A mad knight-errant charges at windmills, thinking they’re giants, while his squire looks on, perplexed by his master’s strange behavior. The protagonist’s blend of idealism and impracticality has been distilled into a mere adjective, “quixotic”.
By Erica Eller
1547-1616 CE
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
What we now consider one novel, the first modern novel, was originally published as two books. The first volume was published in 1605 and it became widely popular. Its “sequel” (in contemporary terms) was published in 1615. Cervantes apparently had to hurry to finish the second volume because another author, Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, had already produced an apocryphal second volume, which Cervantes pokes fun at in his own text. This review focuses solely on the first volume, with its many minor characters whose stories are framed by Don Quixote’s misadventures. Many of these secondary plots involve characterizations that capture a broad cross section of society in Early Modern Spain.
spain
How far back?
2020 | Present
