Don Quixote
Don Quixote, the full title being The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, the novel is considered a founding work of Western literature and the first modern novel. The novel has been labelled by many well-known authors as the "best novel of all time" and the "best and most central work in world literature". Don Quixote is also one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time.
The plot revolves around the adventures of a member of the lowest nobility, a hidalgo from La Mancha named Alonso Quijano, who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his mind and decides to become a knight-errant to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don. He recruits as his squire a simple farm labourer, Sancho Panza, who brings an earthy wit to Don Quixote's lofty rhetoric. In the first part of the book, Don Quixote does not see the world for what it is and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story meant for the annals of all time. However, as Salvador de Madariaga pointed out in his Guía del lector del Quijote, referring to "the Sanchification of Don Quixote and the Quixotization of Sancho", "Sancho's spirit ascends from reality to illusion, Don Quixote's declines from illusion to reality".
The book had a major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas's The Three Musketeers, and Edmond Rostand's Cyrano de Bergerac as well as the word quixotic. Mark Twain referred to the book as having "swept the world's admiration for the mediaeval chivalry-silliness out of existence". It has been described by some as the greatest work ever written.
Summary
For Cervantes and the readers of his day, Don Quixote was a one-volume book published in 1605, divided internally into four parts, not the first part of a two-part set. The mention in the 1605 book of further adventures yet to be told was totally conventional, did not indicate any authorial plans for a continuation, and was not taken seriously by the book's first readers.Part 1
The First Sally
Cervantes, in a metafictional narrative, writes that the first few chapters were taken from "the archives of La Mancha", and the rest were translated from an Arabic text by the Moorish historian Cide Hamete Benengeli.Alonso Quixano is a hidalgo nearing 50 years of age who lives in a deliberately unspecified region of La Mancha with his niece and housekeeper. While he lives a frugal life, he is full of fantasies about chivalry stemming from his obsession with chivalric romance books. Eventually, his obsession becomes madness when he decides to become a knight errant, donning an old suit of armor. He renames himself "Don Quixote", names his old workhorse "Rocinante", and designates Aldonza Lorenzo his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso.
As he travels in search of adventure, he arrives at an inn that he believes to be a castle, calls the prostitutes he meets there "ladies", and demands that the innkeeper, whom he takes to be the lord of the castle, dub him a knight. The innkeeper agrees. Quixote starts the night holding vigil at the inn's horse trough, which Quixote imagines to be a chapel. He then becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough to water their mules. In a pretend ceremony, the innkeeper dubs him a knight to be rid of him and sends him on his way.
Quixote next encounters a servant named Andres who is tied to a tree and being beaten by his master over disputed wages. Quixote orders the master to stop the beating, untie Andres and swear to treat his servant fairly. However, the beating is resumed, and redoubled, as soon as Quixote leaves.
Quixote then chances upon traders from Toledo. He demands that they agree that Dulcinea del Toboso is the most beautiful woman in the world. One of them demands to see her picture so that he can decide for himself. Enraged, Quixote charges at them but his horse stumbles, causing him to fall. One of the traders beats up Quixote, who is left at the side of the road until a neighboring peasant brings him back home.
While Quixote lies unconscious in his bed, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber decide to burn most of his chivalric and other books, seeing them as the root of his madness. However, while filtering through the books, they enter repeated cycles of pity for such good books, strong determination to get rid of all other books, then back to pity. Eventually, they seal up the library room, later telling Quixote that it was done by a wizard.
The Second Sally
Don Quixote asks his neighbour, the poor farm labourer Sancho Panza, to be his squire, promising him a petty governorship. Sancho agrees and they sneak away at dawn. Their adventures together begin with Quixote's attack on some windmills which he believes to be ferocious giants. They next encounter two Benedictine friars and, nearby, an unrelated lady in a carriage. Quixote takes the friars to be enchanters who are holding the lady captive, knocks one of them from his horse, and is challenged by an armed Basque travelling with the company. The combat ends with the lady leaving her carriage and begging him not to harm the Basque.After a friendly encounter with some goatherds and a less friendly one with some Yanguesan porters driving Galician ponies, Quixote and Sancho enter an inn owned by Juan Palomeque, where a mix-up involving a servant girl's romantic rendezvous with another guest results in a brawl. Quixote explains to Sancho that the inn is enchanted. They decide to leave, but Quixote, following the example of the fictional knights, leaves without paying. Sancho ends up wrapped in a blanket and tossed in the air by several mischievous guests at the inn before he manages to follow.
