Miguel de Cervates',
The Ingenious Nobleman Sir Quixote of La Mancha, is a book in two parts - the first part, volume I, was published in 1605 and the second part, volume II was published in 1615, 10 years later. Written in Spanish, the book tells the story of Spanish nobleman Alonso Quixano or Don Quixote, who at the age of 50, decides that he is a knight-errant and sets out on harebrained knight-errant adventures with his gullible squire Sancho Panza.
These are all the ways the theme of books is explored in
Don Quixote:
Excerpt 1 - The Author's Preface
Don Quixote opens with an "Author's Preface" in which Cervantes writes about his process of writing this book and in particular, his struggle to write the very preface we are currently reading. Cervantes tells us that the hardest part of writing
Don Quixote, was writing this preface and his inability to write this preface almost caused him to abandon the project altogether.
My wish would be simply to present it to thee plain and unadorned, without any embellishment of preface or uncountable muster of customary sonnets, epigrams, and eulogies, such as are commonly put at the beginning of books. For I can tell thee, though composing it cost me some labour, I found none greater than the making of this Preface thou art now reading. Many times did I take up my pen to write it, and many did I lay it down again, not knowing what to write.
A friend of Cervantes advises him to make up fake epigrams and attribute them to random people and use those to start his book. This friend also suggests plagiarizing all the references cited in a totally unrelated book and putting those citations at the end of Cervantes' book, etc.
"Your first difficulty about the sonnets, epigrams, or complimentary verses which you want for the beginning, and which ought to be by persons of importance and rank, can be removed if you yourself take a little trouble to make them; you can afterwards baptise them, and put any name you like to them, fathering them on Prester John of the Indies or the Emperor of Trebizond, who, to my knowledge, were said to have been famous poets: and even if they were not, and any pedants or bachelors should attack you and question the fact, never care two maravedis for that, for even if they prove a lie against you they cannot cut off the hand you wrote it with.
"As to references in the margin to the books and authors from whom you take the aphorisms and sayings you put into your story, it is only contriving to fit in nicely any sentences or scraps of Latin you may happen to have by heart, or at any rate that will not give you much trouble to look up;
Excerpt 2 - Books and Madness
Cervantes explains that Don Quixote's unique madness was caused by his reading too many books about knight-errantry and his love for these books made him unable to distinguish between fiction and his real world surroundings. In the madness is captured a deep affection for this genre of knight errantry fiction, but also a sharp sense of parody - the pleasure available in these books but also their impossibility and silliness.
...our gentleman became so immersed in his reading that he spent whole nights from sundown to sunup and his days from dawn to dusk in poring over his books, until, finally, from so little sleeping and so much reading, his brain dried up and he went completely out of his mind. He had filled his imagination with everything that he had read, with enchantments, knightly encounters, battles, challenges, wounds, with tales of love and its torments, and all sorts of impossible things, and as a, result had come to believe that all these fictitous happennings were true...
Excerpt 3 - The Destruction of Don Quixote's Library
When an injured Don Quixote returns home after his sally, his friends seek to cure him of his madness by destroying his "accursed books of chivalry" in a bonfire. What follows is a long and dramatic discourse of literary criticism - which of Don Quixote's books are worthwhile, which are senseless or worthless and why? Some excerpts from that:
The first that Master Nicholas put into his hand was "The four books of Amadis of Gaul." "This seems a mysterious thing," said the curate, "for, as I have heard say, this was the first book of chivalry printed in Spain, and from this all the others derive their birth and origin; so it seems to me that we ought inexorably to condemn it to the flames as the founder of so vile a sect."
"Nay, sir," said the barber, "I too, have heard say that this is the best of all the books of this kind that have been written, and so, as something singular in its line, it ought to be pardoned."
"True," said the curate; "and for that reason let its life be spared for the present. Let us see that other which is next to it."
"It is," said the barber, "the 'Sergas de Esplandian,' the lawful son of Amadis of Gaul."
"Then verily," said the curate, "the merit of the father must not be put down to the account of the son. Take it, mistress housekeeper; open the window and fling it into the yard and lay the foundation of the pile for the bonfire we are to make."
