Being normal is simply for the unimaginative. In literature, as in life, it’s the weirdos that shake things up and make you love them. (Insert your favorite Jennifer Lawrence GIF here.) Whether they’re bobbing along on their own dreamlike ocean or hot on the trail of utter nonsense, the dotty-as-you-please characters are the ones who […]
Don Quixote: Introduction by A. J. Close
1112Don Quixote: Introduction by A. J. Close
1112Hardcover(Reissue)
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Overview
Translated by P. A. Motteux
Product Details
ISBN-13: | 9780679407584 |
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Publisher: | Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group |
Publication date: | 10/15/1991 |
Series: | Everyman's Library Classics Series |
Edition description: | Reissue |
Pages: | 1112 |
Sales rank: | 213,375 |
Product dimensions: | 5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 2.00(d) |
Lexile: | 1500L (what's this?) |
Age Range: | 14 - 18 Years |
About the Author
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Miguel De Cervantes (1547-1616) nació en el seno de una familia pobre en el pueblo de Alcalá de Henares, en España. Tras ser educado en Madrid (donde fue el pupilo preferido de su profesor) partió a Italia, donde pronto se enlistó de manera voluntaria en la armada. Cervantes participó en la gran batalla naval de Lepanto (1571), cuando los Cristianos lidereados por los venecianos derrotaron a los turcos al este del Mediterráneo. Esta batalla le dejó una mano herida que nunca recuperó total movilidad, por lo que Cervantes obtuvo el mote de 'El Manco de Lepanto'. En 1575, al volver a España tras otra expedición militar, fue capturado por piratas y llevado a Algeria como prisionero. Permaneció en cautiverio durante cinco largos años, tiempo en el que intentó escapar varias veces con la ferviente creencia de que "uno debiera arriesgar la vida por el honor y la libertad". Cuando finalmente fue rescatado, Cervantes volvió a España no como para ser recibido como hèroe, sino a enfrentarse a una vida sin dinero y, aparentemente, sin futuro. Se volcó a la escritura para poder sobrevivir, convirtiendo sus experiencias en el ejército y prisión en relatos y obras de teatro. Sus primeras obras no le trajeron fama ni fortuna, pero cuando la primera parte de Don Quijote fue publicada en 1605, obtuvo un éxito inmediato. Traducida al inglés en 1612, el Quijote ha sido uno de los libros más populares e icnónicos en el mundo. A pesar del èxito, y de la publicación de la segunda parte de la novela en 1614, Cervantes no se convirtió en un hombre rico, pero sí logró conseguir un mecenas que le permitó dedicar su vida a la escritura.
Read an Excerpt
The Life of Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was at once the glory and reproach of Spain; for, if his admirable genius and heroic spirit conduced to the honour of his country, the distress and obscurity which attended his old age, as effectually redounded to her disgrace. Had he lived amidst Gothic darkness and barbarity, where no records were used, and letters altogether unknown, we might have expected to derive from tradition, a number of particulars relating to the family and fortune of a man so remarkably admired even in his own time. But, one would imagine pains had been taken to throw a veil of oblivion over the personal concerns of this excellent author. No inquiry hath, as yet, been able to ascertain the place of his nativity;1 and, although in his works he has declared himself a gentleman by birth, no house has hitherto laid claim to such an illustrious descendant.
One author* says he was born at Esquivias; but, offers no argument in support of his assertion: and probably the conjecture was founded upon the encomiums which Cervantes himself bestows on that place, to which he gives the epithet of Renowned, in his preface to Persiles and Sigismunda.2 Others affirm he first drew breath in Lucena, grounding their opinion upon a vague tradition which there prevails: and a third* set take it for granted that he was a native of Seville, because there are families in that city known by the names of Cervantes and Saavedra; and our author mentions his having, in his early youth, seen plays acted by Lope Rueda, who was a Sevilian. These, indeed, are presumptions that deserve some regard, tho', far from implying certain information, they scarce even amount to probable conjecture: nay, these very circumstances seem to disprove the supposition; for, had he been actually descended from those families, they would, in all likelihood, have preserved some memorials of his birth, which Don Nicholas Antonio would have recorded, in speaking of his fellow-citizen. All these pretensions are now generally set aside in favour of Madrid, which claims the honour of having produced Cervantes, and builds her title on an expression? in his Voyage to Parnassus, which, in my opinion, is altogether equivocal and inconclusive.
