Don Quixote (Translated Name: Classics Library) 018

Author: Miguel de Cervantes (Spain), translated by Zhang Guangsen
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-08-01
Features: Don Quixote is Cervantes' most internationally influential masterpiece, with the full title The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha. The work depicts the decline of a gentleman, Alonso Quijano, who is obsessed with knightly novels, and who takes the name Don Quixote, attempting to restore justice and peace to the world through his imaginary code of chivalry. He embarks on three separate adventures on his old horse, accompanied by his practical farmer neighbor Sancho Panza as his squire. Together, they experience various extraordinary events, including the battle with the windmills, the heroic rescue of a beauty, the inn's adventures, the fierce fight with a flock of sheep, the challenge to a lion, and the exploration of a human-made cave. He indiscriminately cuts and kills, constantly causing laughter, being tricked, and suffering repeated defeats, only to awaken to the truth before his death. Through the creation and portrayal of the humorous, endearing, yet tragic character of Don Quixote, the novel successfully reflects the contradictions between humanism and reality in Spain at the time, exposes the extravagance and indulgence of the feudal aristocracy, and expresses the people's demands and aspirations for social change.