Taking down another book, the barber said, "This is 'The Mirror of
Chivalry.'"
"I know his worship," said the curate; "that is where Senor Reinaldos of Montalvan figures with his friends and comrades, greater thieves than Cacus, and the Twelve Peers of France with the veracious historian Turpin; however, I am not for condemning them to more than perpetual banishment, because, at any rate, they have some share in the invention of the famous Matteo Boiardo, whence too the Christian poet Ludovico Ariosto wove his web, to whom, if I find him here, and speaking any language but his own, I shall show no respect whatever; but if he speaks his own tongue I will put him upon my head."
"Well, I have him in Italian," said the barber, "but I do not understand him."
"Nor would it be well that you should understand him," said the curate, "and on that score we might have excused the Captain if he had not brought him into Spain and turned him into Castilian. He robbed him of a great deal of his natural force, and so do all those who try to turn books written in verse into another language, for, with all the pains they take and all the cleverness they show, they never can reach the level of the originals as they were first produced. In short, I say that this book, and all that may be found treating of those French affairs, should be thrown into or deposited in some dry well, until after more consideration it is settled what is to be done with them; excepting always one 'Bernardo del Carpio' that is going about, and another called 'Roncesvalles;' for these, if they come into my hands, shall pass at once into those of the housekeeper, and from hers into the fire without any reprieve."
Excerpt 4 - Battle with the Biscayan
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza happen upon a carriage with a woman inside. Don Quixote, in his madness, decides that the woman inside is in distress and needs to be saved. Don Quixote's attempted rescue results in a violent altercation with a Biscayan and the two face off to engage in mortal combat. Cervantes describes the dramatic moment of their deadly engagement as follows:
On, then, as aforesaid, came Don Quixote against the wary Biscayan, with uplifted sword and a firm intention of splitting him in half, while on his side the Biscayan waited for him sword in hand, and under the protection of his cushion; and all present stood trembling, waiting in suspense the result of blows such as threatened to fall, and the lady in the coach and the rest of her following were making a thousand vows and offerings to all the images and shrines of Spain, that God might deliver her squire and all of them from this great peril in which they found themselves. But it spoils all, that at this point and crisis the author of the history leaves this battle impending, giving as excuse that he could find nothing more written about these achievements of Don Quixote than what has been already set forth.
This dramatic battle scene getting cut off mid-stroke because "the author of this history leaves this battle impending," has to be one of the most startlingly comedic scenes in all of literature. In this scene we get jarringly ejected from the Don Quixote narrative into a mundane frame narrative in which Cervantes, our historian/author is trying to piece together manuscripts to construct an accurate history.
Excerpt 5 - The Benengeli Manuscript
Cervantes goes on to tell how he later happened across an Arabic manuscript, written by a historian banned Cide Hamete Benengeli, containing the continuation of this narrative.
Unfortunately, our author doesn't speak Arabic so he has to find a translator for the manuscript.
One day, as I was in the Alcana of Toledo, a boy came up to sell some pamphlets and old papers to a silk mercer, and, as I am fond of reading even the very scraps of paper in the streets, led by this natural bent of mine I took up one of the pamphlets the boy had for sale, and saw that it was in characters which I recognised as Arabic, and as I was unable to read them though I could recognise them, I looked about to see if there were any Spanish-speaking Morisco at hand to read them for me; nor was there any great difficulty in finding such an interpreter, for even had I sought one for an older and better language I should have found him. In short, chance provided me with one, who when I told him what I wanted and put the book into his hands, opened it in the middle and after reading a little in it began to laugh. I asked him what he was laughing at, and he replied that it was at something the book had written in the margin by way of a note. I bade him tell it to me; and he still laughing said, "In the margin, as I told you, this is written: 'This Dulcinea del Toboso so often mentioned in this history, had, they say, the best hand of any woman in all La Mancha for salting pigs.'"
Cervantes is critical of Benengeli for not heaping a sufficient amount of praise on Don Quixote and warns us that we should be skeptical about the accuracy of this translation because: "we all know that Arabs can't be trusted."
