Don Quixote

Author: (Spanish) Miguel de Cervantes
Publisher:
Publish Date: 2006-01-01
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 named Alonso Quijano, who was so captivated by knight-errant novels that he took the name Don Quixote. He attempts to restore justice and peace to the world through the imaginary code of chivalry, embarking on three separate adventures on his old horse. He hires his practical-minded farmer neighbor Sancho Panza as his squire and 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 come to his senses before his death. Through the creation and portrayal of the humorous, endearing, and tragic character of Don Quixote, the novel successfully reflects the contradictions between humanism and reality in Spain at the time, exposes the extravagance and debauchery of the feudal aristocracy, and expresses the people's demands and desires for social change.