Don Quixote

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This article is about the fictional character and novel. For other uses, see Don Quixote (disambiguation).
Title El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha
Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605), original title page
The 1605 original title page
Author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Original title El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha
IPA: [el inɧeni'oso ið'algo don ki'xote ð̞e la 'manʧa]
Country Spain
Language Spanish
Genre(s) Picaresco, Satire, Parody, Farce, Psychological novel
Publisher
Released 1605, 1615
Media type Print (Hardback & Paperback)

Don Quixote de la Mancha (IPA: [don ki'xote ð̞e la 'manʧa], but see spelling and pronunciation below), fully titled El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha ("The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha") is an early novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Cervantes created a fictional origin for the story in the character of the Morisco historian, Cide Hamete Benengeli, whom he claims to have hired to translate the story from an Arabic manuscript he found in Toledo's bedraggled old Jewish quarter.[1]

The protagonist, Alonso Quixano, is a minor landowner who has read so many stories of chivalry that he descends into fantasy and becomes convinced he is a knight errant. Together with his companion Sancho Panza, the self-styled Don Quixote de la Mancha sets off to save Dulcinea del Toboso, an imaginary object of his courtly love crafted from a neighbouring farmgirl by the illusion-struck "knight".

Published in two volumes a decade apart, Don Quixote is the most influential work of literature to emerge from the Spanish Golden Age and perhaps the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, it regularly appears at or near the top of lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published [2].

Contents

[edit] Literary attributes

The book’s importance derives from various factors. The novel's structure is in episodic form. It is a humorous novel in the picaresco style of the late sixteenth century. The full title is indicative of the tale's object, as ingenioso (Span.) is to be quick with inventiveness.[3] Although the novel is farcical, the second half is serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Quixote has served as an important thematic source not only in literature but in much of later art and music, such as works by Pablo Picasso and Richard Strauss.The contrasts between the tall, thin, fancy-struck, and idealistic Quixote and the fat, squat, world-weary Panza is a motif echoed ever since the book’s publication, and Don Quixote's imaginings are the butt of outrageous and cruel practical jokes in the novel. Even faithful and simple Sancho is unintentionally forced to deceive him at certain points. The novel is considered a satire of orthodoxy, truth, veracity, and even nationalism. In going beyond mere storytelling to exploring the individualism of his characters, Cervantes helped move beyond the narrow literary conventions of the chivalric romance literature that he spoofed, which consists of straightforward retelling of a series of acts that redound to the knightly virtues of the hero.

Farce makes 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[4] (a reversal) and Dulcinea (an allusion to illusion), and the word quixote[5] itself, possibly a pun on quijada (jaw) but certainly cuixot (Catalan: thighs), a reference to a horse's rump.[6]

The world of ordinary people, from sheepherders to tavern-owners and inn-keepers, that figures in Don Quixote was groundbreaking. The character Don Quixote became so well-known in its time that the word quixotic was quickly calqued into many languages. Characters such as Sancho Panza and Don Quixote’s steed, Rocinante, are emblems of Western literary culture. The phrase "tilting at windmills" to describe an act of futility similarly derives from an iconic scene in the book.

Because of its widespread influence, Don Quixote also helped cement the modern Spanish language. The opening sentence of the book created a classic cliché of Spanish language in the phrase de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, "whose name I do not care to recall."

: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 village in La Mancha (whose name I do not care to recall) there lived, not very long ago, one of those gentlemen who keep a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old horse, and a fast greyhound."[7]

[edit] Plot summary

Spoiler warning: Plot and/or ending details follow.

Alonso Quixano, a fiftyish retired country gentleman, lives in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and a housekeeper. He has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes their every word to be true, despite the fact that many of the events in them are (clearly) impossible. Quixano eventually loses his mind from little sleep and food because of so much reading. He decides to go out as a knight-errant in search of adventure. He dons an old suit of armor, improvises a makeshift helmet, renames himself "Don Quixote de la Mancha," and names his skinny horse "Rocinante." He designates a neighboring farm girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, as his ladylove, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing about this.

