The Story of Don Quixote by Arvid Paulson, Clayton Edwards

The Story of Don Quixote

 

About the author:
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (29 September 1547 (assumed) - 22 April 1616), often simply called Cervantes, was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright.

His major work, Don Quixote, considered to be the first modern European novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). He was dubbed El Príncipe de los Ingenios ("The Prince of Wits"). 

Don Quixote, fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spanish: El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha), is a Spanish novel by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. It follows the adventures of a nameless hidalgo (at the end of Part II given the name Alonso Quixano) who reads so many chivalric romances that he loses his sanity and decides to set out to revive chivalry, undo wrongs, and bring justice to the world, under the name Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who often employs a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood. Don Quixote, in the first part of the book, does not see the world for what it is, and prefers to imagine that he is living out a knightly story. The story implements various themes, such as intertextuality, realism, metatheatre, and literary representation.

Published in two volumes, in 1606 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered one of the most influential works of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published, such as the Bokklubben World Library collection which cites Don Quixote as authors' choice for the "best literary work ever written". It has had major influence on the literary community, as evidenced by direct references in Alexandre Dumas' The Three Musketeers (1844) and Mark Twain's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884), as well as the word "quixotic".
 

Publication Date:

May 16 2015

ISBN/EAN13:

1512232939 / 9781512232936

Page Count:

184

Binding Type:

US Trade Paper

Trim Size:

8" x 10"

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Related Categories:

Fiction / Classics