Don Quixote

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Template:Infobox Book | translator = | image = Image:Cervantes Don Quixote 1605.gif | author = Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra | cover_artist = | country = Spain | language = Spanish | series = | genre = Satirical | publisher = | release_date = 1605 | media_type = Print (Hardback & Paperback) | pages = | isbn = | preceded_by = | followed_by = }}

This page is about the fictional character and novel. For other meanings, see Don Quixote (disambiguation)

Don Quixote de la Mancha (now usually spelled Don Quijote by Spanish-speakers; Don Quixote is an archaic spelling) (Template:IPA2) is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Published in 1605, it is one of the earliest written novels in a modern European language and is considered by some to be the finest book in the Spanish language. <ref>Template:Cite web</ref>. Don Quixote is almost universally accepted to be the emblematic work of Spanish literature.

The adjective "quixotic", at present meaning "idealistic and impractical", derives from the protagonist's name, and the expressions "tilting at windmills" and "fighting windmills" come from this story.

There are many adaptations of the book, mostly designed to modernise and shorten the text. One such adaptation is authored by Agustín Sánchez and runs to only 150 pages.

Contents

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The book

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

The novel actually consists of two parts: the first, titled El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote 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 Quixote 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. French Don Quixote specialist Dominique Aubier suspects seriously Lope de Vega of being the author of that literary jest. 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).

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 then-popular genre of chivalric romance.

Image:Quixote8788.png

The plot covers the journeys and adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Alonso Quijano is an ordinary Spaniard (a 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 Quixote de la Mancha and become a knight errant himself (a don being a title of a higher nobility, and "Quixote" being a literary degeneration of "Quijana", the knight's real name. A lot of knights' names in spanish chivalristic literature ended in "ote", thus "Quixote" was Cervantes' way of mocking the convention. This also fits with the name of the piece of armor that is meant to cover the thigh) Then he sorties to wander Spain on his thin horse Rocinante, righting wrongs and protecting the oppressed.

Don Quixote is visibly crazy. 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, famous for her skill at salting pork, to be Dulcinea del Toboso, the beautiful maiden to whom he has pledged love and fidelity.

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. Image:529px-Quijote-1.jpg Image:Quijote-2.jpg 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. He burns all of his books of knight-errantry save for a few. They include Amadis of Gaul, the originator of the genre, and Tirant lo Blanch (Tirant the White), a Catalan book considered to be one of the greatest of the Spanish books about a knight-errant.

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 the nonexistent Barataria.

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.

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

Image:Don Quixote.jpg

The opening phrase of the book de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme (whose name I do not care to recall) was made famous by the book, and, along with other phrases from the text, has become a common cliché in modern Spanish.

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.
"In a place 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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Importance

Don Quixote is often nominated as the world's greatest work of fiction. It stands in a unique position between medieval chivalric romance and the modern novel. The former consist of disconnected stories with little exploration of the inner life of even the main character. The latter are usually focused on the psychological evolution of their characters. In Part I, Quixote imposes himself on his environment. By Part II, he is no longer physically capable, but people know about him, "having read his adventures," and so, he needs to do less to maintain his image. By his deathbed, he has begun to assume a new identity, including a nickname, "the Good."

Image:Quixo-panza.jpgThere are many minor literary "firsts" for European literature—a woman complaining of her menopause, someone with an eating disorder, and the psychological revealing of their troubles as something inner to themselves.

Subtle touches regarding perspective are everywhere: characters talk about a woman who is the cause of the death of a suitor, portraying her as evil, but when she comes on stage, she gives a different perspective entirely that makes Quixote (and thus the reader) defend her. When Quixote descends into a cave, Cervantes admits that he does not know what went on there.

Quixote's adventures tend to involve situations in which he attempts to apply a knight's sure, simple morality to situations in which much more complex issues are at hand. For example, upon seeing a band of galley slaves being mistreated by their guards, he believes their cries of innocence and attacks the guards. After they are freed, he demands that they honor his lady Dulcinea, but instead they pelt him with stones and leave.

Different ages have tended to read different things into the novel. When it was first published, it was usually interpreted as a comic novel. After the French Revolution it was popular in part due to its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is quite wrong and disenchanting—not comic at all. In the 19th century it was seen as a social commentary, but no one could easily tell "whose side Cervantes was on." By the 20th century it became clear that it was not simply a unique and great moral work, but the first true modern novel, as Dominique Aubier writes: a "systemical and structural masterpiece, inspired by the Zohar, the cornerstone of the spanish Kabalah."

