Don Quixote

(now usually spelled by Spanish-speakers; is an archaic spelling) () or (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 work is an acclaimed and widely read canon of Western literature; a recent, 2002 poll of authors conducted by the Norwegian Nobel Institute placed it first ahead of all other works of fiction. .

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 injustice in the name of his beloved maiden Dulcinea del Toboso.

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.

The opening phrase of the book (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 clichÃ© in modern Spanish.

"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."

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 DorÃ©.

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.

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)

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."

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.

Don Quixote by Salvador DalÃ.

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:
Cardenio, a lost play by Cervantes's contemporary William Shakespeare. Itself the source of later plays, it is based on one of the interpolated novels in the first part.
The Pickwick Papers, by Charles Dickens. The characters of Samuel Pickwick and Sam Weller, who roam London and get into all sorts of comic predicaments, are often compared to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, although in this case, "Quixote" is the short, plump one, and "Sancho" is the tall, thin one.
A Confederacy of Dunces by John Kennedy Toole. The main character, Ignatius, is considered a modern-day Quixote.
Joseph Andrews by Henry Fielding notes in the preface that it is "written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote"
Northanger Abbey, by Jane Austen, features a Quixote-esque heroine, whose perception of reality is corrupted as a consequence of reading too much romantic literature.
Madame Bovary by Gustave Flaubert is often attributed as a retelling of Don Quixote.
The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, by Mark Twain, is also said to be influenced by "Don Quixote", by having two leading characters (Huckleberry Finn and Jim) who get involved with all manner of people during their adventures. In Twain's story, Huck's friend Tom Sawyer even makes reference to "Don Quixote" early on as one of his references for "the right way" to do things.
The Odyssey: A Modern Sequel by Nikos Kazantzakis includes a character called Kapetan Enas whose alias is Don Quixote
*"Pierre Menard, Author of the Quixote" by Jorge Luis Borges is an essay about a (fictional) 20th century writer who re-authors Don Quixote. "The text of Cervantes and that of Menard are verbally identical, but the second is almost infinitely richer." Borges' story is also well known as a central metaphor in John Barth's famous essay "The Literature of Exhaustion"
Tristram Shandy by Laurence Sterne is rife with references, including Parson Yorick's horse, Rocinante
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene. Monsignor Quixote is said to be a descendant of Don Quixote.
Asterix in Spain by Goscinny and Uderzo. Asterix and Obelix encounter Don Quixote and Sancho Panza on a country road in Spain, with Quixote becoming enraged and charging off into the distance when the topic of windmills arises in conversation.
City of Glass, one of the stories in The New York Trilogy written by Paul Auster, has a main character called Daniel Quinn - the same initials as Don Quixote - and comments on the authorship of the novel.
Triste Fim de Policarpo Quaresma (The Patriot) is a Brazilian novel by Lima Barreto, which presents Quaresma, a modern (for the early 1900s) Quixote, whose wishes were to improve Brazil's patriotism, i.e. suggesting president Gen. Floriano Peixoto declare Tupi as an official language.
Auto da Fe, a German novel by Elias Canetti. Sinologist Peter Kien lives for his private library. After being expelled from his apartment by his wife (and former housekeeper) Therese, Kien is tricked by the dwarf Fischerle, whose lies are like Quixote's illusions.
Romance d'A Pedra do Reino (The Kingdom's Rock Novel), by Brazilian writer Ariano Suassuna, presents us D. Pedro Dinis Ferreira Quaderna, a poet who wants to be humanity's great genius and believes himself to be the fourth of a true lineage of noble Brazilians - the Orleans e BraganÃ§a family are usurpers to him.

Editions and Translations

There are many adaptations of the book, mostly designed to modernise and shorten the text. One such adaptation is authored by AgustÃn SÃ¡nchez and runs to only 150 pages, cutting away about 750 pages.

Don Quixote has been translated many times since its release in 1605. Many pirated editions were being written at the time as was the custom of envious writers. Seven years after Part I of Don Quixote appeared, the book had been translated into French, German, Italian and English.

The first of the English translations was written in 1612 by an Englishman of whom little is known - not even his dates of birth and death - by the name of Thomas Shelton. Though some people claim that Shelton was actually a friend of Cervantes, there is no credible evidence to support this claim. Although Shelton's version of the novel has been a cherished translation, it was far from satisfactory as a carrying over of Cervantes's text.

Near the end of the 17th century the worst English translated version of Don Quixote appeared in print. The author was a nephew of the famous poet John Milton,by the name of John Phillips.

The translation, as many literary critics claim, was not based upon Cervantes's text but based mostly upon the French work by Filleau de Saint-Martin and notes that Thomas Shelton had previously written.

Around 1700, the Pierre Antoine Motteux version appeared on bookshelves. The version, as stated by translator John Ormsby was "Worse than worthless". The prevailing slapstick quality of the work, especially where Sancho Panza is involved; the obtrusion of the obscene where it is not to be found in Cervantes; the slurring over of difficulties through omissions or by expanding upon the text made the Motteux version irresponsible.

Most modern translators follow the late 19th-century translation of Englishman John Ormsby. It is said that his translation was the most honest of all translations without expanding upon the text or changing the proverbs. Don Quixote has been translated into English more than 19 times since.

