Notes & Questions on Cervantes' Don Quixote (Samuel Putnam trans.)
(Abbreviations: DQ = Don Quixote; S = sentence; P = paragraph. Thus S1P1 means the first sentence of the first paragraph.)
(Some notes and questions may be on material included in one particular edition of the Norton Anthology of World Masterpieces but not another edition of this textbook.)
Translations into English of Cervantes' Don Quixote (Cervantes did write other important literary works) began appearing in the seventeenth century. As discussed in the translations by Putnam (x-xv, 1037-39), Jones' edition of Ormsby (ix-xii), Riley's edition of Jarvis (xvii), and Sutherland (xxv-xxxii), serious errors or distortions occur in the translations by Shelton, Phillips, and Motteux, while the translations by Smollett, Smirke and Clarke are heavily reliant on preceding translations. Much more accurate and faithful are the translations by Jarvis, Duffield, Ormsby, Watts, Smith, Putnam, Cohen, Starkie, Jones and Douglas' partial revision of Ormsby, Riley's partial revision of Jarvis, Raffel, and Rutherford. Available in affordable hardcover are the translations by Motteux (Everyman Library) and Putnam (Random House - Modern Library); available in paperback are the translations by Putnam (Viking Portable Library; abridged edition), Starkie (Signet - New American Library), Riley's revision of Jarvis (Oxford World's Classics), Raffel (Norton Critical Editions), and Rutherford (Penguin Classics).
Table of Translations (Listed by Date of Translation, Column by Column)
| Thomas Shelton, 1612-1620 | Alexander Duffield, 1881 | Charles Jarvis & E.C. Riley, 1992 [based on Jarvis] |
| John Phillips, 1687 | John Ormsby, 1885 | Burton Raffel, 1995; rpt. 1999 |
| Peter Motteux, et al., 1700-1725 | Henry Watts, 1888 | Stanley Appelbaum, 1999; heavily abridged |
| Charles Jarvis, 1742 | Robinson Smith (1908, 1914; reprint 1932) | John Rutherford, 2000 |
| Tobias Smollett, 1755 [largely based on Jarvis] | Samuel Putnam, 1949 | |
| George Kelly, 1769 | J.M. Cohen, 1950 [partly based on Ormsby] | |
| Mary Smirke, 1818 [largely based on Motteux, Jarvis, and Smollett] | Walter Starkie, 1957-1964 [partly based on Ormsby] | |
| J.W. Clarke, 1864-1867; reprints 1870-1906 | John Ormsby, Joseph Jones, Kenneth Douglas; 1981 [based on Ormsby] |
The influence of Cervantes' Don Quixote has been felt in art (through illustrations of editions of the book, as well as visual art based on the characters, by such noted artists as Honoré Daumier and Gustave Doré), music, and the English language (through the word quixotic, which should be looked up in a collegiate dictionary, as well as the expression "tilting at windmills"). For paintings, drawings, and sculplture inspired by Cervantes' Don Quixote, click here.
In classical music or art music or concert music (all synonymous terms), as indicated in the invaluable Oxford Dictionary of Music, 2nd ed., edited by Michael Kennedy (Oxford UP, 1994), Cervantes' novel Don Quixote (1605, 1615), has inspired many works of classical music (or what is becoming the more preferred term, "art music," to prevent confusion with music of the Classical period). It has been the subject of sixteen operas (listed by birthdates of composer, or by the date of the specific opera, or by both)--by Johann Fortsch (1652-1732; 1690), Francesco Conti (1681-1732; 1719), Joseph Bodin de Boismortier (1689-1755), Giovanni Paisiello (1740-1816; 1769), Niccolo Piccinni (1728-1800), Antonio Salieri (1750-1825), Manuel Garcia (1775-1832), Felix Mendelssohn (1809-1847; 1827), Saverio Mercadante (1795-1870), Gaetano Donizetti (1797-1848), George Macfarren (1813-1887; 1846), Frederick Emes Clay (1838-1889), Jules Massenet (1842-1912; 1908-09), Emile Jaques-Dalcroze (1865-1950; 1896), Richard Franz Joseph Heuberger (1850-1914), and Manuel de Falla (1876-1946; 1923). It has also been the subject of four ballets--with music by Leon Minkus (1869), Goffredo Petrassi (1947), Jacques Ibert (1950), and Roberto Gerhard (1950).