If against the present [history] any objection be raised on the score of its truth, it can only be that its author was an Arab, as lying is a very common propensity with those of that nation; though, as they are such enemies of ours, it is conceivable that there were omissions rather than additions made in the course of it. And this is my own opinion; for, where he could and should give freedom to his pen in praise of so worthy a knight, he seems to me deliberately to pass it over in silence; which is ill done and worse contrived, for it is the business and duty of historians to be exact, truthful, and wholly free from passion, and neither interest nor fear, hatred nor love, should make them swerve from the path of truth, whose mother is history, rival of time, storehouse of deeds, witness for the past, example and counsel for the present, and warning for the future. In this I know will be found all that can be desired in the pleasantest, and if it be wanting in any good quality, I maintain it is the fault of its hound of an author and not the fault of the subject.
Elsewhere in the book, Cervantes expresses skepticism at the history presented in this Benengeli manuscript and interrupts the narrative to suggest that Benegeli's account may be wrong.
Excerpt 6 - Avellaneda's Don Quixote
Volume II of Don Quixote was published 10 years after the publication of Volume I, and in the interim, a different author named Avellaneda of Tordesillas, published his own and unauthorized sequel to Cervantes' Quixote. In this author's preface to Volume II, Cervantes excoriates Avellaneda while simultaneously pretending to ignore the offense:
God bless me, gentle (or it may be plebeian) reader, how eagerly must thou be looking forward to this preface, expecting to find there retaliation, scolding, and abuse against the author of the second Don Quixote—I mean him who was, they say, begotten at Tordesillas and born at Tarragona! Well then, the truth is, I am not going to give thee that satisfaction; for, though injuries stir up anger in humbler breasts, in mine the rule must admit of an exception. Thou wouldst have me call him ass, fool, and malapert, but I have no such intention; let his offence be his punishment, with his bread let him eat it, and there's an end of it.
Excerpt 7 - Volume I and Volume II
Volume I of the Quixote ends with a badly bruised and beaten Don Quixote being carried back to his town and to his house to recuperate from his misadventures.The narrative of Volume II begins with Sancho Panza visiting Don Quixote who is recuperating in his house, to tell him about the reputation that the two of them have acquired in their village:
"first of all, I have to tell you that the common people consider your worship a mighty great madman, and me no less a fool...As to your worship's valour, courtesy, accomplishments, and task, there is a variety of opinions. Some say, 'mad but droll;' others, 'valiant but unlucky;' others, 'courteous but meddling,' and then they go into such a number of things that they don't leave a whole bone either in your worship or in myself."
"Recollect, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "that wherever virtue exists in an eminent degree it is persecuted. Few or none of the famous men that have lived escaped being calumniated by malice. Julius Caesar, the boldest, wisest, and bravest of captains, was charged with being ambitious, and not particularly cleanly in his dress, or pure in his morals. Of Alexander, whose deeds won him the name of Great, they say that he was somewhat of a drunkard. Of Hercules, him of the many labours, it is said that he was lewd and luxurious. Of Don Galaor, the brother of Amadis of Gaul, it was whispered that he was over-quarrelsome, and of his brother that he was lachrymose. So that, O Sancho, amongst all these calumnies against good men, mine may be let pass, since they are no more than thou hast said."
"That's just where it is, body of my father!"
"Is there more, then?" asked Don Quixote.
"There's the tail to be skinned yet," said Sancho; "all so far is cakes and fancy bread; but if your worship wants to know all about the calumnies they bring against you, I will fetch you one this instant who can tell you the whole of them without missing an atom; for last night the son of Bartholomew Carrasco, who has been studying at Salamanca, came home after having been made a bachelor, and when I went to welcome him, he told me that your worship's history is already abroad in books, with the title of THE INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN DON QUIXOTE OF LA MANCHA; and he says they mention me in it by my own name of Sancho Panza, and the lady Dulcinea del Toboso too, and divers things that happened to us when we were alone; so that I crossed myself in my wonder how the historian who wrote them down could have known them."
"I promise thee, Sancho," said Don Quixote, "the author of our history will be some sage enchanter; for to such nothing that they choose to write about is hidden."
