About Opentopia
Opentopia Directory Encyclopedia Tools

Don Quixote

Encyclopedia : D : DO : DON : Don Quixote

 

Don Quixote de la Mancha (now usually spelled Don Quijote by Spanish-speakers; Don Quixote is an archaic spelling) (IPA: [don ki'xote ð̞e la 'manʧa]) or El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha) is a novel by the Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. The first part was published in 1605 and the second in 1615. It is one of the earliest written novels in a modern European language and is arguably the most influential and emblematic work in the canon 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, cutting away about 750 pages.

The book tells the story of Don Quixote, a man who has read so many bad stories about brave errant knights that he decides to become one himself, and to fight giants and save maidens.

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 want 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."
Contents

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."

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

Use in tourism

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

IV centenary of Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605-2005)
Enlarge
IV centenary of Don Quixote of La Mancha (1605-2005)

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."

A place that is great for tourism is Alcala in Spain. This is the birth place of Cervantes. In Alcala is a great university that Cervantes stayed in and not far from it is his house. This still has everything left in it from when Cervantes lived there.

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.

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:

Literature

Films and iconography

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

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 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" [link] 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.

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.

The Pixar animated movie, "Toy Story" might be said to be inspired by Don Quixote, in much the same way that "The Lion King" is said to be inspired by Hamlet. Buzz Lightyear thinks he's a galactic space ranger, when he is actually a toy. It's undefined to think of Woody as Sancho Panza, although he does accompany Buzz in his adventure to get back to Andy.

Jim Jarmusch's 2005 movie Broken Flowers concerned Don Johnston (Bill Murray), a modern Day Quixote who travels America looking to find the mother of his child. In trying to do 'The honorable thing', he finds the ambiguity and difficulty faced by Quixote. In one scene he is beaten and wakes up in a field. The role of Sancho Panza may be analogous to Winston, a neighbor with many children who arranges Don's travels.

The children's PBS show "Mr Roger's Neighborhood" included a puppet named Donkey Ho-tee (spelling unknown).

Opera, music and ballet

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

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 highly descriptive, and at one point the oboe players actually imitate the bleating of sheep with their instruments.

Georg Philipp Telemann wrote an orchestral suite entitled "Don Quichotte".

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.

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. Origional title by El Mayor. The album sold in excess of 50000 copies.

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

The American band They Might Be Giants got their name from the 1971 film of the same name.

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.

The Paperboys, a relatively new band, has released an album entiltled Molinos (windmills in Spanish). The title track of the album tells the story of someone who doesn't quite fit in. The Spanish translation of the chorus, "Sólo son molinos; no te oyen Don Quixote" is, "They are only windmills; they can't hear you Don Quixote."

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—[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 as 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.

400th anniversary

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. In Venezuela, President Hugo Chávez's government handed out 1 million free copies as part of a national literacy program [link]. 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 on "Don Quijote" was distributed through the Spanish school system] and the [cartoon animation adaptation of "DON QUIJOTE" obtained exposure through many TV stations]

See also

Footnotes

External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to:

 

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.

Search Titles
0123456789
ABCDEFGHIJ
KLMNOPQRST
UVWXYZ?

E-mail this article to:

Personal Message: