Name: Don Quixote
Rating: 4.4 (221 reviews)
Author: Miguel de Cervantes

What’s in it for me? A bite-sized introduction to the epic adventures of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza

English has Shakespeare; Italian has Dante; and German has Goethe. In the words of the literary critic Harold Bloom, these writers are the glories of these respective vernaculars.

Spanish literature, meanwhile, has Miguel de Cervantes, the author of a 1,000-page novel as gloriously absurd as it is unforgettable: Don Quixote.

It’s hard to overstate the influence of this book, which has a good claim to being the first recognizable modern novel. Don Quixote, the lanky madcap knight, and the donkey-riding squire at his side, Sancho Panza, have become bywords for types of personality and ways of being in the world. Even if we haven’t (yet) read Cervantes’s tale, we instantly recognize them and what they stand for. No wonder: they’ve escaped their author’s pen and taken on a life of their own in countless movies, paintings, musicals, and even cartoons.

This Blink, though, is about going back to the source.

We can’t cover all of this sprawling and wonderful book, of course – to try would be nothing less than quixotic, which is to say, extremely unrealistic. Instead, we’ll look at who Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are, what motivates them, and – most importantly – try to get a sense of the spirit in which they embark upon their world-famous adventures.

The making of a knight-errant

Our story takes place in central Spain in the territory called La Mancha – a flat, featureless ocean of stubbly wheat fields and sun-bleached plains under a vast, perpetually blue sky.

In this sea of umber, ochre, and beige, there are islands of dazzling white: the clustered lime-washed houses in which Manchegans live and the windmills in which they grind corn.

In the sixteenth century, a curious man – the hero of our tale – lived in one of these villages full of white houses. He was around 50 years old and called Alonso Quijada or possibly Quijano – the chronicler of our story isn’t sure on this point. He was a hidalgo – a gentleman belonging to the lowest rung of the Spanish nobility. His estate was modest and the modest income it generated was just about large enough to put food on his table, pay an irritable housekeeper, and feed the sorry-looking horse he kept in his stable.

Like all gentlemen, he was a man of leisure, albeit a penniless one. But he didn’t need money to do what he liked doing best, which was reading about the chivalrous knights of old and their many quarrels, battles, love affairs, adventures, and misfortunes. As our chronicler says, these books – of which he devoured countless volumes – were full of “impossible nonsense.” But the more our hidalgo read about this enchanted world, the more he came to believe that such books weren’t fictions but authentic histories of a happier and nobler age.

In short, Alonso Quijada or Quijano, a man generally known for his good sense, filled his head with so much nonsense about wandering knights that he slowly but surely lost his mind. If he’d done so locked away in his library, he wouldn’t have needed a chronicler because there wouldn’t have been much of a story to tell. But this hidalgo dreamt up a strange plan to roam the world on horseback in search of monsters to slay, wrongs to right, and distressed maidens to rescue. He decided, in a word, to become a knight and revive that happier and nobler age.

And so he got to work. He scrubbed and polished a very old and moldy suit of armor which had belonged to one of his ancestors. The rusty helmet he found to go with it didn’t have a visor, so he fashioned one out of cardboard. Testing its durability with a sword, he destroyed what had taken him weeks to make with a single swipe. The second papier-mâché visor he crafted was fitted without further testing: God, our hidalgo trusted, would ensure its battle-worthiness. A leather shield and worm-eaten lance completed the outfit. The next step was to find an appropriate name for himself and his horse. The latter, a skinny and tottering animal, he called Rocinante – a name that, in Spanish, means as much as “noble steed that was formerly a humble horse.” For himself, he chose a name that harked back to the knights of yesteryear who added place names to their titles: Don Quixote de la Mancha.

Having prepared his armor and given himself and his horse fitting names, he decided that he needed a lady to whom he could dedicate his heroic deeds. A knight who isn’t in love, after all, is like a tree without leaves or fruit – all his books said as much. When he defeated some terrible ogre or evil wizard, he’d gallantly spare their lives on one condition: that they present themselves to his beloved, fall on their knees, and meekly recount how they were vanquished by the great and insufficiently praised Don Quixote de la Mancha.

In a nearby village, there was a pretty peasant girl called Aldonza Lorenzo. Our hidalgo had never exchanged a word with her, but he decided to make her the object of his chivalrous affections. First, though, she too needed a name equal to her standing as a princess and lady. And so Aldonza became Dulcinea del Toboso – a musical and original title, he thought, which means Ladylove of Toboso, which was the name of the village in which she lived.

Don Quixote’s first adventure

It was a sweltering day in July when Don Quixote slipped out of his village.

He cut a strange figure on his rickety horse. His armor was bulky, but you could see that the knight underneath was as skinny as a beanpole. His weapons suggested martial vigor, but that effect was undermined by the fragile boniness of the man wielding them – not to mention the advanced age of the face visible behind the papier-mâché visor. Oddest of all, though, was the contrast between his comical appearance and the solemn and dignified way he held himself.

Don Quixote’s famous battle with the windmills

Our bruised knight spent two weeks recovering from the beating he’d received. In that time, he was silent on the topics of gallantry, knights, and fair maidens. His friends, who’d heard all about his absurd antics, breathed a sigh of relief. The madness, it seemed, had passed. Eager to prevent a relapse, they hid the hidalgo's books and prayed his sanity would hold.

But Don Quixote was readying himself for new adventures. Each day, he slipped out of his house and went into the village to talk to Sancho Panza – a peasant famed for his honesty and dim-wittedness. For two weeks, Don Quixote filled this humble farmer’s head with so much nonsense that he was seriously considering becoming his squire. The scales were finally tipped by Don Quixote’s pledge to make this man the governor of a kingdom he’d soon conquer.

What is Don Quixote about?

Don Quixote (1605) is widely regarded as the first modern novel. Its claim to fame extends beyond historical novelty. For many readers and critics, it remains the greatest novel of its kind. It tells the story of a man who becomes so enchanted by tales of chivalry that he decides to become a knight-errant – a wandering gallant in the style of Lancelot. The self-styled knight who calls himself Don Quixote and his trusty sidekick Sancho Panza get themselves into all kinds of absurd mischief, but their foolish quest ultimately brings them something precious: an immortal friendship.

About the Author

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, who was born in Spain in 1547, lived an eventful life. As a young man, he joined the Spanish fleet stationed in Italy and fought in the largest naval battle since ancient times – the Battle of Lepanto. On his way home, he was captured by pirates and spent five years in captivity in Algeria. It was only when he finally returned to Spain in 1580 that he turned his hand to literature. The novel which secured his fame, Don Quixote, was published in 1605; its sequel followed in 1615, one year before his death in 1616.