"What!" said Sancho, "a sage and an enchanter! Why, the bachelor Samson Carrasco (that is the name of him I spoke of) says the author of the history is called Cide Hamete Berengena."
Cide Hamete Berengena being the name of the author of the Arabic manuscript that our author found and had translated in Volume I of this book. Hearing this news, Don Quixote has Sancho Panza fetch Samson Carrasco, who had told Sancho Panza about the existence of this book:
Don Quixote remained very deep in thought, waiting for the bachelor Carrasco, from whom he was to hear how he himself had been put into a book as Sancho said; and he could not persuade himself that any such history could be in existence, for the blood of the enemies he had slain was not yet dry on the blade of his sword, and now they wanted to make out that his mighty achievements were going about in print.
When Samson Carrasco arrives he tells Don Quixote and Sancho Panza that the Don Quixote's great deeds are indeed in print and are being widely read and he even lists some of the most popular and memorable scenes from Volume I:
the Moor in his own language, and the Christian in his, have taken care to set before us your gallantry, your high courage in encountering dangers, your fortitude in adversity, your patience under misfortunes as well as wounds, the purity and continence of the platonic loves of your worship and my lady Dona Dulcinea del Toboso-"
"I never heard my lady Dulcinea called Dona," observed Sancho here; "nothing more than the lady Dulcinea del Toboso; so here already the history is wrong."
"That is not an objection of any importance," replied Carrasco.
"Certainly not," said Don Quixote; "but tell me, senor bachelor, what deeds of mine are they that are made most of in this history?"
"On that point," replied the bachelor, "opinions differ, as tastes do; some swear by the adventure of the windmills that your worship took to be Briareuses and giants; others by that of the fulling mills; one cries up the description of the two armies that afterwards took the appearance of two droves of sheep; another that of the dead body on its way to be buried at Segovia; a third says the liberation of the galley slaves is the best of all, and a fourth that nothing comes up to the affair with the Benedictine giants, and the battle with the valiant Biscayan."
"Tell me, senor bachelor," said Sancho at this point, "does the adventure with the Yanguesans come in, when our good Rocinante went hankering after dainties?"
"The sage has left nothing in the ink-bottle," replied Samson; "he tells all and sets down everything, even to the capers that worthy Sancho cut in the blanket."
"I cut no capers in the blanket," returned Sancho; "in the air I did, and more of them than I liked."
"There is no human history in the world, I suppose," said Don Quixote, "that has not its ups and downs, but more than others such as deal with chivalry, for they can never be entirely made up of prosperous adventures."
Subsequently, Samson Carrasco goes on to express some of the criticisms of the Quixote that have been circulating:
"For all that," replied the bachelor, "there are those who have read the history who say they would have been glad if the author had left out some of the countless cudgellings that were inflicted on Senor Don Quixote in various encounters."
"That's where the truth of the history comes in," said Sancho.
"At the same time they might fairly have passed them over in silence," observed Don Quixote; "for there is no need of recording events which do not change or affect the truth of a history, if they tend to bring the hero of it into contempt. AEneas was not in truth and earnest so pious as Virgil represents him, nor Ulysses so wise as Homer describes him."
In Volume I of the book, Don Quixote and some other characters who are with him, are staying at an inn and they come across a book called "The Ill-Advised Curiosity." These characters agree that this book looks interesting and they decide to stay up late into the night to read and listen to this story. So volume I of the Quixote narrative is interrupted with an extremely long and very pointless interlude which is the entirety of this "Ill-Advised Curiosity" book - a book about a man set on testing the chastity of his wife. Carrasco brings up this strange interlude:
"One of the faults they find with this history," said the bachelor, "is that its author inserted in it a novel called 'The Ill-advised Curiosity;' not that it is bad or ill-told, but that it is out of place and has nothing to do with the history of his worship Senor Don Quixote."
"I will bet the son of a dog has mixed the cabbages and the baskets," said Sancho.