Perhaps most well known in art music, related to Cervantes' novel is the tone poem (related to program music, briefly discussed earlier in the course) Don Quixote, by Richard Strauss (1864-1949). (The first name of Strauss, who was German, receives the German, rather than the American-English pronunciation: Rih + gearing the throat up for a major expectoration + ahrd.) The full title of Strauss's piece is Don Quixote: Fantastische Variationen uber Thema ritterlichen Charakters ("Don Quixote: Fantastic Variations on a Theme of Knightly Character"), Opus 35. Composed in 1896-97 and performed in 1898, the piece has fourteen parts, ranging from an introduction about Don Quixote's reading, to a theme for Don Quixote, a theme for Sancho Panza, ten "variations" dealing with various episodes in the novel (including the famous tilting at the windmills), and the epilogue, "Don Quixotes Tod" ("Don Quixote's Death").
Following are the parts of the Strauss piece (in the original German): (1) Introduktion: Don Quixote verliert ubert der Lekture der Ritterromane seinen Verstand und beschliesst, selbst fahrender Ritter zu werden; (2) Thema: Don Quixote, der Ritter von der traurigen Gestalt; (3) Thema: Sancho Panza; (4) Variation 1: Austritt, das Abenteuer mit den Windmuhlen; (5) Variation 2: Das Abenteur mit der Hammelherde; (6) Variation 3: Sanchos Wunsche, Redensarten und Sprichworter; (7) Variation 4: Das Abenteur mit der Prozession; (8) Variation 5: Don Quixotes Wacht in der Sommernacht; (9) Variation 6: Dulcinea; (10) Variation 7: Don Quixotes Luftritt; (11) Variation 8: Die Kahnfahrt; (12) Variation 9: Der Angriff auf die Bettelmonche; (13) Variation 10: Zweikampf und Heimkehr; (14) Epilogue: Don Quixotes Tod.
Likewise, Don Quixote has made a large impact on popular music through the Broadway musical, in the popular Man of La Mancha, which contains many fine songs, including the inspiring "To Dream the Impossible Dream," which is alluded to, with a significant Don Quixote theme, in the fine feature film comedy Moon Over Parador (1988), directed and co-written by Paul Mazursky and starring Richard Dreyfus, Raul Julia, Sonia Braga, Jonathan Winters, Charo, and others; also the musical, plus its attendant themes and allusion, is the focus of an episode of the television series Quantum Leap.
Man of La Mancha, with book by Dale Wasserman,
lyrics by Joe Darion, and music by Mitch Leigh, and starring Richard Kiley
as Cervantes and Don Quixote, and Irving Jacobson as Sancho Panza, opened
on Broadway on November 22, 1965. It ran for 2,328 performances. The musical
opens with Cervantes in prison (he had been imprisoned more than once in
his life), who becomes Don Quixote as he reads his manuscript to his fellow
inmates.
"Man of La Mancha: I, Don Quixote" (Song for the Actor/Singer Portraying Don Quixote, then joined by the Actor/Singer Portraying Sancho Panza)
I shall impersonate a man. Come, enter into my imagination, and see
him.
Hear me now, oh how bleak and uncaring the world,
Thou art base and debauched as can be.
And the knight with his banners all gravely unfurled
Now hurls down his gauntlet to thee. I am I, Don Quixote, the Lord
of La Mancha;
My destiny calls and I go.
And the wild winds of fortune
Shall carry me onward
To whither soever they blow--
Whither soever they blow.
Onward to glory I go.
I'm Sancho, yes, I'm Sancho.
I follow my master till the end.
I'll tell all the world proudly
I'm his squire; I'm his friend.
Hear me heathens and wizards and servants of sin,
For your dastardly doings are past.
For a holy endeavor is now to begin,
And virtue shall triumph at last.
[both Don Quixote and Sancho sing their separate songs, polyphonically,
at the end]
"The Impossible Dream: The Quest" (Solo for the Actor/Singer Portraying Don Quixote)
To dream the impossible dream,
To fight the unbeatable foe,
To bear with unbearable sorrow,
To run where the brave dare not go,
To right the unrightable wrong,
To love pure and chaste from afar,
To try when your arms are too weary,
To reach the unreachable star--
This is my quest:
To follow that star,
No matter how hopeless,
No matter how far,
To fight for the right
Without question or pause,
To be willing to march into hell
For a heavenly cause.