In the midst of such undecided contention, if I may be allowed to hazard a conjecture, I would suppose that there was something mysterious in his extraction, which he had no inclination to explain, and that his family had domestic reasons for maintaining the like reserve. Without admitting some such motive, we can hardly account for his silence on a subject that would have afforded him an opportunity to indulge that self-respect which he so honestly displays in the course of his writings. Unless we conclude that he was instigated to renounce all connexion with his kindred and allies, by some contempt'ous flight, mortifying repulse, or real injury he had sustained; a supposition which, I own, is not at all improbable, considering the jealous sensibility of the Spaniards in general, and the warmth of resentment peculiar to our author, which glows through his productions, unrestrained by all the fears of poverty, and all the maxims of old age and experience.
Reading Group Guide
1. Don Quixote is often called the first modern novel. Do you agree? Why or why not?
2. Many critics have interpreted Don Quixote as a sustained exploration of madness. How is madness represented in the novel?
3. Italian literary critic Giovanni Papini famously argued in the early 1920s that "by virtue of [the power of Cervantes's genius] the shade of Don Quixote has succeeded in deceiving us. We have been led to think that his life was full of deception in the sense that he was himself deceived by carnivorous men, decadent times, and impossible books. His life was indeed full of deception, but he was himself the deceiver, and we of the succeeding generations have been the ones deceived." Papini suggests that generations of critics have idolized Quixote, held him up as a "martyr of pure, militant, and derided Christianity," when in fact the character is vain and proud, thinks only of earthly glory, and aspires to material conquests. He was not, Papini claims, mad at all, but merely pretended to be. What is your opinion of this argument?
4. Critics have debated the question of whether Cervantes's intention in Don Quixote was to ridicule the chivalric romances-which typically featured knights accomplishing the most impossible things-that were so popular in the Middle Ages. Northrop Frye, for instance, writes that "with every beating he gets, [Don Quixote's] dignity grows on us, and we realize how genuinely faithful he is to the code of chivalry. He is courteous, gentle, chaste, generous (except that he has no money), intelligent and cultured within the limits of his obsession, and, of course, courageous. Not only was the code of chivalry a real code that helped to hold a real civilization together, but these are real virtues, and would be if chivalry had never existed." Do you think the book repudiates chivalry?
5. In his 1935 book Don Quixote: An Introduction to Psychology, leading Spanish literary expert Salvador de Madariaga refers to what he calls the "sanchification" of Don Quixote and the "quixotification" of Sancho. How does each character affect the other?
6. Lionel Trilling once claimed that "All prose fiction is a variation of the theme of Don Quixote: . . . the problem of appearance and reality." Discuss.
7. The names of the main characters in the novel are not stable: for example, Don Quixote is variously called Quixada, Quesana, Quixana, Quixote, Jigote, Knight of the Mournful Countenance, and Knight of the Lions; Sancho's wife is known as Juana Gutiérrez, Mari Gutiérrez, Teresa Cascajo, Teresa Panza or Teresa Sancho, Teresaina, and Teresona. What is the significance of the change of name and why are the characters so concerned with coming up with etymologies (most of which are wrong) for explaining how another character has come to have a particular name?
8. Many readers have been disturbed by the fact that Don Quixote recovers his sanity before dying, instead of venturing forth again, as Sancho would have him do. How do you feel about his regaining his sanity? What do you think is the significance of it?
From the Trade Paperback edition.