American author Barry Gifford described "Don Quixote" as "the first Beat novel."

Following the Cuban revolution, the revolutionary government founded a publishing house called Instituto Cubano del Libro (Cuban Book Institute), to publish large runs of great literature for distribution at low prices to the masses. The first book published by the Instituto was Don Quixote.

For the 400th anniversary of the original publication of the novel, the Venezuelan government printed one million summarized copies for free distribution. Similar initiatives took place in Spain and other Spanish-speaking countries around the world

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Use in tourism

Image:Quixote monument.jpg The autonomous community of Castile-La Mancha has used the fame of Cervantes's novel to promote tourism in the region. A number of sites in La Mancha are linked to the novel, including windmills and an inn upon which events of the story are thought to have been based. Several trademarks also refer to Don Quixote's characters and events.

Image:QuijoteIVCentenario.JPG In 2004, a scholarly team lead by Francisco Parra Luna announced that it had identified the "real" hometown of Don Quixote, which is never actually named in the novel (the very first line of the book begins,

“In a village of La Mancha the name of which I have no desire to recall ....”) Based on clues in the novel, along with computations of the time it would have taken a man on horseback to reach the various locations referenced by the author, the team identified the place as Villanueva de los Infantes, a small town some 144 miles south of Madrid.

As reported in press accounts, Mariano Sabina, the mayor of Villanueva de los Infantes, said upon hearing the news: "I’m delighted that my town is the famous place in La Mancha. Now I hope the whole world will know us."

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Literary influence

Influences for Don Quixote include the Valencian novel Tirant lo Blanc, one of the first chivalric epics, which Cervantes 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. Image:Dalí DonQuijotesentado.JPG The novel's landmark status in literary history has afforded it a vast and nearly innumerable legacy of influence. To just enumerate a few examples:

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Literature

  • José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta: "Los quijotes del Quijote": Historia de una aventura creativa. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1997. ISBN 3-931887-14-6
  • José Ángel Ascunce Arrieta: "El Quijote como tragedia y la tragedia de don Quijote". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-00-4
  • Cervantes y su mundo I. V.V.A.A., Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2004. ISBN 3-935004-89-3
  • Cervantes y su mundo II. V.V.A.A., Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-935004-91-0
  • Cervantes y su mundo III. V.V.A.A., Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-10-4
  • Agapita Jurado Santos: "Obras teatrales derivadas de novelas cervantinas (siglo XVII)". Para una bibliografía. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-935004-95-8
  • James A.Parr: "Cervantes and the Quixote: A Touchstone for Literary Criticism". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-21-X
  • Reichenberger: "Cervantes and the Hermeneutics of Satire". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-11-2
  • Kurt Reichenberger: "Cervantes, un gran satírico?" Los enigmas del Quijote descifrados para el carísimo lector. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-12-0
  • Kurt & Theo Reichenberger: "Cervantes: El Quijote y sus mensajes destinados al lector". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2004. ISBN 3-937734-05-8
  • Karl-Ludwig Selig: "Studies on Cervantes". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1995. ISBN 3-928264-64-9
  • Krzysztof Sliwa: "Vida de Miguel Cervantes Saavedra". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-13-9
  • V.V.A.A., Cervantes. Estudios sobre Cervantes en la víspera de su centenario. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1994. ISBN 3-928064-64-9
  • Dominique Aubier, Don Quichotte, le prodigieux secours du messie, editions M.L.L. 1997 ISBN 2-9508391-2-6
  • Dominique Aubier, Don Quichotte, le révélation du code de la Bible; editions M.L.L. 1999, ISBN 2-9508391-4-2
  • Dominique Aubier, Don Quichotte, Prophète d'Israel, éd. Robert Laffont, 1968, Paris
  • Dominique Aubier, Don Quijote, Profeta y Cabalista, ed. Obelisco, ISBN 84-300-4527-9
  • Dominique Aubier, Don Quichotte, la réaffirmation messianique du Coran editions M.L.L. 2001 ISBN 2-9508391-8-5
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Films and iconography

Image:Plisecka.jpg

Several films are based on the story of Don Quixote, including:

The movie "Kissing a Fool," starring David Schwimmer, is based on a story from Don Quixote. Hanna-Barbera released a short-lived children's cartoon based on the story called The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda. Other than the anthropomorphic main characters, the other roles' species have not been changed, and use the original names. The 1971 movie, "They Might Be Giants" [1]is based on the reason that Don Quixote fought the windmills.