And I know if I'll only be true
To this glorious quest
That my heart will lie peaceful and calm
When I'm laid to my rest.
And the world will be better for this:
That one man scorned and covered with scars
Still strove with his last ounce of courage
To reach the unreachable star.
General
G1. How does humanism's new emphasis on individuality apply to Cervantes' characterization and depiction of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza?
G2. How does the novel connect with humanism's idea, by way of Pico Della Mirandola, that human beings may create or define themselves, rising to the level of angels or descending to the level of beasts?
(a) In the view of the early Middle Ages, a person's identity was fixed; a prevalent concept was that God meant or intended for a person to be born a Duke or to be born a struggling peasant, and that accepting that identity and role was a religious or spiritual duty. (Such fixity was often a matter of law as well as religion; actual laws forbade a peasant to move from a particular place unless granted leave by the aristocrat presiding over the specific geographical area.) A change in that view can be seen in Chaucer's General Prologue of The Canterbury Tales among some of the middle class pilgrims such as the Five Guildsmen and the Woman (or Wife) of Bath, who have some feeling for social mobility, for "movin' on up" (was the Canterbury Cathedral on the East Side or West Side relative to where the Pilgrims started out?); how is this idea manifested in the pilgrims cited? (b) With increased prosperity (partly from better wages of workers who weren't among the huge casualties of the Black Death in the Middle Ages, and partly from the raw materials, goods, and treasure that Renaissance explorers brought back to Europe from the New World), an idea of social mobility increased in the Renaissance. Such a concept may be seen in the Oration on the Dignity of Man (1486) by the Renaissance scholar and (religious) humanist Giovanni Pico Della Mirandola, whose treatise elevates not only humanity but also the visual arts by repeatedly identifying God as architect or artist (or artisan):
"But when His work was finished [in the Creation], the Artisan longed for someone to reflect on the plan of so great a creation, to love its beauty, and to admire its magnitude. When, therefore, everything was completed, as Moses [in the Pentateuch] and [Plato's] Timaeus testify, He began at last to consider the creation of man. But among His archetypes there was none from which He could form a new offspring, nor in His treasure houses was there any inheritance which He might bestow upon His new son, nor in the tribunal seats of the whole world was there a place where this contemplator of the universe might sit. All was now filled out; everything had been apportioned to the highest, the middle, and the lowest orders.
But it was not in keeping with the paternal power to fail, as though exhausted, in the last act of creation; it was not in keeping with His wisdom to waver in a matter of necessity through lack of a design; it was not in keeping with His beneficent love that the creature who was to praise the divine liberality with regard to others should be forced to condemn it with respect to himself. Finally, the Great Artisan ordained that man, to whom He could give nothing belonging only to himself, should share in common whatever properties had been peculiar to each of the other creatures. He received man, therefore, as a creature of undetermined nature, and placing him in the middle of the universe, said to him: 'Neither an established place, nor a form belonging to you alone, nor any special function have We given to you, O Adam, and for this reason, that you may have and possess, according to your desire and judgment, whatever place, whatever form, and whatever functions you shall desire. The nature of other creatures, which has been determined, is confined within the bounds prescribed by Us. You, who are confined by no limits, shall determine for yourself your own nature, in accordance with your own free will, in whose hand I have placed you. I have set you at the center of the world, so that from there you may more easily survey whatever is in the world. We have made you neither heavenly nor earthly, neither mortal nor immortal, so that, more freely and more honorably, the molder and maker of yourself, you may fashion yourself in whatever form you shall prefer. You shall be able to descend among the lower forms of being, which are brute beasts; you shall be able to be reborn out of the judgment of your own soul into the higher beings, which are divine.'" (in The Portable Renaissance Reader, 2nd ed., eds. James Ross and Mary McLaughlin [Penguin Books, 1968], pp. 477-78)
This idea of being able to ascend (although we may also descend, as well) also underlies the popularity of such books as Baldassare Castiglione's The Courtier, which instructed some of those who were rising into higher ranks about how to think, behave, act, and talk. (c) How can the subject, issue, or theme of identity be seen in Niccolo Machiavelli's The Prince? How is the idea of becoming someone better or superior (in a particular sphere of action) a key issue? How is instruction given about appearing or seeming to be something, as part of an identity? (d) How can the subject, issue, or theme of identity be seen in Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote? How is the idea of becoming someone better or superior a key issue? (e) In contemporary America (as noted by Erving Goffman in his seminal work of sociology The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life), how do many of us (in contrast to the Middle Ages) have multiple identities during a single day, complete with changes in language, behavior, denomination (e.g., "student," "mom"), and even clothing?
