Don Quixote

Don Quixote
Bronze statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, at the Plaza de España in Madrid
Author	Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
Original title	El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha
Language	Spanish
Genre(s)	Picaresco, Satire, Parody, Farce
Publisher	Juan de la Cuesta

Don Quixote (Spanish: Don Quijote; English: /ˌdɒn kiːˈhoʊtiː/, see spelling and pronunciation below), fully titled The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spanish: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha), is a novel written by Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. Cervantes created a fictional origin for the story by inventing a Moorish chronicler for Don Quixote named Cide Hamete Benengeli. Published in two volumes a decade apart (in 1605 and 1615), Don Quixote is the most influential work 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.^[1]

Plot summary

Alonso Quixano, a retired country gentleman nearing 50 years of age, 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 appears to other people to have lost his mind from little sleep and food and because of so much reading.

First quest

He decides to go out as a knight-errant in search of adventure. He dons an old suit of armor, renames himself "Don Quixote de la Mancha," and names his skinny horse "Rocinante". He designates a neighboring farm girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing about this.

He sets out in the early morning and ends up at an inn, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, who he thinks to be the lord of the castle, to dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor, where 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 a knight, and sends him on his way. He 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 (who is promptly beaten as soon as Quixote leaves). Don Quixote has a run-in with traders from Toledo, who "insult" the imaginary Dulcinea, one of whom severely beats Don Quixote and leaves him on the side of the road. Don Quixote is found and returned to his home by a neighboring peasant, Pedro Crespo.^[2]

Second quest

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 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.

Don Quixote de La Mancha and Sancho Panza, 1863. By Gustave Doré

In the course of their travels, the protagonists meet innkeepers, prostitutes, goatherds, soldiers, priests, escaped convicts, and scorned lovers. These encounters are magnified by Don Quixote’s imagination into chivalrous quests. The Don’s tendency to intervene violently in matters which don’t concern him, and his habit of not paying his debts, result in many privations, injuries, and humiliations (with Sancho often getting the worst of it). Finally, Don Quixote is persuaded to return to his home village. The author hints that there was a third quest, but says that records of it have been lost.

Part Two

Although the two parts are now normally published as a single work, Don Quixote, Part Two was a sequel published ten years after the original novel. Don Quixote and Sancho are now assumed to be famous throughout the land because of the adventures recounted in Part One. While Part One was mostly farcical, the second half is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Don Quixote's imaginings are made the butt of outrageously cruel practical jokes carried out by wealthy patrons. Even Sancho is unintentionally forced to deceive him at one point. Trapped into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three dirty and ragged peasant girls, and tells Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho pretends that Quixote suffers from a cruel spell which does not permit him to see the truth. Sancho eventually gets his imaginary island governorship and unexpectedly proves to be wise and practical; though this, too, ends in disaster.

Conclusion

The cruel practical jokes eventually lead Don Quixote to a great melancholy. The novel ends with Don Quixote regaining his full sanity, and renouncing all chivalry. But, the melancholy remains, and grows worse. Sancho tries to restore his faith, but his attempt to resurrect Alonso's quixotic alter-ego fails, and Alonso Quixano dies, sane and broken.

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 medieval times—[kiˈʃote]—and this is reflected in the Galician and Asturleonese name Don Quixote, the Portuguese Dom Quixote [ˈðõ kɨˈʃɔtɨ], in the French name Don Quichotte, the Dutch Don Quichot (or Don Quichote), as well as in the Italian name Don Chisciotte. However, in Spanish such words (now virtually all spelled with a j) are now pronounced with a voiceless velar fricative sound like the Scottish or German ch [kiˈχote]. English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote/Quijote, as [dɒŋ kiːˈhoʊteɪ], although the traditional English pronunciation /ˈkwɪksət/ or /ˈkwɪksoʊt/ is still frequently used, more in the United Kingdom than in the United States.^[3]

The traditional English rendering is preserved in the pronunciation of the adjectival form quixotic, i.e., /kwɪkˈsoʊtɨk/, the foolishly impractical pursuit of ideals, typically marked with rash and lofty romantic ideals.^[4]

Writing

Spurious Avellaneda Segunda Parte (part two)

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.^[5] Avellaneda's identity has been the subject of many theories, but there is no consensus as to 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 into the effects upon him.^[6] Many scholars agree that this second book is of considerable literary merit.^[7] However, in his introduction to The Portable Cervantes, Samuel Putnam, a noted translator of Cervantes' novel, calls Avellaneda's version "one of the most disgraceful performances in history".

The second part of Cervantes' Don Quixote, finished as a direct result of the Avellaneda book, has come to be regarded by some literary critics as superior to the first part, because of its greater depth of characterization, its discussions, mostly between Quixote and Sancho, on diverse subjects, and its philosophical insights.

Other stories

Don Quixote, his horse Rocinante and his squire Sancho Panza after an unsuccessful attack on a windmill. By Gustave Doré

Both parts of Don Quixote contain a number of stories which do not directly involve the two main characters, but which are narrated by some of the picaresque figures encountered by the Don and Sancho during their travels. One of the most famous, known as "The Curious Impertinent," is found in Part One, Book Three. This story, read to a group of travelers at an inn, tells of a Florentine nobleman, Anselmo, who becomes obsessed with testing his wife's fidelity, and talks his close friend Lothario into attempting to seduce her, with disastrous results for all.