He sets out in the early morning and ends up at a roadside house, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, whom he takes to be the lord of the castle, to dub him knight. Don Quixote spends the night holding vigil over his armor, during which he becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. The innkeeper then "dubs" him knight advising him that he needs a squire, and sends him on his way. Don Quixote battles with traders from Toledo, who "insult" the imaginary Dulcinea, and he also frees a young boy who is tied to a tree by his Master because the boy had the audacity to ask his master for the wages the boy had earned but had not yet been paid. Don Quixote is returned to his home by a neighboring peasant, Pedro Crespo.[8]

Back at home, Don Quixote plots an escape. Meanwhile, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber secretly burn most of the books of chivalry, and seal up his library pretending that a magician has carried it off. Don Quixote approaches another neighbor, Sancho Panza, and asks him to be his squire, promising him governorship of an island. The rather dull-witted Sancho agrees, and the pair sneak off in the early dawn. It is here that their series of famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote's attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants.

Although the first half of the novel is almost completely farcical, the second half is serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Don Quixote's imaginings are made the butt of outrageous and cruel practical jokes. Even Sancho is unintentionally forced to deceive him at one point; trapped into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three peasant girls and tells Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote does see only three peasant girls, Sancho pretends that Quixote suffers a cruel enchantment which does not permit him to see the truth. Sancho eventually does get his imaginary island governorship and unexpectedly proves to be wise and practical; though this too, ends in disaster. The novel ends with Don Quixote's complete disillusionment, with his melancholy return to sanity and renunciation of chivalry, and finally, his death.

[edit] Writing and publication

[edit] Cervantes' sources

[edit] Tirant lo Blanch

Sources for Don Quixote include the Valencian novel Tirant lo Blanch, 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.

[edit] Orlando furioso

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.[9] The interpolated story in chapter 51 of Part II is a retelling of a tale from Canto 43 of Orlando, regarding a man who tests the fidelity of his wife.[10]

[edit] Publication

In July or August 1604 Cervantes sold the rights of El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (known as Don Quixote, Part I) to the publisher-bookseller Francisco de Robles for an unknown sum. License to publish was granted in September, the printing was finished in December, and the book came out in January 1605.[11] The novel was an immediate success.

There is some evidence of its contents having been known before publication to, among others, Lope de Vega. There is also a tradition that Cervantes read some portions of his work to a select audience at the court of the Duke of Bejar, which may have helped in making the book known. Don Quixote, Part One remained in Cervantes' hands for some time before he could find a willing publisher.[12] The compositors at Juan de la Cuesta's press in Madrid are now known to have been responsible for errors in the text, many of which were attributed to the author.

No sooner was it in the hands of the public than preparations were made to issue derivative ("pirated") editions. "Don Quixote" had been growing in favour, and its author's name was now known beyond the Pyrenees. By August 1605 there were two Madrid editions, two published in Lisbon, and one in Valencia. A second edition with additional copyrights for Aragón and Portugal, which publisher Francisco de Robles secured.[13] Sale of these publishing rights deprived Cervantes of further financial profit on Part One. In 1607, an edition was printed in Brussels. Robles, the Madrid publisher, found it necessary to meet demand with a third edition, a seventh publication in all, in 1608. Popularity of the book in Italy was such that a Milan bookseller issued an Italian edition in 1610. Yet another Brussels edition was called for in 1611. [11]

In 1613, Cervantes published Novelas Exemplares, dedicated to the Maecenas of the day, the Conde de Lemos. Eight and a half years after Part One had appeared, we get the first hint of a forthcoming Segunda Parte (Part Two). "You shall see shortly," Cervantes says, "the further exploits of Don Quixote and humours of Sancho Panza."[citation needed] Don Quixote, Part Two, published by the same press as its predecessor, appeared late in 1615, and quickly reprinted in Brussels and Valencia (1616) and Lisbon (1617). The second tome capitalizes on the potential of the first, developing and diversifying without sacrificing familiarity. Many people agree that it is richer and more profound. Parts One and Two were published as one edition in Barcelona in 1617.