G3. How is the novel's pronounced feeling about the passing of an age comparable or contrasting to the phenomena in American popular culture of: (a) the history of the western film in the 1960's, 1970's, and 1980's--and particularly themes or subjects John Huston's The Misfits (1961), David Miller's Lonely Are the Brave (1962), Sam Peckinpah's Ride the High Country (1962), George Roy Hill's Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969), William Fraker's Monte Walsh (1970), and Robert Altman's McCabe and Mrs. Miller (1971)? (b) the theme song and hero's business card in the television series Have Gun Will Travel? (c) the basis of the science fiction movie Outland (starring Sean Connery)? (d) the resurgence of the genre, setting, and terminology of films such as Beastmaster, Conan the Barbarian, Dark Crystal, Dragonslayer, Krull, and the Star Wars trilogy?
G4. With regard to television and films, how are the following related to Cervantes' Don Quixote: (a) which episode of the I Spy television series; (b) the movie They Might Be Giants; (c) the film comedy Moon Over Parador?
G5. How are the following themes, motifs, and subjects embodied in successive chapters of Don Quixote: (a) truth vs. falsity; (b) real vs. imaginary; (c) boundaries between art and reality; (e) art vs. nature; (e) boundaries between sanity and insanity; (f) identity and role; (g) Renaissance emphases on individuality and optimism; (h) idealism vs. materialism or pragmatism; (i) justice vs. injustice; (j) free will vs. determinism?
G6. Although many people think of themselves as having only one role or identity, Erving Goffman points out in his seminal social science book The Presentation of Self in Everyday Life (in paperback and well worth owning) that in reality we all have several roles and identities. How is this multiplication or division so, every day? How does it connect us to Don Quixote?
G7. How are the themes or motifs mentioned in G4.a-c, above, expressed and embodied in Diego Velasquez' (or Velazquez') seventeenth-century painting Las Meniñas (The Maids of Honor)? For a reproduction of Velasquez' painting, click here.
1.1 (Questions on Part 1, Chapter 1)
1. In P1, how does Cervantes suggest that DQ's escapist urge derives in part from poverty and routine or regimen? How is the latter (routine or regimen) related to the former (poverty)? How is this theme true today?
2. In P2, how does Cervantes' fuss about the accuracy of what DQ's name really was and is relate to (a) verisimilitude and (b) the theme of the pursuit and importance of truth?
3. (a) In P4-5, what ironic examples does Cervantes give of inflated writing style of romances and epics? (b) What defects or shortcomings does Cervantes suggest that this writing style reveals? (c) Would Cervantes approve or disapprove of how Homer describes sunrise throughout the Odyssey (never just "next morning," or "at sunrise," but "when the rosy--"--do you remember?)?
4. (a) In P10, what is the underlying psychology of why DQ doesn't test his repaired helmet a second time? (b) What general psychological truth about people is revealed here? (c) What is the bearing of I.v.P2 (part 1, chapter 5, paragraph 2) on 4a-b?
5. (a) From P11-12, what are the implications about DQ's sanity by what he names his horse? What would have been implied about DQ's sanity if he had named his horse, for example, the Spanish equivalent of Silver, Trigger, or Champion (and what these connote) rather than what he does name the horse? (b) What famous cowboys had the horses mentioned in 5a? (c) How does I.ix.P9 bear on 5a?
6. In P7, with reference to how DQ relates to romances, how is DQ shown to be on the borderline between fiction (or imagination) and reality?
7. (a) What early formulation or definition by DQ of his mission can be found in P9? (b) How does this formulation or definition mix vanity, true moral or religious idealism, and romantic silliness? (c) What does 7b suggest about DQ's mental state, and how? (d) How does I.ii.P1 bear on 7a-7b?
8. In P11, what example can be found of the English translator,
Samuel Putnam, to duplicate the frequent punning by Cervantes in the original
Spanish of the novel?