Don Quixote inspired a large number of illustrators, painters and draughtsmen such as Gustave Doré, Pablo Picasso, Salvador Dalí and Antonio de La Gandara.

In Bolivia, Don Quixote became a symbol for justice in a series of paintings by the muralist, Walter Solón Romero. These were painted during many years of dictatorships that led to Solón´s arrest and torture.

In the video game series Suikoden published by Konami, a pair of characters who's visual style is assuredly inspired by the author's descriptions of the good Don & Sancho star as Maximillian and Sancho in the game series respectively.

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Opera, music and ballet

Don Quichotte, opera by Jules Massenet, premiered at Monte Carlo Opera on February 24, 1910. In the title role at the first performance was the legendary Russian bass Feodor Chaliapin, for whom the part was written.

There is also Master Peter's Puppet Show, an opera by Manuel de Falla based on an episode from Book II. Also based on an episode from the novel is Die Hochzeit des Camacho, an early opera by Felix Mendelssohn.

Richard Strauss composed the tone poem Don Quixote, subtitling it "Introduction, Theme with Variations, and Finale" and 'Fantastic Variations for Large Orchestra on a Theme of Knightly Character.' The music is full of musical tics, pops, and other random sounds symbolizing Don Quixote's insanity, and they increase in volume and frequency as the music develops.

Georg Philipp Telemann wrote an orchestral suite entitled "Burlesque Don Quixotte".

In 1972 Canadian singer-songwriter Gordon Lightfoot released an album entitled Don Quixote. The album's title track was a folk song based around the character of Don Quixote.

1869 saw the Bolshoi Ballet's premiere of Marius Petipa's ballet Don Quixote, set to music by Léon Minkus. This was substantially revised by Alexander Gorsky in 1900, and revisited by several other choreographers in the course of the twentieth century. In 1972, Rudolf Nureyev and Sir Robert Helpmann filmed another version of this ballet over 25 days in 40 degree heat, in Melbourne's Essendon airport hangar, which is considered one of Australia's greatest artistic achievements. The choreography was credited to Nureyev, but based closely on Petipa's.

George Balanchine created another Don Quixote ballet in 1965, to music by Nicolas Nabokov. This was dedicated to the dancer Suzanne Farrell, whom he played opposite in the original production. In 2005 The Suzanne Farrell Ballet and The National Ballet of Canada co-produced a restaging of this ballet, the first in 25 years.

In Puerto Rico, Destileria Serralles' most famous rum is called Don Q, and the logo is a sideview of Don Quixote on horseback.

American Folk-Pop-Rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket released the album Dulcinea in 1994. The album included the song "Windmills" and includes the line "I spend too much time, raiding windmills".

Israeli transexual pop star, and winner of the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest, Dana International recorded a song entitled Don Quixote [Hebrew: דון קישוט].

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Spelling and pronunciation

Quixote is the original spelling in medieval Castilian, and is used in English. However, modern Spanish has since gone through spelling reforms and phonetic changes which have turned the x into j.

The x was pronounced like an English sh sound (voiceless postalveolar fricative) in mediaeval times—Template:IPA in the International Phonetic Alphabet—and this is reflected in the French name Don Quichotte. However, such words (now virtually all spelt with a j) are now pronounced as a voiceless velar fricative sound like the Scottish or German ch (as in Loch, Bach) or the Greek Chi (χ)—Template:IPA. English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote/Quijote, although more Anglicized pronunciations of "Don Quixote" often sound more like "Donkey Hotey" or "Don Quicks Oat" or even "Donk Quitz Olt".

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400th anniversary

Image:Spanish commemorative euro coin 2005.jpg The book's 400th anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2005. Spain issued a commemorative €2 coin. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez's government handed out 1 million free copies as part of a national literacy program [2]. In the UK, BBC Radio ran during two weeks a ten part serialisation of an adaptation of the work. (There had previously been a 2-part, 3-hour BBC Radio adaptation in 1980). In late 2005, Peru presented at a book fair in Guadalajara a version of Don Quixote translated into the Quechua language.

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See also

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Footnotes

<references/>

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External links

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