"Then, I say," said Don Quixote, "the author of my history was no sage, but some ignorant chatterer, who, in a haphazard and heedless way, set about writing it, let it turn out as it might, just as Orbaneja, the painter of Ubeda, used to do, who, when they asked him what he was painting, answered, 'What it may turn out.' Sometimes he would paint a cock in such a fashion, and so unlike, that he had to write alongside of it in Gothic letters, 'This is a cock; and so it will be with my history, which will require a commentary to make it intelligible."
Samson goes on to list some of the serious plot holes and oversights in Volume I:
...some have brought a charge against the author's memory, inasmuch as he forgot to say who the thief was who stole Sancho's Dapple; for it is not stated there, but only to be inferred from what is set down, that he was stolen, and a little farther on we see Sancho mounted on the same ass, without any reappearance of it. They say, too, that he forgot to state what Sancho did with those hundred crowns that he found in the valise in the Sierra Morena, as he never alludes to them again, and there are many who would be glad to know what he did with them, or what he spent them on, for it is one of the serious omissions of the work."
Don Quixote asks about whether or not the author intends to publish a second volume:
"Does the author promise a second part at all?" said Don Quixote.
"He does promise one," replied Samson; "but he says he has not found it, nor does he know who has got it; and we cannot say whether it will appear or not; and so, on that head, as some say that no second part has ever been good, and others that enough has been already written about Don Quixote, it is thought there will be no second part; though some, who are jovial rather than saturnine, say, 'Let us have more Quixotades, let Don Quixote charge and Sancho chatter, and no matter what it may turn out, we shall be satisfied with that.'"
"And what does the author mean to do?" said Don Quixote.
"What?" replied Samson; "why, as soon as he has found the history which he is now searching for with extraordinary diligence, he will at once give it to the press, moved more by the profit that may accrue to him from doing so than by any thought of praise."
Excerpt 8 - Avellaneda's Don Quixote (continued)
Late in Volume II a female character named Altisidora has a near-death experience and recounts to Don Quixote and Sancho Panza the vision of hell she perceived. Altisidora says she saw a tennis game being played between devils, where instead of tennis rackets they were using books, and one of the books in use was none other than Tordesillas' Don Quixote:
"I came to the gate [of hell], where some dozen or so of devils were playing tennis, all in breeches and doublets...in their hands they held rackets of fire; but what amazed me still more was that books, apparently full of wind and rubbish, served them for tennis balls, a strange and marvellous thing; this, however, did not astonish me so much as to observe that, although with players it is usual for the winners to be glad and the losers sorry, there in that game all were growling, all were snarling, and all were cursing one another." "That's no wonder," said Sancho; "for devils, whether playing or not, can never be content, win or lose."
"Very likely," said Altisidora; "but there is another thing that surprises me too, I mean surprised me then, and that was that no ball outlasted the first throw or was of any use a second time; and it was wonderful the constant succession there was of books, new and old. To one of them, a brand-new, well-bound one, they gave such a stroke that they knocked the guts out of it and scattered the leaves about. 'Look what book that is,' said one devil to another, and the other replied, 'It is the "Second Part of the History of Don Quixote of La Mancha," not by Cide Hamete, the original author, but by an Aragonese who by his own account is of Tordesillas.' 'Out of this with it,' said the first, 'and into the depths of hell with it out of my sight.' 'Is it so bad?' said the other. 'So bad is it,' said the first, 'that if I had set myself deliberately to make a worse, I could not have done it.' They then went on with their game, knocking other books about"
Excerpt 9 - Avellaneda's Don Quixote (continued)
In Volume II, Don Quixote meets a publisher who is publishing Avellanda's Don Quixote sequel and he uses the opportunity to leaf through the book. Later in Volume II, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza encounter a character from the world of Avellaneda's Don Quixote:
Don Quixote said to Sancho, "Look here, Sancho; on turning over the leaves of that book of the Second Part of my history I think I came casually upon this name of Don Alvaro Tarfe."
"Very likely," said Sancho; "we had better let him dismount, and by-and-by we can ask about it."
Don Quixote uses this opportunity to impress upon Alvaro that
he is the
real Don Quixote and the other Don Quixote that Alvaro thinks he knows is actually an imposter Don Quixote.
