Don Quixote by Cervantes Summary

Miguel de Cervantes, in full Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, was born on 29th September 1547 in Alcala de Henares, Spain. He was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. He was the author of Don Quixote (1605, 1615) and also the most significant and well-known figure in Spanish literary history. The novel Don Quixote has been translated either in whole or in parts in more than 60 different languages.

There are ongoing editions that are published, and discussion of the book has been going on in unison from the beginning of the early 18th century. However, because of their extensive appearance in theater, art, and films, the characters in Don Quixote and Sancho Panza will probably be familiar to many more people than other imagined characters in literature. Cervantes was an excellent writer who experimented. He tried out all the major literary genres except for the epic. He was an acclaimed storyteller, and a handful of his stories included in his collection of Novelas Exemplares (1613 Exemplary Stories) are comparable to Don Quixote on a smaller dimension.

Summary

Alonso Quixano, a less-than-affluent man, aged fifty, "lean bodied" and "thin face," lives in a modest home in the Spanish countryside town located in La Mancha with his niece, Antonia, and an angry housekeeper. In all things, Adroit caring for his peers in society, the local clergy, and even the servants, Quixano is respectful toward the upper classes of society, who are unquestioningly his superiors. Quixano is not driven by a desire for riches and power, nor is he bitter about the petty poverty he is in.

A thoughtful and well-read person, Quixano's most treasured possessions include his novels. Based on his research and reading, Quixano becomes fascinated and then obsessed by the rules as well as the deeds and stories of chivalry, of knights who erroneously go on a romantic and courtly mission.

When his fascination with the history of chivalry grows, Quixano begins selling off areas of his farmland and using the proceeds to purchase more books as well as progressively immersing himself in studying. "From little sleep and too much reading, his brain dried up, and he lost his wits. He had a fancy . . . to turn his passion knight errant and travel through the world with horse and armor in search of adventures" with the purpose of "redressing all manner of wrongs."

In the end, he's inspired to action by his love for the chivalrous code. Dressing in antique armor that is rusty, Quixano is able to recruit his hack horse to seek out knightly adventures. Hoping to find a suitable noble to dub him, Quixano is finally licensed for his business by an innkeeper, who believes him to be a lord of a manor. Then Quixano was renamed "Don Quixote de La Mancha"; The old hack and dray horses get transformed into "Rosinante."

All a new knight requires for his first venture forward is a lady who is to be sworn and a servant or a page. For the former, he picks Dulcinea del Tobosa, who is named in honor of Aldonza Lorenzo, who was a farm girl whom he had been taken with at one time.

After spending three days on the journey, Quixote encounters a group of salespeople who are savaged by him after refusing to recognize the beauty of Dulcinea. The salesman's servant brutally beats him. He is then forced to accept assistance from a friend and is escorted home on the back of a donkey.

When he's recuperating, Quixote is forced to observe as his housekeeper, barber, and priest burn his entire collection on chivalry as a way to convince Quixote to stop the improbable mission. However, this is only fueling Quixote's determination. He persuades Sancho Panza, a plump, simple-minded but-opportunistic laborer, to serve as his page by playing on his ambitions. Don Quixote offers Sancho his private island to manage since, indeed, a magnificent knight like him is likely to take many riches.

So, the two began their journey, Quixote on his spavined old horse Panza riding Dapple, his mules. The second story spans three weeks and consists of several events which make up the remainder of the book One. There are also other events; Quixote battles windmills, believing they're gigantic. In an inn that is mistaken for the castle, Quixote is greeted on his bed by a woman and causes a disturbance when she finds she has come to the wrong room. In refusing to pay for the meal and accusing the host of not being friendly, Quixote is rousted but then plunges into a new mishap involving an ecumenical procession and some other erroneous and hilarious encounters with the locals.