Several abridged editions have been published which delete some or all of the extra tales in order to concentrate on the central narrative.^[8]

Sources

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.

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 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.^[10]

Publication

Cervantes' Don Quixote (1605), original title page

In July of 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. Most of the 400 copies of the first edition were sent to the New World, with the publisher hoping to make a better price in the Americas ^[12]. Although most of them disappeared in a shipwreck near La Havana, approximately 70 copies reached Lima, from where they were sent to Cuzco in the heart of the defunct Inca Empire ^[12].

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 reread 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.^[13] 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 was produced with additional copyrights for Aragon and Portugal, which publisher Francisco de Robles secured.^[6] 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 the Novelas Ejemplares, 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."^[14] 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). Part two capitalizes on the potential of the first while developing and diversifying the material 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.

Some theories exist that question whether Cervantes alone wrote Don Quixote. Carlos Fuentes raises an intriguing possibility that, "Cervantes leaves open the pages of a book where the reader knows himself to be written and it is said that he dies on the same date, though not on the same day, as William Shakespeare. It is further stated that perhaps both were the same man."^[15]

English Editions in translation

Don Quixote goes mad from his reading of books of chivalry. Engraving by Gustave Doré.

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, with the first French translation of 'Part II' appearing in 1618, and the first English translation in 1620. One abridged adaptation is authored by Agustín Sánchez, which runs slightly over 150 pages, cutting away about 750 pages.^[16]

The elusive Thomas Shelton's English translation of the First Part appeared in 1612. Some claim Shelton was actually a friend of Cervantes, although there is no credible evidence to support this claim. Although Shelton's version is cherished by some, according to John Ormsby and Samuel Putnam, it was far from satisfactory as a carrying over of Cervantes's text.^[6] Shelton's translation of the novel's Second Part appeared in 1620.

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. Ormsby considered this version "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 or changing of the proverbs. The most widely read English-language translations of the mid-20th century are by Samuel Putnam (1949), J. M. Cohen (1950; Penguin Classics), and Walter Starkie (1957). The last English translation of the novel in the 20th century was by Burton Raffel, published in 1996. The 21st century has already seen two new translations of the novel into English—by John Rutherford, and by Edith Grossman. One New York Times reviewer called Grossman's translation a "major literary achievement"^[17] and another called it the "most transparent and least impeded among more than a dozen English translations going back to the 17th century."^[18]

In 2005, the year of the novel's 400th anniversary, Tom Lathrop published a new edition of the novel, based on a lifetime of specialized study of the novel and its history. Lathrop's edition includes a slightly modernized Spanish text of Cervantes' work with English annotations. The novel was also directly translated from Spanish to Tagalog by Filipino writer Teodoro E. Gener in the early 1930s.^[19]

Literary attributes

Don Quijote by Honoré Daumier (1868)

The novel's structure is in episodic form. It is written in the picaresco style of the late sixteenth century. The full title is indicative of the tale's object, as ingenioso (Spanish) means "to be quick with inventiveness".^[20] Although the novel is farcical on the surface, the second half is more serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Quixote has served as an important thematic source not only in literature but in much of art and music, inspiring 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, 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^[21] (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.^[22] As a military term, the word quijote refers to cuisses, part of a full suit of plate armour protecting the thighs. The Spanish suffix -ote denotes the augmentative—for example, grande means large, but grandote means extra large. Following this example, Quixote would suggest 'The Great Quijano', a play on words that makes much sense in light of the character's delusions of grandeur.

The world of ordinary people, from shepherds to tavern-owners and inn-keepers, which figures in Don Quixote, was groundbreaking. The character of Don Quixote became so well-known in its time that the word quixotic was quickly adopted by 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 attacking imaginary enemies 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 Spanish cliché with the phrase de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, "whose name I do not wish to recall." En un lugar de la Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no hace mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor. [Translation] In a place of La Mancha, whose name I would not like to remember, there lived, not very long ago, one of those gentlemen with a lance in the lance-rack, an ancient shield, a skinny old hack, and a fast greyhound.

See also

• Amadis de Gaula – Precursor to Quixote
• Belianis – Precursor to Quixote
• Tirant lo Blanc – Precursor to Quixote
• List of Don Quixote characters
• Miguel de Cervantes
• Muhsin al-Ramli, translator of Don Quixote into Arabic
• Antonio José da Silva, writer of Vida do Grande Dom Quixote de la Mancha e do Gordo Sancho Pança (1733)

References and sources

Further reading

• Bloom, Harold (Ed.) (2000) Cervantes's Don Quixote (Modern Critical Interpretations). Chelsea House Publishers ISBN 0791059227
• D' Haen, Theo (Ed.) (2009) International Don Quixote. Editions Rodopi B.V. ISBN 9042025832
• Echevarría, Roberto González (Ed.) (2005) Cervantes' Don Quixote: a casebook OUP USA ISBN 0195169387
• Duran, Manuel and Rogg, Fay R. (2006) "Fighting Windmills: Encounters with Don Quixote". Yale University Press ISBN 9780300110227
• Johnson, Carroll B (Ed.) (2006) Don Quijote Across Four Centuries: 1605-2005. Juan de la Cuesta-Hispanic Monographs ISBN 1588710882

External links

• "One Master, Many Cervantes", by Ilan Stavans. A history of English translations. Humanities, September/October 2008. Volume 29, Number 5. Accessed 2010-08-04
• Works by Cervantes at Project Gutenberg