"...let me tell you, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, I have never in my life been in Saragossa; so far from that, when it was told me that this imaginary Don Quixote had been present at the jousts in that city, I declined to enter it, in order to drag his falsehood before the face of the world; and so I went on straight to Barcelona, the treasure-house of courtesy, haven of strangers, asylum of the poor, home of the valiant, champion of the wronged, pleasant exchange of firm friendships, and city unrivalled in site and beauty. And though the adventures that befell me there are not by any means matters of enjoyment, but rather of regret, I do not regret them, simply because I have seen it. In a word, Senor Don Alvaro Tarfe, I am Don Quixote of La Mancha, the one that fame speaks of, and not the unlucky one that has attempted to usurp my name and deck himself out in my ideas. I entreat your worship by your devoir as a gentleman to be so good as to make a declaration before the alcalde of this village that you never in all your life saw me until now, and that neither am I the Don Quixote in print in the Second Part, nor this Sancho Panza, my squire, the one your worship knew."
Excerpt 10 - Don Quixote's Death
At the end of Volume II Don Quixote is vanquished in battle and as a consequence is made to swear that he will give up the vocation of Knight errant. As a result, Don Quixote falls into a deep depression and becomes seriously ill. Laid up in bed and surrounded by his friends and family, Don Quixote is struck by a flash of sanity:
My reason is now free and clear, rid of the dark shadows of ignorance that my unhappy constant study of those detestable books of chivalry cast over it. Now I see through their absurdities and deceptions, and it only grieves me that this destruction of my illusions has come so late that it leaves me no time to make some amends by reading other books that might be a light to my soul. Niece, I feel myself at the point of death, and I would fain meet it in such a way as to show that my life has not been so ill that I should leave behind me the name of a madman; for though I have been one, I would not that the fact should be made plainer at my death. Call in to me, my dear, my good friends the curate, the bachelor Samson Carrasco, and Master Nicholas the barber, for I wish to confess and make my will." But his niece was saved the trouble by the entrance of the three. The instant Don Quixote saw them he exclaimed, "Good news for you, good sirs, that I am no longer Don Quixote of La Mancha, but Alonso Quixano, whose way of life won for him the name of Good. Now am I the enemy of Amadis of Gaul and of the whole countless troop of his descendants; odious to me now are all the profane stories of knight-errantry; now I perceive my folly, and the peril into which reading them brought me; now, by God's mercy schooled into my right senses, I loathe them."
In one of the most remarkable scenes in all of literature, Don Quixote address himself to the author of Don Quixote Volume II, this very book we are currently reading to make an apology:
"I entreat the aforesaid gentlemen my executors, that, if any happy chance should lead them to discover the author who is said to have written a history now going about under the title of 'Second Part of the Achievements of Don Quixote of La Mancha,' they beg of him on my behalf as earnestly as they can to forgive me for having been, without intending it, the cause of his writing so many and such monstrous absurdities as he has written in it"
Conclusion: The Modernism of Don Quixote
Don Quixote is a shockingly modern book. Don Quixote was written in the early 1600s, around the time that Shakespeare was writing in England, but the book's style and themes would have you think it was written in the last 150 years.
Starting in the late 20th century, a style called "literary modernism" became popular. Before literary modernism, the project of a reading and writing fiction was mostly a straightforward affair. Before modernism, fiction was a fictional story told by a real-world author. With the advent of literary modernism, we get books that lie to you - books pretending to be something they are not. For example, in addition to a real life author, your book may also contain a fictional author who presents himself in your book as though he were the real-world author, and we find quotations from books and texts that don't exist. Moreover, the book you read may describe the act and process of writing the very same book you are currently reading. With literary modernism, and this is true of the Don Quixote as well, we have books that are self-aware - books that explore the process of their own creation and we find fictional author characters and we get books within books and narratives within narratives - self-reflective, self-conscious and nested realities. By playing with this sense of embeddedness, literary modernism as well as Cervantes' Don Quixote, provokes big questions like: What is real and what is fake? What makes something authentic? Where does reality come from? What is an author? Who stands above you?
