An Overview of Don Quixote
Don Quixote
The Masterpiece of Cervantes
The masterpiece of our author appeared in 1605, printed by Juan de la Cuesta and dedicated to the Duke of Bejar. The dedication could have been written by the editor, F. de Robles, as it follows the comments of Fernando de Herrera to Garcilaso.
The preliminaries continue with:
- A burlesque prologue ridiculing the auctoritate exhibited by other authors in similar situations.
- Laudatory poems, signed by Amadis, Orlando Furioso, or the Knight of Phoebus.
The work begins in four parts, often following the book divisions of the time. The sense of parody is present from the beginning: there is no attempt at verisimilitude or portrayal of an insecure young author. His disappointment produces poise and an almost cynical humor. It is said that Cervantes could have imagined his work in prison, perhaps in Seville.
The beginning – “In a village of La Mancha” – follows the romance of the beaten lover, from before 1600, and in its early chapters, the Entremes of Romances, from about 1590, when the farmer went crazy from reading books of chivalry.
2.a. – Don Quixote’s First Sally
Don Quixote is the transformation of Alonso Quijano, a nobleman from an austere life, given to reading books of chivalry and romance. His portrait was likely influenced by the Examen de ingenios para las ciencias (1575) of Huarte de San Juan.
He marches in search of adventure, imagining the grand style with which the chronicler of his future would write. In an inn, which he takes for a castle, he asks the innkeeper to name him a gentleman, and the innkeeper agrees to this sham ceremony not befitting the cavalry. Don Quixote remembers the need to carry luggage and, above all, money (Chapters II-III).
In his first adventure, the gentleman assists the boy Andrew, who, tied to a tree, is receiving a beating from his master. At the dire presence of Don Quixote, he is freed, but upon the gentleman’s leaving, the child receives double the punishment. Don Quixote will not see his failure: he who tries to fix things often leaves them worse off than they were.
Later, he requires some merchants to confess that Dulcinea del Toboso is the fairest lady of the land, to which the gentleman responds by stoning him and leaving him on the ground, nearly dead (Chapter IV). A neighboring farmer picks him up and listens to his romances (Chapter V).
This first sally of Don Quixote is a complete story. It could be written as a short novel: a satire about a madman, a reader of romances, marching in search of adventure, imagining the grand style with which the chronicler of his future would write. In an inn, which he takes for a castle, he asks the innkeeper to name him a gentleman, and the innkeeper agrees to this sham ceremony not befitting the cavalry. Don Quixote remembers the need to carry luggage and, above all, money (Chapters II-III).
Cervantes’ Literary Tastes
Cervantes will use the book burning of Don Quixote by the priest and the barber from his village (Chapter VI) to show his youth and reading of books of chivalry. This forces us to qualify the statement that our author ridicules these books, which he recalled with nostalgia. Among them, he praises Amadis of Gaul, Tirant lo Blanc, or Esplandian. Worse luck runs Olivante de Laura (1564), by Antonio de Torquemada, whose flower garden influenced the Historia del Caballero del Febo or Persiles y Sigismunda (1556).
He reviews the pastoral genre with the classic Dianas, Pastor Filida by Galvez de Montalvo, or La Galatea by Cervantes himself. He also mentions epics: The Austria or La Araucana.
These are, like Don Quixote, which Cervantes considered entertainment books, and show his literary tastes. Its author seems little concerned about devotional books or philosophy.
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza
Once Don Quixote recovers from his wounds, he tries his fortune again. He proposes to a farmer, his neighbor, that he serve as his squire. Now Don Quixote and Sancho Panza ride together and talk with talent and intelligence.
The reasonableness or worthlessness of Sancho could not prevent his master from facing a few windmills, which he takes for proud giants, and being badly hurt and depressed.
2.b. – The Second Part
In the second part, our author, considering the continuing loss of his history, finds it in a manuscript written in Arabic characters, comprising the chronicler Hamete Benengeli: he decrypts it using a Moor. Now Don Quixote ends up in Vizcaya and takes refuge with Sancho in the company of some shepherds, to whom he recites a speech about the golden age and the duties of his knighthood. They witness the outcome of the pastoral history of Marcela and Chrysostom, in that this shepherd is not taking the death of Chrysostom and desperately defending the freedom of women in matters of love (Chapters IX-XIV).
2.c. – The Third Part
A bad encounter with Galician carriers or Yanguesans opens the third part (Chapter XV). Don Quixote, battered, stays at an inn, where he receives a beating from another carrier, jealous of the girl Maritornes. To recover, he makes a balm of fire from oil, wine, salt, and rosemary. Failing to pay at the inn, the owner consents to the tossing of Sancho in a blanket and steals their wallets (Chapters XVI-XVII).
Two herds of sheep will be for Don Quixote the armies of Alifanfaron of the Bare Arm and Pentapolin of the Trapobana Kingdom, presented in the manner of a classical epic. Despite the objections of Sancho, he lashes out against the rams, receiving a hail of stones from their shepherds (Chapter XVIII). Relieved, he finds, at night, some hooded men carrying a dead body to bury. Don Quixote, now the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance, ignoring the excommunication received by this group, overcomes Bachelor Alonzo Lopez (Chapter XIX). That night, a dreadful shock encourages the noble venture and the servant to keep him, without his dignity, out of trouble. In the morning, they see a fulling mill, which caused the crash and fear (Chapter XX). The following day, he attacks a barber, whose basin seems to Don Quixote the helmet of Mambrino. Master and servant are protagonists of a book of chivalry (Chapter XXI).