After further adventures involving a dead body, a barber's basin that Quixote imagines as the legendary helmet of Mambrino, and a group of galley slaves, they wander into the Sierra Morena. There they encounter the dejected and mostly mad Cardenio, who relates his story. Inspired by Cardenio, Quixote decides to imitate what he has read in his chivalric romances and live like a hermit in a display of devotion to Dulcinea. He sends Sancho to deliver a letter to Dulcinea, but instead Sancho finds the barber and priest from his village. They make a plan to trick Quixote into coming home, recruiting Dorotea, a woman they discover in the forest, to pose as the Princess Micomicona, a damsel in distress.
The plan works and Quixote and the group return to the inn, though Quixote is now convinced, thanks to a lie told by Sancho when asked about the letter, that Dulcinea wants to see him. At the inn, several other plots intersect and are resolved. Meanwhile, a sleepwalking Quixote does battle with some wineskins which he takes to be the giant who stole the princess Micomicona's kingdom. An officer of the Santa Hermandad arrives with a warrant for Quixote's arrest for freeing the galley slaves, but the priest begs for the officer to have mercy on account of Quixote's insanity. The officer agrees and Quixote is locked in a cage which he is made to think is an enchantment. He has a learned conversation with a Toledo canon he encounters by chance on the road, in which the canon expresses his scorn for untruthful chivalric books, but Don Quixote defends them. The group stops to eat and lets Quixote out of the cage; he gets into a fight with a goatherd and with a group of pilgrims, who beat him into submission, before he is finally brought home.
The narrator ends the story by saying that he has found manuscripts of Quixote's further adventures.
Part 2
Although the two parts are often published as a single work, Don Quixote, Part Two was a sequel published ten years after the original novel. In an early example of metafiction, Part Two includes characters who have read the first part of the novel and are thus familiar with the history and peculiarities of the two protagonists.The Third Sally
Don Quixote and Sancho are on their way to El Toboso to meet Dulcinea, with Sancho aware that his story about Dulcinea was a complete fabrication. They reach the city at daybreak and decide to enter at nightfall. However, a bad omen frightens Quixote into retreat and they quickly leave. Sancho is instead sent out alone by Quixote to meet Dulcinea and act as a go-between. Sancho's luck brings three peasant girls along the road and he quickly tells Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting and as beautiful as ever. Since Quixote only sees the peasant girls, Sancho goes on to pretend that an enchantment of some sort is at work.A duke and duchess encounter the duo. These nobles have read Part One of the story and are themselves very fond of books of chivalry. They decide to play along for their own amusement, beginning a string of imagined adventures and practical jokes. As part of one prank, Quixote and Sancho are led to believe that the only way to release Dulcinea from her spell is for Sancho to give himself three thousand three hundred lashes. Sancho naturally resists this course of action, leading to friction with his master. Under the duke's patronage, Sancho eventually gets his promised governorship, though it is false, and he proves to be a wise and practical ruler before all ends in humiliation. Near the end, Don Quixote reluctantly sways towards sanity.
Quixote battles the Knight of the White Moon on the beach in Barcelona. Defeated, Quixote submits to prearranged chivalric terms: the vanquished must obey the will of the conqueror. He is ordered to lay down his arms and cease his acts of chivalry for a period of one year, by which time his friends and relatives hope he will be cured.
On the way back home, Quixote and Sancho "resolve" the disenchantment of Dulcinea. Upon returning to his village, Quixote announces his plan to retire to the countryside as a shepherd, but his housekeeper urges him to stay at home. Soon after, he retires to his bed with a deathly illness, and later awakes from a dream, having fully become Alonso Quixano once more. Sancho tries to restore his faith and his interest in Dulcinea, but Quixano only renounces his previous ambition and apologizes for the harm he has caused. He dictates his will, which includes a provision that his niece will be disinherited if she marries a man who reads books of chivalry.
After Quixano dies, the author emphasizes that there are no more adventures to relate and that any further books about Don Quixote would be spurious.