[edit] The spurious Avellaneda Segunda Parte

It is not certain when Cervantes began writing Part Two of Don Quixote, but he had probably not gotten much further than Chapter LIX by late July of 1614. About September, however, a spurious Part Two, entitled "Second Volume of the Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha: by the Licenciado (doctorate) Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, of Tordesillas", was published in Tarragona by an unidentified Aragonese who was an admirer of Lope de Vega, rival of Cervantes.[14] Avellaneda's identity has been the subject of many theories, but there is no consensus on who he was. In its prologue, the author gratuitously insulted Cervantes, who not surprisingly took offense and responded; the last half of Chapter LIX and most of the following chapters of Cervantes' Segunda Parte lend some insight of the effects upon him.[13] Many scholars agree that this book is of considerable literary merit.[15]

[edit] Editions in translation

There are many translations of the book, and it has been adapted many times in shortened versions. Many derivative editions were also being written at the time, as was the custom of envious or unscrupulous writers. Seven years after the Parte Primera appeared, Don Quixote had been translated into French, German, Italian, and English. (French translation of 'Part II' (1618), English translation (1620).) It has been translated since into English more than nineteen times.[citation needed] One such abridged adaptation is authored by Agustín Sánchez, which runs only 150 pages, cutting away about 750 pages.[citation needed]

Thomas Shelton's English translation of the First Part appeared in 1612. (Little is known about Shelton - not even his dates of birth and death.[citation needed]) Some claim Shelton was actually a friend of Cervantes, although there is no credible evidence to support this claim. Although Shelton's version has been a cherished translation, according to John Ormsby and Samuel Putnam respectively, it was far from satisfactory as a carrying over of Cervantes's text. [13]

Near the end of the 17th century, John Phillips, a nephew of poet John Milton, published what is considered by Putnam the worst English translated version. The translation, as literary critics claim, was not based on Cervantes' text but mostly upon a French work by Filleau de Saint-Martin and upon notes which Thomas Shelton had written previously. Around 1700, a version by Pierre Antoine Motteux appeared. As stated by translator John Ormsby, this version was "worse than worthless". The prevailing slapstick quality of this work, especially where Sancho Panza is involved, the obtrusion of the obscene where it is found in the original, and the slurring of difficulties through omissions or expanding upon the text all made the Motteux version irresponsible. In 1742, the Charles Jervas translation appeared, posthumously. Through a printer's error, it came to be known, and is still known, as "the Jarvis translation". The most scholarly and accurate English translation of the novel up to that time, it has been criticized by some as being too stiff. Nevertheless, it became the most frequently reprinted translation of the novel until about 1885. Another 18th-century translation into English was that of Tobias Smollett, himself a novelist. Like the Jarvis translation, it continues to be reprinted today.

Most modern translators take as their model the 1885 translation by John Ormsby. It is said that his translation was the most honest of all translations, without expansions upon the text nor changing of the proverbs. The most widely read English-language translations of the mid-20th century are those of Samuel Putnam, (1949), J.M. Cohen (1950; Penguin Classics), and Walter Starkie's (1957; Macmillan Publishers. The turn of the millennium saw new translations to English, by Burton Raffel, John Rutherford, and Edith Grossman, respectively. The most recent major translation was undertaken by Edith Grossman, who has also translated Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa.

[edit] Cultural legacy

Don Quixote is often nominated as the world's greatest work of fiction. Don Quixote's importance in literature has produced a large and varied cultural and artistic legacy. Many artists have drawn inspiration either directly or indirectly from Cervantes' work, including the painter Honoré Daumier, the composer Richard Strauss, the writer Henry Fielding and the filmmaker Terry Gilliam.

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza after an unsuccessful attack on a windmill. By Gustave Doré.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza after an unsuccessful attack on a windmill. By Gustave Doré.

The cultural legacy of Don Quixote is one of the richest and most varied of any work of fiction ever produced.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, people know about him through "having read his adventures," and so, he needs to do less to maintain his image. By his deathbed, he has regained his sanity, and is once more "Alonso Quixano the Good".

The novel contains 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 had come to occupy a canonical space as one of the foundations of modern literature.

[edit] Influences upon literature and literary theory

Don Quixote by Salvador Dalí.
Don Quixote by Salvador Dalí.