Many prisons suffered from Cervantes to decide that Don Quixote would free some slaves chained to the oars of the royal fleet. The knight finds them despising their crimes and a king who takes vengeance on his humble subjects. A galley slave, Gines de Pasamonte, turns against their liberator and makes the rest stone him (Chapter XXII). Don Quixote in Sierra Morena is collected to do penance, as Amadis of Gaul when he called himself Beltenebros. (An interpolation affecting many copies of the first edition now recounted how Gines stole Sancho’s donkey.) Don Quixote meets Cardenio, mad because his friend Fernando has won over his lost love, Lucinda. Don Quixote delivers Sancho a letter to Dulcinea del Toboso, which Sancho loses. Soon they find the priest and the barber of his people, who organize the return of the Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance (Chapters XXIII-XXVII).
2.d. – The Fourth Part
In this fourth part, Dorotea appears, whom Fernando left after promising to marry her. She will impersonate the princess Micomicona, and Don Quixote is asked to accompany her to free her kingdom, and thus return to their village. On the way to the inn, Don Quixote tells Sancho about his feigned visit to Dulcinea (Chapters XXVIII-XXXI). The landlord gives the priest the Novela del Curioso Impertinente to read (Chapters XXXIII-XXXV). Don Quixote slashes, while reading (Chapter XXXV), a host of giants, who turn out to be bottles of wine, an episode that recalls The Golden Ass of Apuleius. A speech on arms and letters follows (Chapters XXXVII-XXXVIII), favoring the former.
One captive, who had entered the inn, tells his story (Chapters XXXIX-XLI), which is a Moorish novel, a transcript of Cervantes’s experience: the Moorish girl Zoraida falls in love with him and helps him escape. This captive – Captain Ruy Pérez de Viedma – finds his brother and niece in the inn, where they will meet lovers separated into different adventures (Chapter XLII). By a trick of Maritornes, Don Quixote spends the night hanging from a window (Chapters XLIII-XLIV). Then comes the barber who was robbed, who demands his basin from Don Quixote. They are joined by four soldiers belonging to the Holy Brotherhood, who recognize the gentleman as the liberator of the slaves (Chapter XLV). The priest manages to forgive him for being crazy. A new pretext for enchantment will make Don Quixote accept being put into a car or cage to take him to his village (Chapter XLVI). On the way, they find a canon with whom the priest talks about literature: romances and comedies, alluding to Lope de Vega, who, despite his talent, writes best-selling works. Don Quixote replies to the canon with an impassioned defense of the books of chivalry (Chapters XLVII-L).
The goatherd Eugenio incurs the wrath of Don Quixote, interrupted by a procession of penitents carrying a statue of the Virgin, whom the gentleman finds to be a stolen girl. Sancho Panza weeps over his master, believing him dead by the penitents, but he recovers and goes to his village wounded (Chapters LI-LII). This concludes the work, promising a second half in Zaragoza, with sonnets and epitaphs.
The Content and Success of Don Quixote
This is the content of what, perhaps precipitously, Cervantes delivered to the press in late 1604. Small mismatches between chapter titles and contents or forgetfulness about the stealing of Sancho Panza’s donkey suggest that its author made course corrections to the book as he discussed it in a sequel. Cervantes would be satisfied by its immediate success: his would be a book of entertainment that provoked laughter, as evidenced by its first readers.
The Nature of the Work
Cervantes did not specify the nature of his work and never called it a novel. The most acceptable term would be that of history or chronicle, despite its parodic nature, which could also extend to the works of contemporary historians.
It exploits irony, but its real merit lies in the language of its characters and the dialogues and arguments between Don Quixote and Sancho. Decorum is maintained at all times: the words of a madman come together with those of a simpleton, a fool, a religious moralist, or a criminal. Considering the point of view of each is called perspectivism. Thus, Cervantes disagrees with the values of his time and the spirit of the Counter-Reformation and vents the bitterness of a life of frustration, prisons, and ingratitude, sublimated with a mocking cynicism. He creates a sense of humor in his later years, following the disappointment of a writer who, perhaps, no longer had much to lose.
An Overview of Prose Genres
But Cervantes had to look beyond: he dumped himself into his book and gave an overview of the genres in prose of his time: a pastoral novel, a Moorish novel, an ill-fated courtesan novel, and a draft of a picaresque novel in the character of Ginés de Pasamonte.
Perhaps the clarity of his vision is Cervantes’s view of Spain: every crime and every failure will result from the abuse of power, from the king to the most uncouth lover. This presents a Spain unable to carry out its dreams and projects, doomed to failure and defeat.
Later interpretations present Don Quixote as an idealized spiritual hero – perhaps from Romanticism – culminating in the Life of Don Quixote and Sancho by Miguel de Unamuno (1905).