays along, hoping to get rich. He and Quixote agree for instance that because Dulcinea is not as pretty nor does she smell as good as she should, she "must have been enchanted", and from that point on the mission is to disenchant her.

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Both master and squire undergo complex change and development throughout the story, and each character takes on attributes of the other as the novel goes on. At the end of the second book, Quixote decides on his deathbed that his actions have been madness. Sancho begs him not to give up, but to no avail.

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Master and squire have numerous adventures, often causing more harm than good in spite of their noble intentions. They meet criminals sent to the galleys, and are victims of an elaborate prank by a pair of Dukes, when Sancho is made "governor" of fake Barataria.

Related Topics:
Galley - Barataria

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Many Americans may be more familiar with the musical Man of la Mancha than with the book itself. If they read the book, they would be in for some surprises: for example Dulcinea, or Aldonza Lorenzo, one of the main characters of the play, is never seen in the book.

Related Topics:
Man of la Mancha - Aldonza Lorenzo

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In the novel, she is constantly invoked by Don Quixote as his lady, but never appears, allowing his hyperbolic statements of her beauty and virtue to go untested.

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Opening sentence

:En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.

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:"In some village in La Mancha, whose name I do not care to recall, there dwelt not so long ago a gentleman of the type wont to keep an unused lance, an old shield, a greyhound for racing, and a skinny old horse."

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The phrase de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme was made famous by the book, and, like other fragments of the book, is a common cliché in modern Spanish.

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En un Lugar?, says the french Don Quixote specialist Dominique Aubier, is an allusion to lugar not the village but the abstract idea of the jewish maqom. Don Quixote, she asserts is coded with hebrew kabbalistical keys. Confirmed by prof. Ruth Reichelberg, Bar Ilan University in Tel Aviv.

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English Translation of Agustin Sánchez's Adaptation (First two paragraphs)

Note: The Sánchez adaptation is a shortened version of the original and allows the student to gain a quicker understanding of the story without being burdened excessively by every detail which appeared in the original. This shortened adaptation still runs to about 150 pages.

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:"In a village in La Mancha, whose name I don't wish to recall, lived, a long long time ago, a gentleman, tall and dry as the flesh which wrapped around his 50 years, and which kept him reputed as being a good man. As the story goes, he was called Alonso Quijano and he lived a modest life without luxuries, although within his house, nobody lacked food or a good piece of velvet with which to light up the holidays. Don Alonso lived with a female servant who had already reached fifty years, and with a niece who had not yet reached twenty, and he was an early riser and fan of hunting which led him to have a narrow friendship with the priest and barber of his village. As a gentleman, he had hardly any responsiblities, and so he dedicated his many hours of free time to reading adventure books. He was so fond of the stories about giants and battles, wandering knights and captive princesses that it led him to sell a good part of his land to pay for books and more books.

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:By day and by night, don Alonso had nothing to do better than to read. Because of the books he stopped looking after his home and neglected his affairs, so soon, by dint of reading so much, and sleeping so little, his brain dried up, and he became mad. Suddenly he released the grip on the book he was holding between his hands and furiously brandished is old sword and began stabbing at the walls as if he was defending himself from a legion of fierce giants. He had convinced himself that everything he had read in the books was true........"

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