Don Quixote of the Mancha: V14 Harvard Classics

by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, Thomas Shelton

1909. Edited by Charles W. Eliot. Contents: The First Part of the Delightful History of the Most Ingenious Knight. The present volume contains the whole of the first part of the novel, which is complete in itself. The second part, issued in 1615, the year before his death, is of a nature of a sequel, and is generally regarded as inferior. In writing his great novel, Cervantes set out to parody the romances of chivalry. With reference to the fiction of the Middle Ages, it is a triumphant satire; with reference to modern novels, it is the first and the most widely enjoyed.

Genres: Classics, Fiction, Philosophy, Spain

552 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1909

About the author

Miguel de Cervantes y Cortinas, later Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His novel Don Quixote is often considered his magnum opus, as well as the first modern novel.

It is assumed that Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares. His father was Rodrigo de Cervantes, a surgeon of cordoban descent. Little is known of his mother Leonor de Cortinas, except that she was a native of Arganda del Rey.

In 1569, Cervantes moved to Italy, where he served as a valet to Giulio Acquaviva, a wealthy priest who was elevated to cardinal the next year. By then, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Algerian corsairs. He was then released on ransom from his captors by his parents and the Trinitarians, a Catholic religious order.

He subsequently returned to his family in Madrid.
In Esquivias (Province of Toledo), on 12 December 1584, he married the much younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios (Toledo, Esquivias –, 31 October 1626), daughter of Fernando de Salazar y Vozmediano and Catalina de Palacios. Her uncle Alonso de Quesada y Salazar is said to have inspired the character of Don Quixote. During the next 20 years Cervantes led a nomadic existence, working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and as a tax collector. He suffered a bankruptcy and was imprisoned at least twice (1597 and 1602) for irregularities in his accounts. Between 1596 and 1600, he lived primarily in Seville. In 1606, Cervantes settled in Madrid, where he remained for the rest of his life.
Cervantes died in Madrid on April 23, 1616.
-Copied from Wikipedia

Reviews

[Sara · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've had this one on the shelf and finally decided to tackle it. While I am glad I read it, I would not put this on anyone's "books-I've-got-to-read-before-I-die" list. I think the reason the windmill story is so famous is because it comes at the very beginning of the book, and most people don't slog through the rest of the 516 pages of tiny print.

There is a down-to-earth realness about this book, however. It makes you remember that people in the 1500's were really people. There is bald humor and slapstick comedy, compassion and kindness, anger and malice, and a great deal of satire. I had not realized before that this book is very much a satire. Having read Howard Pyle's "King Arthur and His Knights," I understood a lot of the references to common knighthood tales.

I had this illusion that Don Quixote was a noble figure (probably got that from the music "The Impossible Dream.") He is, in fact, ridiculous. He is crazy, of course, and wants to do noble things, except he really only wants to do it for glory. Anything good he attempts to do on his quest only makes things worse. The remarkable thing to me was to see how many people had compassion on him (although many did not). There is a part at the end when Don Quixote is defending the role of knights, when you do get a sense of real honor and merit about him.

Here are a couple of my favorite quotes:

"And what is more dangerous than to become a poet? which is, as some say, an incurable and infecitous disease."

"Be we women ever so foul, we love to hear men call us beautiful."

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

I was not overly impressed with this book, a disappointment since I had heard it to be a great classic. I guess not all classics can be favorites. I had a tough time getting into the story, partly because I had just finished "The Jungle Book" and that book's dialect (?) is very different from that of "Don Quixote", and partly because I was bored with the title character. I wasn't able to get excited about the book until about four chapters in and even then I was more interested in the tales of the minor characters than that of our mad Spaniard. The last hundred pages were a bit rough, too, but by then I was determined I would finish the book (or at least earn a headache trying), simply for the sake of having completed the project and also because my the volume could not be renewed. In conclusion, most of the body of the story was fascinating, but the head and tail of it (the most important parts?) were a bit rotten.

Anyhow, I'm done with the thing. Although I didn't enjoy the book as a whole and it didn't meet my expectations (which years of literary praise have--perhaps rather falsely?--lent to it), I am glad to have read it.

Note: In the introduction (Harvard Classics version), the editor pointed out that Cervantes' tale was intended to ridicule books of knighthood and chivalry, which in that case it did rather well.

[Barbara Lindsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was not an easy read, but it was on my bucket list so I stuck with it. I found it more interesting after visiting Spain and travelling through la Mancha. It was not what I expected.

SPOILER ALERT:

It was farcical throughout, but in the end, seemed to turn into a treatise on fiction literture. I suspect it may have been a statement on Spanish culture and society of the time, since, as far as I can tell, it was written some years after the Inquisition occurred.

[Jim B · Rating 4 out of 5]

I laughed myself silly at some of the scenes!

[Granny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Obviously this is a classic for a reason. I tried reading it in Spanish but quickly shifted to the English translation as Cervantes' Spanish is very outdated for my fluency level. I thought parts of the book were great. But those are spread amongst a lot of rather dull bits. I think it would be improved by modern editing and will reread an abridged version but probably not the original.

[George Hodgson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A difficult read.

[Roger Peters · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely great!

[Sarah Roberts · Rating 4 out of 5]

Don Quixote was written by Miguel De Cervantes in 1605. It is largely considered the first modern European novel and an excellent example of the picaresque novel. A picaresque novel is sardonic and follows the exploits of a hero, normally lower-class, who must endure by their wits as they journey around on usually accidental adventures.

The considerable age of the book has led to many translations of the piece to English with which each translator changes the reader's perception of the story in small, yet significant ways. The first translator of Don Quixote was Thomas Shelton who was favoured for his racy, spirited rendering of Don Quixote, but criticised for being too literal with his translation.

A lesser known translator is John Ormsby, who has a slightly more modern telling of the story and who focuses on the pithy, moralistic aspect of the story. By reading both versions, I could understand the broader aspects of the novel.

It was originally viewed as a comedy, however after the French revolution it was known for its central ethic that individuals can be right while society is wrong. It was viewed as an moralistic story that disenchants the reader from their society. In the 19th century it was believed to be a societal commentary, but there were no clear views on what side Cervantes was on. Many influential critics viewed the work as a tragedy in which Don Quixote’s idealism and nobility are viewed by the post-chivalric world as insane and are mocked and defeated by common reality. I initially viewed the work as a comedy but came to see it as a tragedy that shows how individual rights and dreams are suppressed by society.

I would recommend it to children as a comedy and adults as a moral tragedy. It is a book that can be appreciated at any age, but only truly understood by older audiences. I give it a rating of four out of five because it tends towards excessively long speeches and detailed descriptions of unimportant things.

[Myra Flowers · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is literally the volume I read. It is the Harvard Classics edition and looks like an older library edition. I chose to enter this volume in Goodreads because it's the one I read even though it has no reviews. I believe Don Quixote of La Mancha is a masterpiece full of symbolic renderings of human nature. But... I had to read this book in a month for a book club and others in the club did accomplish that. I just could not get into the long accounts and looong sentences. It is a story of tragic delusions and pathetic encounters and comical misunderstandings. It seems to be the story of a delusional man causing havoc to himself and others wherever he goes. The book is worthy but I was not up to appreciating it.

[Beth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is the edition I read as a child. Don Quixote is always worth a reread every decade or so.

[Tom · Rating 5 out of 5]

So fun.