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:

  • Cardenio, a lost play by Cervantes's contemporary William Shakespeare. Itself the source of later plays, it was based on one of the interpolated novels in the first part.
  • The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens. The characters of Samuel Pickwick and Sam Weller, who roam London and get into all sorts of comic predicaments, are often compared to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, although in this case, "Quixote" is the short, plump one, and "Sancho" is the tall, thin one.
  • A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The main character, Ignatius, is considered a modern-day 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"
  • Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, features a Quixote-esque heroine, whose perception of reality is corrupted as a consequence of reading too much romantic literature.
  • Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is often attributed as a retelling of Don Quixote.
  • The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is also said to be influenced by "Don Quixote", by having two leading characters (Huckleberry Finn and Jim) who get involved with all manner of people during their adventures. In Twain's story, Huck's friend Tom Sawyer even makes reference to "Don Quixote" early on as one of his references for "the right way" to do things.
  • The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis includes a character called Kapetan Enas whose alias is Don Quixote
  • "Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Jorge Luis Borges is an essay about a (fictional) 20th century writer who re-authors Don Quixote. "The text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer." Borges' story is also well known as a central metaphor in John Barth's famous essay "The Literature of Exhaustion"
  • Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is rife with references, including Parson Yorick's horse, Rocinante
  • Don Quixote appears as a character in Tennessee Williams's Ten Blocks on the Camino Real. A television production of this play has appeared on DVD.
  • Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene. Monsignor Quixote is said to be a descendant of Don Quixote.
  • Asterix in Spain by Goscinny and Uderzo. Asterix and Obelix encounter Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on a country road in Spain, with Quixote becoming enraged and charging off into the distance when the topic of windmills arises in conversation.
  • City of Glass, one of the stories in The New York Trilogy written by Paul Auster, has a main character called Daniel Quinn - the same initials as Don Quixote - and comments on the authorship of the novel.
  • Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma (The Patriot) is a Brazilian novel by Lima Barreto, which presents Quaresma, a modern (for the early 1900s) Quixote, whose wishes were to improve Brazil's patriotism, i.e. suggesting president Gen. Floriano Peixoto declare Tupi as an official language.
  • Auto da Fe, a German novel by Elias Canetti. Sinologist Peter Kien lives for his private library. After being expelled from his apartment by his wife (and former housekeeper) Therese, Kien is tricked by the dwarf Fischerle, whose lies are like Quixote's illusions.
  • Romance da Pedra do Reino (The Kingdom's Rock Novel), by Brazilian writer Ariano Suassuna, presents us D. Pedro Dinis Ferreira Quaderna, a poet who wants to be humanity's great genius and believes himself to be the fourth of a true lineage of noble Brazilians - the Orleans e Bragança family are usurpers to him.
  • Don Quixote: Which Was a Dream (1986) also known as Don Quixote: a Novel by Kathy Acker, is a work of cyber-punk, post-feminist fiction that revisits the themes of the original text to highlight contemporary issues.
  • The novel plays an important part in Michel Foucault's book, The Order of Things. To Foucault, Quixote's confusion is an illustration of the transition to a new configuration of thought in the late sixteenth century. Quixote, by confusing semiology and hermeneutics, attempts to apply an anachronistic epistemological configuration to a new intellectual world, a new episteme, in which hermeneutics and semiology have been separated:

"Don Quixote is a negative of the Renaissance world; writing has ceased to be the prose of the world; resemblances and signs have dissolved their former alliance... [things] are no longer anything but what they are; words wander off on their own, without content, without resemblance to fill their emptiness; they are no longer the marks of things; they lie sleeping between the pages of books and covered in dust. ... Don Quixote is the first modern work of literature, because in it we see the cruel reason of identities and differences make endless sport of signs and similitudes; because in it language breaks off its old kinship with things and enters into that lonely sovereignty from which it will reappear, in its separated state, only as literature; because it marks the point where resemblance enters an age which is, from the point of view of resemblance, one of madness and imagination." [16]


[edit] Influences upon the arts

[edit] Operatic, music, and ballet renditions of Quixote

Maya Plisetskaya in the ballet Don Quixote.
Maya Plisetskaya in the ballet Don Quixote.