Between these tales are moral and adventurous tales that illustrate the traditional pastoral storytelling of Spain. In addition, there are two lengthy and learned discourses narrated by Quixote. The first of them is an account of the Golden Age of mythology that he shares during a dinner with some unlettered goatherds who do not understand what he speaks. Then, Quixote addresses a company for dinner in an establishment to discuss whether the path of arms is more successful than those of letters or vice versa.

Through the course of the adventure, it is evident that Quixote, with all of the apparent madness, is a gentle, compassionate person who is genuine in his love for the ideals of chivalry. Even though he's got motives to pursue, Sancho Panza has come to be a believer and has shown devotion to his boss. Yet, in spite of their good intentions for Quixote, his pursuit leads to his being brought back home and confined to an ox-cart cage by his village's barber and priest for the sake of Don Quixote's well-being.

Book Two of Don Quixote was published in a separate volume of its own; the book Two Don Quixote's Tales has a distinctive element. Soon after Book One was published and Cervantes was working on Book Two, he got news of the release of an unpublished Book Two in which the writer, known as Avellaneda, is believed to have written more adventures for the knight. They even went in the direction of renouncing his loyalty to Dulcinea. Cervantes was at Chapter 59 in Book Two and was having Quixote and Panza heading to a tournament of jousting in Saragossa.

After being enraged by the piracy version, Cervantes sets forth to get revenge by making Quixote and Panza have dinner in an inn while "overhearing" talk of the Avellaneda version. The knight and squire quickly leave for Barcelona, where they will meet Don Alvaro Tarfe, who is a character from the Avellaneda book. Once they reach Barcelona, they abduct the Avellaneda protagonist. After they get to Barcelona, they kidnap Avellaneda's main character.

Book Two will also introduce the character that is Samson Carrasco, a young person from the village of Don Quixote. He is a recent graduate from Salamanca University. Carrasco assumes the previous role of the priest and barber to try and help and shield Don Quixote away from danger. However, Don Quixote is not interested in being "rescued."

He's determined to travel toward Tobosa to pay reverence to Dulcinea. The trio encounters three girls from the peasant class through some trickery; Sancho hopes that his master will recognize one of them as Dulcinea. If the way things are going, or how they appear, is against his beliefs, Don Quixote believes that magic wands have been working their way into the scene. In this case, Don Quixote believes that enchanters have created Dulcinea to appear as a vulgar peasant woman.

Don Quixote unexpectedly wins a duel against the knight (The Knight of the Mirrors), which appears to be none other than Samson Carrasco in disguise. Samson hoped to safely bring Don home disguised as a knight who was a rival. It doesn't work out. In the next few days, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza get together to meet their counterparts in the "Knight with the Green Coat," which includes the story of the lion Don wants to fight. Don would like to engage in battle.

A large portion of the section is devoted to a duke who is not named and a duchess. They, together with their aides, engage in various pranks that are in the form of burlesque pageants-- to Quixote. Additionally, they cause injuries to both the knight and his Squire. The other crucial element is the selection of Sancho Panza as the governor of an island. It's yet another intricate prank that ends with Panza refusing to be the feudal governor and displaying the utmost devotion to Quixote.

Again, Samson Carranzo appears, this one on the beach of Barcelona disguised as The Knight of the White Moon. He takes on Don Quixote to battle. Naturally, Quixote accepts the challenge and, in the presence of the viceroy and an impressive group, is beaten. One of the conditions for Quixote's defeat was that he abandoned knight-errantry for the rest of his existence.

In the next chapter, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza return to La Mancha, but only after their additional stay with the Duke and Duchess and a variety of other embarrassing events that the former knight endures.

After they return home at night, Don Quixote appears broken in spirit and goes to sleep. After a restful night and a few hours of rest, he announces his name as Alonso Quixano once more and is seen to have found the reason for his actions. Soon after, he absconds with the knighthood and chivalry as he passes away amid the gloom of his fellows.

Themes

It is essential to appreciate the satirical tenor of Cervantes. The novel's plot, the enormous setting in Don Quixote de la Mancha, is a complete departure from the local setting. In the most intimate sense, it is among the best and most personal assessments of life written by an outstanding author.

