Don Quijote de la Mancha
1600
- don quixote (cervantes saavedra, miguel de)
- quotations
- knights and knighthood
- social life and customs
- fiction
- classic literature
- don quixote (fictitious character)
- early works to 1800
- dictionaries
- literatura picaresca
The story
*Don Quijote de la Mancha* es una novela escrita por el español Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. Publicada su primera parte con el título de *El ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha* a comienzos de 1605, es la obra más destacada de la literatura española y una de las principales de la literatura universal. En 1615 apareció su continuación con el título de *Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero don Quijote de la Mancha.* Es la primera obra genuinamente desmitificadora de la tradición caballeresca y cortés por su tratamiento burlesco. Representa la primera novela moderna y la primera novela polifónica; como tal, ejerció un enorme influjo en toda la narrativa europea. La novela ha sido calificada por numerosos autores de renombre como la «mejor novela de todos los tiempos» y la «obra más importante y fundamental de la literatura universal». Don Quijote es también uno de los libros más traducidos del mundo y una de las novelas más vendidas de todos los tiempos. ---------- *The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha* known simply as *Don Quixote* is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes, originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615 and considered a founding work of Western literature. It's often said to be the first modern novel. The novel has been labelled by many well-known authors as the "best novel of all time" and the "best and most central work in world literature". Don Quixote is also one of the most-translated books in the world and one of the best-selling novels of all time.
What it’s like
Long, digressive, sun-baked prose that moves like a dusty road across the Castilian plain: wide landscapes of windmills, inns, goatherds and roadside rain, rendered in a voice that is by turns grave, bawdy and mischievously self-aware, with the narrator constantly doubting his own sources. The mood is warm, wry and melancholy at once, a comic sadness that turns tender whenever the deluded old hidalgo and his loyal, earthy squire ride into view. Its rhythm is loose and episodic, stopping for tales-within-tales, a shepherds' pastoral, a captive's story, a printer's workshop and a long dinner of talk, so it suits a slow weekend, a long train journey or a bedside book read a chapter at a time. The comedy is mostly verbal and situational rather than cruel, though there are beatings, tumbles from horses, a few crude jokes and occasional scenes of hardship and violence that land with sudden, unsentimental force. For readers who love picaresque wandering, sly metafiction and the ache of a dreamer who refuses to be disenchanted.
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