The 18th century French baroque composer Joseph Bodin de Boismortier wrote a short ballet titled Don Quichotte chez la duchesse.

Georg Philipp Telemann wrote an orchestral suite entitled Don Quichotte and an opera called Don Quichotte auf der Hochzeit des Camacho, based on an episode from the novel.

Die Hochzeit des Camacho, an early opera by Felix Mendelssohn (composed in 1827) is based on the same section of the book on which Telemann based his opera.

Jules Massenet's Don Quichotte 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.

Master Peter's Puppet Show, a puppet opera by Manuel de Falla, is based on an episode from Book II and was first performed at the Salon of the Princess de Polignac in Paris in 1923.

Maurice Ravel composed a set of three songs for voice and piano, Don Quichotte à Dulcinée (Don Qixote to Dulcinea) to poems by Paul Morand in 1932, and orchestrated them in 1934.

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 makes explicit reference to many of the novel's most entertaining sections, including the sheep (described famously by double-tongued brass) and windmill episodes.

Léon Minkus composed a ballet in 1869 called Don Quixote, premiered by the Bolshoi in a production by Marius Petipa. The ballet is based on the same chapters in the novel which attracted Mendelssohn and Telemann. It 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. The choreography, credited to Nureyev, was based closely on Petipa's original staging.

The Catalan composer Roberto Gerhard, shortly after being exiled to the United Kingdom at the end of the Spanish Civil War, composed in 1940-41 a ballet on Don Quixote as the most important of a number of tributes to Spanish culture. Not staged in this original form, the ballet became the source for a number of orchestral suites and Gerhard also used it in the extensive incidental music he provided for a BBC radio adaptation of Cervantes’s novel by Eric Linklater, The Adventures of Don Quixote (1940). Gerhard re-wrote the ballet in 1947-49 and it was staged by Sadler’s Wells Ballet at Covent Garden with choreography by Ninette de Valois and décor by Edward Burra.

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.

Man of La Mancha, with music by Mitch Leigh, lyrics by Joe Darion and book by Dale Wasserman based on his non-musical teleplay I, Don Quixote, is a one-act Broadway musical which combines episodes in the novel with a story about its author, Miguel de Cervantes, as a play within a play that premiered in 1965.

The British composer Ronald Stevenson has composed an extensive work for two guitars, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, subtitled 'a Bagatelle Cycle' (1982-3) and consisting of a double theme with seventeen variations based on various events in Cervantes' novel. The work was premiered in Glasgow in 1998.

Canadian composer Andrew Paul MacDonald wrote a work for solo classical guitar in 2003 entitled Don Quixote, Knight of the Sad Countenance in which he explored various aspects of the protagonist's character.

Finnish composer Herman Rechberger wrote a work for two guitars 1998 entitled "¡Hóla Miguel!". The work is in four parts and describes with the rich language of guitar sounds and effects several episodes. The first part is a humoresque withe title "Tango Habaniera for Dulcinea", the second one deals with the thoughts and meditations of Sancho Panza. The last part is called "Los molinos fantasmos".

Swedish composer Jan Sandstrom wrote a concerto for trombone and orchestra titled "Don Quixote: Cantos de la Mancha", which features many of the themes and quotations in the book. It was dedicated to Christian Lindberg.

[edit] Quixote in the visual arts

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

Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by Honoré Daumier.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by Honoré Daumier.

The French artist Honoré Daumier produced 29 paintings and 49 drawings based on the book and characters of Don Quixote starting with an exhibition at the 1850 Paris Salon, which would later inspire Pablo Picasso. In 1863, Gustave Doré produced a large set of drawings based on Don Quixote. These include the famous, if fanciful, engraving of Don Quijote in his library. On August 10, 1955, Pablo Picasso drew an illustration of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza that has become the most iconic image ever made of these characters, drawn for the journal weekly Les Lettres françaises (week of August 18-24, 1955), and which quotes from the Daumier caricature of a century before, shown left. Widely reproduced, today it is the iconic image used by the Spanish government to promote Cervantes and Don Quijote.