The most widely read English-language translations for the latter-half of the 20th century were that of Samuel Putnam, which was published in 1949, and J.M. Cohen, which was published in 1950 by Penguin Classics. The turn of the millenium saw a flourish of new translations into English, by Burton Raffel, John Rutherford and Edith Grossman. The most recent major translation was undertaken by Edith Grossman, who is responsible for translating Gabriel Garcia Marquez, Carlos Fuentes and Mario Vargas Llosa. Grossman's translation has received much acclaim to the point where she was interviewed about it on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer.

Literature

* JosÃ© Ãngel Ascunce Arrieta: "Los quijotes del Quijote": Historia de una aventura creativa. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1997. ISBN 3-931887-14-6
* JosÃ© Ãngel Ascunce Arrieta: "El Quijote como tragedia y la tragedia de don Quijote". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-00-4
* Cervantes y su mundo I. V.V.A.A., Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2004. ISBN 3-935004-89-3
* Cervantes y su mundo II. V.V.A.A., Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-935004-91-0
* Cervantes y su mundo III. V.V.A.A., Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-10-4
* Agapita Jurado Santos: "Obras teatrales derivadas de novelas cervantinas (siglo XVII)". Para una bibliografÃa. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-935004-95-8
* James A.Parr: "Cervantes and the Quixote: A Touchstone for Literary Criticism". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-21-X
* Reichenberger: "Cervantes and the Hermeneutics of Satire". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-11-2
* Kurt Reichenberger: "Cervantes, un gran satÃrico?" Los enigmas del Quijote descifrados para el carÃsimo lector. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-12-0
* Kurt & Theo Reichenberger: "Cervantes: El Quijote y sus mensajes destinados al lector". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2004. ISBN 3-937734-05-8
*Javier Salazar RincÃ³n: "El mundo social del Quijote". Madrid, Gredos 1986. ISBN 84-249-1060-5
*Javier Salazar RincÃ³n: "El escritor y su entorno. Cervantes y la corte de Valladolid en 1605". Valladolid, Junta de Castilla y LeÃ³n 2006. ISBN 84-9718-375-4
* Karl-Ludwig Selig: "Studies on Cervantes". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1995. ISBN 3-928264-64-9
* Krzysztof Sliwa: "Vida de Miguel Cervantes Saavedra". Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 2005. ISBN 3-937734-13-9
* V.V.A.A., Cervantes. Estudios sobre Cervantes en la vÃspera de su centenario. Kassel, Edition Reichenberger 1994. ISBN 3-928064-64-9
* Duran, Manuel and Rogg, Fay R., "Fighting Windmills: Encounters with Don Quixote" Yale University Press 2006 ISBN 0-300-11022-7
* Carrol Lewis, "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland", ed. Penguin Books, 1865, London

Films and iconography

Several films are based on the story of Don Quixote, including:
* Don Quixote (1933), directed by Georg Wilhelm Pabst.
* Don Quijote de la Mancha (1947), the first full-length Spanish film version of the novel, directed by Rafael Gil, and allegedly the most faithful film version of the book ever made.
* Ð"Ð¾Ð½ ÐšÐ¸Ñ…Ð¾Ñ‚ (1957), a Soviet production by Grigori Kozintsev, the first version in color.
* Man of La Mancha (1972), directed by Arthur Hiller (a film version of the hit stage musical by Dale Wasserman, Mitch Leigh, and Joe Darion).
* QUIJOTE DE LA MANCHA (1979), a television series directed by Cruz Delgado and produced by JosÃ© Romagosa in cartoon animation.
* El Quijote de Miguel de Cervantes (1991), a television miniseries directed by Manuel GutiÃ©rrez AragÃ³n
* Don Quixote, begun by Orson Welles but never finished; a reshaped version by Jesus Franco was released in 1992
* Don Quixote (2000), directed by Peter Yates, a made-for-TV version co-produced by Hallmark and Turner Network Television
* Lost in La Mancha (2002) is a documentary movie about Terry Gilliam's failed attempt to make a movie adaptation of Don Quixote.
* The Adventures of Don Quick, (1970) a science fiction television series from Thames Television. Don Quick and Sam Czopanser travel from planet to planet repairing machines and interfering with the local cultures. Satirical and somewhat racy.
* Donovan Quick (1999), a British TV movie starring Colin Firth as the title character who ends up "tilting" at the local bus company - called Windmill Transport.

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" [1] 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 DorÃ©, Pablo Picasso, Salvador DalÃ and Antonio de La Gandara.

In Bolivia, Don Quixote became a symbol for justice in a series of paintings by the muralist, Walter SolÃ³n Romero. These were painted during many years of dictatorships that led to SolÃ³nÂ´s arrest and torture.

In the video game series Suikoden published by Konami, a pair of characters whose 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.

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.

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. On November 13, 1943, Leonard Bernstein made his New York Philharmonic debut conducting this piece with Joseph Schuster, solo cellist with the orchestra. This nationally broadcast concert launched Bernstein's career.

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, BjÃ¶rn 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 LÃ©on 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: ×"×•×Ÿ ×§×™×©×•×˜].

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 MÃ¤go 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 does not quite fit in. The Spanish translation of the chorus, "SÃ³lo 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— 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 (Ï‡)—. English speakers generally attempt something close to the modern Spanish pronunciation when saying Quixote/Quijote, although the traditional English pronunciation or is still frequently used.

400th anniversary

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 â‚¬2 coin. In Venezuela, President Hugo ChÃ¡vez's government handed out 1 million free copies as part of a national literacy program [2]. 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 stationsIn Argentina, a young spanish Alpinist, Javier Cantero, walk up the Aconcagua to read the incipit of the novel. He was on duty by the Spanish minister of culture.