Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish writer that is most well known for his novel Don Quixote De La Mancha. The novel was written and set in about the late sixteenth to early seventeenth century and was written in Cervantes native language. The author narrates most of the novel's action in the third person, following Don Quixote's action and only occasio0nally entering into the thoughts of his characters. He switches into the first person, however, whenever he discusses the novel itself. Cervantes maintains an ironic distance from the characters and events in the novel, discussing them at times with mock seriousness.

The story consists of the adventures of a middle-aged gentleman, Don Quixote, from the region of La Mancha in central Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals touted in books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a somewhat befuddled laborer named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him as his faithful squire. In return for Sancho's services, Don Quixote promises to make Sancho the wealthy governor of an isle. On his "steed", Rocinante, a barn nag well past his prime, Don Quixote rides the roads of Spain in search of glory and grand adventure. He gives up food, shelter, and comfort, all in the name of a peasant woman, Dulcinea del Toboso (a buxom country girl), whom he envisions as a princess. The story of Don Quixote's deeds includes the stories of those he on his deluded journey. On his deathbed the fog of misconceptions lift; and the beaten and battered Don Quixote comes to his senses and forswears all the chivalric truths he followed so fervently and shortly thereafter dies from a fever. The novel's closing lines sadly denounce the dreams of Don Quixote: "... Those false and nonsensical stories.. Are already tottering and without a doubt are doomed to fall". With his death, the legacy of the knight becomes extinct.

Although originally intended to be a quick money maker cashing in on the popular romantic books of chivalry of his time, over the years the general interpretation of the novel has almost reversed. It is now regarded, not as crude, slapstick humor, but rather, as a warm human tale, depicting the conflict between noble idealism and brute, unfeeling practicality. Given the social turmoil