[edit] Functions for Spanish-language culture

[edit] Historical

The historical commentaries, though gently touched upon, deal with racial tensions between Spanish and Moriscos (Spanish for moor-like), religious tensions between Islam and Christianity, and idealistic national purpose, all of which were common things taking place in Cervantes’ lifetime in the decline of Spain's golden age.

In 1600, Spain was under the rule of the Habsburgs, King Phillip III, who expelled the Moriscos, after nearly 200 years of persecution by the Spanish Inquisition, from the Iberian Peninsula between 1609 and 1614. An estimated 300,000 Moriscos were forced to leave; the largest populations fled to Marseille, France and Morocco.

Cervantes’ literature of this time reflected the “Muslim issue” in Don Quixote and Conversation of the Two Dogs where he portrays Muslims honorably. Cervantes also conveys the dispersion of the Muslims from Spain by the story of the captive and a female Muslim captive who helped to save him. At this time wealthy Spanish citizens were kidnapped and often held aboard a ship where they would wait till their ransom was paid. The story and the escape are quite similar to Cervantes’ own experience on one of these ships.

[edit] Tourism and promotion

Monument to Don Quixote and Dulcinea in El Toboso, Castile-La Mancha, Spain.
Monument to Don Quixote and Dulcinea in El Toboso, Castile-La Mancha, Spain.

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.

  • 400th anniversary commemoration.
Spain's coin commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote
Spain's coin commemorating the 400th anniversary of the publication of Don Quixote
  • The book's 400th anniversary was celebrated around the world in 2005. Spain issued a commemorative €2 coin. [1].
  • In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez's government handed out 1 million free copies as part of a national literacy program
Colombia, Postal stamp commemorative of the 400 years of el Quijote, painting by Santiago Martinez Delgado
Colombia, Postal stamp commemorative of the 400 years of el Quijote, painting by Santiago Martinez Delgado
  • 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.
  • In Spain, the exhibit "CERVANTES ENCANTADO" obtained a great success among children and families visiting the exhibit.
  • A comic book "Don Quijote"[2] was distributed through the Spanish school system and a cartoon adaptation was broadcast on many TV stations.
  • In Argentina, a young Spanish alpinist, Javier Cantero, walked up Mount Aconcagua to read the 'incipit' of the novel on request of the Spanish minister of culture.
  • 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.

[edit] 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. Since the phonetics do not match in Dutch, his name is written like Don Quichot or Don Quichote in the Netherlands.

The x was pronounced like an English sh sound (voiceless postalveolar fricative) in mediaeval times—[kiˈʃote] 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 with a voiceless velar fricative sound like the Scottish or German ch (as in Loch, Bach) or the Greek Chi (χ)—[kiˈxote]. English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote/Quijote, although the traditional English pronunciation [kwiksət] or [kwiksəʊt] is still frequently used. The traditional English is also preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form quixotic.