In the novel, when Don Quixote chooses to pursue the knight's cause, the character is exposed to the ridicule of others and failure. This story resembles Cervantes's own life and its constant reversals of luck, humiliation, and desperate struggles. From this experience of defeat and despair, Cervantes invented the "mad knight" However, he also introduced the enigmatic human dignity and the insistence on not succumbing to despair when faced with defeat, which turns Quixote to become far more than just a comic figure or an absurd persona to be slammed.

There aren't many instances in the book where actual events from Cervantes' life are directly referenced; the mood, spirit, and the recurrence of disasters, a few moments of mild glory, and human resilience make the novel a masterpiece of Cervantes, one in which his tough and challenging life and his deeply complicated emotional reactions to that existence found a form and a framework.

The novel may be the account of Cervantes's existence, but it is also a record of a time in Spain's history when the circumstances were shifting and the tides of time were turning. When Cervantes was born, Spain's strength and power were at their highest. The wealth derived from conquering Mexico and Peru came back to Spain, commerce grew, and artists documented the feeling of pride with incredible strength and vigor.

At the time Don Quixote de la Mancha came out, it was clear that the Spanish Empire was in the process of beginning its descent. The series of war-related disasters, such as the loss of the Spanish Armada by the English and the rebellion of Flanders, had shaken the once mighty nation. The character of Don Quixote, the most powerful of a long-lasting and cherished historical past, is paired with the harsh realities of aging, weak, and waning power. The story is about a period that is part of Spanish historical significance and the Spanish people's sense of losing splendor in the face of irreparable decline.

Don Quixote de la Mancha is the most significant literary embodiment of the Counter-Reformation. All over Europe, the period of Reformation advanced new concepts at a rapid pace and transformed the landscape of religion of nation after nation. Spain stood out as the only Catholic country and resisted any reforms.

The country stood alone in the face of the tsunami of reforms taking over Europe and showed a sort of a willed mania; however, the ferocity and the determination of Quixote to stand up for his faith, no matter what the other world held, is a reflection of the power of the Spanish determination at the moment. Cervantes was a committed and faithful religious zealot, and Don Quixote may be the most famous fictional Catholic hero, the wounded warrior from the Counter-Reformation.

It also portrays in a fictional way diverse aspects of the Spanish spirit and temperament. The contradictions and differences that are uncovered among The Knight of the Sad Countenance, as well as the squire he is not, Sancho Panza Cervantes, depict two sides that make up the Spanish soul. Don is enthusiastic, lively enthusiastic, and happy even when faced with immense odds. But Don is stern and dominates Sancho, who is a bit gentle, humble, and lazy. Both characters appear oddly paired, yet they are one unit and incompatible with the other, interspersed throughout the story by their conversations and arguments. Through the drawing of master and servant, Cervantes exposes the contradicting realities of the persona of his homeland.

Legacy and Adaptations

Cervantes's unique and contemporary story gives an extraordinary array of characters with different beliefs and perspectives. It offers subtle irony, an optimistic outlook, and an apparent comic slant. The acclaim of the first volume prompted the release in 1614 of an untrue sequel written by someone claiming to be the Alonso Fernandez of Avellaneda, the issue that Cervantes discussed in his 2nd volume.

Apart from spawning many discussions, Don Quixote was a source of inspiration for artists of every medium. The most notable adaptations were the classical ballet of 1869; the musical play of 1965, Man of La Mancha, which first premiered on Broadway in the year 1968. Then there was an adaptation of the film in 1972, with the direction of Arthur Hiller and starring Peter O'Toole, Sophia Loren, and James Coco.

Another fantastic adaptation of the film included The Man Who Killed Don Quixote (2018), a loose adaptation of Cervantes's novel written by director Terry Gilliam, whose attempts to complete the project in the span of almost three decades were obstructed with delays, complications, and cancellations that turned Gilliam into a sexy character who was portrayed in the film documentary Lost in La Mancha (2002).