Don Quixote

Summary

Don Quixote is a middle-aged gentleman from the region of La Mancha, in Spain. Obsessed with the chivalrous ideals expressed in books he has read, he decides to take up his lance and sword to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked.

After a first failed adventure, he sets out on a second one with a peasant named Sancho Panza, whom he has persuaded to accompany him as his faithful squire. In return for Sancho’s services, Don Quixote promises to make Sancho the wealthy governor of an isle.

On his horse, Rocinante, Don Quixote rides the roads of Spain in search of glory and grand adventure. He gives up food, shelter, and comfort, all in the name of a peasant woman, Dulcinea del Toboso, whom he envisions as a princess.

Author

Miguel de Cervantes was born near Madrid in 1547. He became a soldier in 1570 and was badly wounded in the Battle of Lepanto. Captured by the Turks in 1575, Cervantes spent five years in prison. before he was ransomed and returned home. After less successful earlier efforts, Cervantes finally achieved literary success in his later years, publishing the first part of Don Quixote in 1605. He died in 1616.

Dulcinea

Don Quixote

Sancho Panza

Cid Hamet Benegali

The novel’s tragicomic hero. He believes only what he chooses to believe and sees the world very differently from most people. Honest, dignified, proud, and idealistic, he wants to save the world.

The peasant laborer—greedy but kind, faithful but cowardly—whom Don Quixote takes as his squire. A representation of the common man, Sancho is a foil to Don Quixote and virtually every other character in the novel.

Dulcinea, a woman whom Don Quixote envisions as his ladylove, has no knowledge of his chivalric dedication to her.

The Arab translator of Don Quixote. Appearing as a satiric character, he is constantly being accused of dishonesty by Cervantes in authorial asides.

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