[edit] Quixote in contemporary culture

[edit] Film, television, and radio

[edit] Quixote trivia

Don Quixote sculpture in Vedado, Havana, Cuba.
Don Quixote sculpture in Vedado, Havana, Cuba.
  • In Bolivia, don Quixote became a symbol for justice in a series of paintings by muralist Walter Solón Romero. (These were painted during many years of dictatorships that led to Solón's arrest and torture.)[citation needed]
  • 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.
  • In 1988, Björn Afzelius wrote and recorded the song Don Quixote, and subsequently an album with the same name. Original title by El Mayor. [?] The album sold in excess of 50,000 copies.
  • The 1971 movie They Might be Giants is a film about a modern-day judge (played by George C. Scott) who thinks that he is Sherlock Holmes. His psychiatrist, who is really named Dr. Watson (and played by Joanne Woodward) compares his "adventures" to Don Quixote's, saying that the judge believes that windmills are giants. The judge responds that Don Quixote would have shown more wisdom in believing that the windmills might be giants; instead, his folly was in believing that they actually were. The American pop band They Might Be Giants took their name from the 1971 film.
  • The movie Kissing a Fool (starring David Schwimmer) is supposedly loosely based on a story found in Don Quixote.
  • Hanna-Barbera released a short-lived children's cartoon based on the story: The Adventures of Don Coyote and Sancho Panda. (Other than the anthropomorphic main characters, the other roles' animal species were not changed, and used their ordinary names.)
  • Farscape's fourth season episode titled "John Quixote", in which John Crichton' is sucked into a virtual reality game created by Stark from the pain of Zhaan's death and the dead John Crichton's memories.
  • Dan Quixote (2006) was a radio play, first broadcast on BBC Radio 4, in which a modern Belfaster, Dan McAughtry, has become convinced he is Don Quixote after a trip to Spain. His squire is the taxi driver who collects him from the airport, Sandy Palmer.
  • VeggieTales − In the episode of "Sheerluck Holmes and the Golden Ruler" there is a short film that tells the main events of Don Quixote using vegetables as different characters of the book. The film is supposed to help children learn the value of friendship.
  • In Justice League Unlimited, Don Quixote is mentioned as one of the books described by villain Felix Faust
  • In video game series Suikoden (published by Konami), a pair of characters' visual style is assuredly inspired by the author's descriptions of the good Don & Sancho. They star as Maximillian and Sancho in the game series, respectively.
  • Children's PBS series Mister Rogers' Neighborhood included a puppet named "Donkey Hodie".
  • The original Marvel comic book version Star Wars featured character Don-Wan Kihotay, who appeared in the "first" original story (1977, predating the release of "Splinter of the Mind's Eye") after the movie adaptation concluded. (This character was a version of how the original might have appeared in the Star Wars universe.) This character ran from Issues #7 to #10; the character made a minor appearance in Issue #16, and was never heard of again.
  • American folk-pop-rock band Toad the Wet Sprocket released the album Dulcinea in 1994. The album includes the song 'Windmills', with the line "I spend too much time, raiding windmills".
  • In 1997 The Paperboys released an album entitled Molinos (Spanish for windmills) which makes reference to the famous windmill episode in the book.
  • In 1998 the Spanish heavy metal band Mägo de Oz released an album entitled La leyenda de la Mancha, which is based heavily on the Don Quixote and meant to give homage to the original work.
  • Israeli pop star Dana International (winner of the 1998 Eurovision Song Contest) recorded a song entitled "Don Quixote" ([Hebrew: "דון קישוט"]).
  • In 2004, Japanese indie rock band Eastern Youth released the album Don Quijote.
  • In 2004, Swedish indie pop band Mattias Alkberg BD released the single Don Quijote from the album Tunaskolan comparing the Swedish government with the windmills of Don Quijote.
  • There was one episode of Pinky and the Brain based on the book.

[edit] See also

[edit] References and sources

  1. ^ Menocal, Maria Rosa. The Ornament of the World. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2002, pp. 257.
  2. ^ BBC.
  3. ^ ingenio 1. Real Academia Española.
  4. ^ rocinante: deriv. of rocín, work horse; colloq., brusque laborer; rough, unkempt man. Real Academia Española.
  5. ^ The suffix -ote is superlative.
  6. ^ quijote1.2: rump or haunch. Real Academia Española.
  7. ^ Don Quixote as translated by Burton Raffel (New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 1999), p. 13.
  8. ^ Crespo[Span.]: stylistically obscure, artificial; ambiguous. RAE; "crespo3
  9. ^ Don Quijote de la Mancha, Miguel de Cervantes, Edicíon de Florencio Sevilla Arroyo, Área 2002 p. 161
  10. ^ "Don Quixote" by Miguel de Cervantes, translated and annotated by Edith Grossman, p. 272
  11. ^ a b "Cervantes, Miguel de". Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2002).
    * J. Ormsby, About Cervantes and Don Quixote
  12. ^ "Cervantes, Miguel de". Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2002).
  13. ^ a b c J. Ormsby, About Cervantes and Don Quixote
  14. ^ D. Eisenberg, Cervantes, Lope and Avellaneda, 1
  15. ^ "Cervantes, Miguel de". Encyclopaedia Britannica. (2002).
    * D. Eisenberg, Cervantes, Lope and Avellaneda, 1
  16. ^ Foucault, Michel. The Order of Things. New York: Vintage Books, 1970 [1966], pp. 46-9.

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