Archive for the ‘Don Quixote’ tag
Who Wrote Don Quixote?
Don Quixote is the first modern novel. But who wrote it? In the preface, the narrator states, “though I seem to be the father [I am] but the step-father of Don Quixote” (15). He has compiled and translated a book, we learn, written mostly by Cid Hamet Ben Engeli, “Arabian historiographer” (68), who gathered his material from various sources.
How to Sound Like an Author of Great Reading, Learning and Eloquence: A Quixotic Preface
Cervantes’ preface to Don Quixote is a caustic satire of academic writing, just as valid today as it was four hundred and five years ago. Full of delicious irony, Cervantes brags with the deepest humility. He points out the flaws in the book are its qualities.
Don Quijote: The Impossible Truth
Don Quijote de la Mancha is the impossible truth: the book is a fiction, a lie, and yet it is true. Truer than a non-fiction biography of Cervantes. We would only read such a bio because we love our mad knight-errant and his earthy squire, Sancho Panza. The novel tells us much more about the real Cervantes than any bio could every do: valet, soldier, ransomed by pirates, soldier, tax collector, convict (jailed for discrepancies in the accounts while tax collector), poet, playwright, and the first modern novelist.