1.2
1. In P1, how is DQ's conception, formulation, or definition of his mission idealistic and worthwhile?
2. (a) How is Cervantes' recurrent mock epic mode manifested in the contrast between DQ's imagined description of the sunrise in P3, with Cervantes' description in P7? (b) How does I.xiii.P1 bear on 2a?
3. In P5, which of the fine arts are mentioned, and with what effect or themes?
4. How is religious symbolism, often Messianic, initiated in P7?
5. How do the occupations of the persons DQ meets in P8, P9, and P24 suggest what level of reality he is encountering, as well as what he does with it?
6. With regard to at least one of the stimuli of or motivations for DQ's escape (see 1.1 question 1), what irony is there in the food he gets at the inn (P21-22)?
1.3
1. How is religious symbolism manifested in P7? Suggesting what about the contrast between DQ and the real world?
2. In P6-7, how does the Host's description of his life give an ironic analogue to DQ's mission? How is the Host's language ambiguous or amphibolous?
3. In P8-10, how is the landlord's "advice" to DQ a mixture of the ludicrous, malicious, commonsensical, compassionate, shrewd, and self-serving?
4. Throughout the novel, Cervantes suggests admirable aspects of chivalry (and our sympathy toward it) or unfavorable aspects of chivalry (and our unsympathetic attitude toward it) by way of whether he makes us sympathetic or unsympathetic toward DQ (from sentence to sentence, paragraph to paragraph, chapter to chapter). (a) In P13-21, which recount DQ's "mad pranks," how does Cervantes make the reader sympathetic toward DQ and unsympathetic toward the mule drivers? (b) What criticism is Cervantes implying about the real, modern world through 4a?
5. In P22-23, through the imagery of what the Host uses in his ceremony to create DQ a knight, how is a collision (and ironic contrast) shown between the practical, material world, as well as its values and the chivalric world, as well as its values?
6. (a) In P24, how does Cervantes suggest, ironically, that language and imagination can, miraculously, work transformations through the prostitutes in some sense actually becoming Doñas? (b) How have the prostitutes in some sense really or actually been transformed into Doñas?
1.4
1. How is the conjunction but ironic in the contrast between the description of Sancho as a series of practical things "but very well suited to fulfill the duties to squire"(P1)?
2. In P4-23, the episode of DQ with the farmer beating a servant lad, (a) how, in P9, does DQ's native or intuitive shrewdness and fairness shown? (b) How is 2a ironically undercut a few paragraphs later by what and how DQ is misled? (c) How is the psychological process of projection shown in what DQ expects of the farmer? (d) How does P14 contain a signature passage on the theme of identity? (e) How are good intentions shown to produce harm in this episode? Is this idea valid today?
3. In P25-36, in DQ's encounter with six merchants and four attendants, (a) what religious, moral, and humanitarian criticisms are implied about the modern and pragmatic world through why the merchants won't acquiesce to DQ's claims? (b) What figurative references to wheat occur in P31 and 35? How do these references connect to the merchants and modern world? How do these references foreshadow I.viii? (c) How is DQ shown succumbing to the psychological process of rationalization in P34 and P36, with regard to explaining his defeat? (d) How is 3c ironically inverted (the relationship of horses to defeat) in the "real" world in I.viii-ix and in II.xiv? (e) How does the inversion in 3d relate to Cervantes' ideas about the difference between imagination (or fantasy) and reality? How does the inversion relate to Velasquez's painting The Maids of Honor? (f) How is the beating administered by the victorious muleteers in P35 a symmetrical inversion to incidents in I.iii? (g) With regard to the two main episodes in this chapter, how does the real, sane, pragmatic world come off looking distinctly inferior and irrational in comparison with DQ's mad chivalric world? (h) what links might the two seemingly diverse main episodes of the chapter have, beyond question 3g? Why do they belong in the beginning of DQ's career, and in the same chapter?
1.5
1. (a) In P1-6, how is literature shown to have caused, and to aid, DQ's almost total withdrawal from the real world? How does the concept of communication figure here? (b) How does P8 contain a signature passage on identity, and to suggest that DQ's madness, like Hamlet's, is "north by northwest"--that is, not as mad or crazy as it seems?
2. (a) How is the real world ironically undercut by the time of day that farmer Pedro Alonso brings DQ into town (P9)? (b) How has the representative of the real, pragmatic world agreed to adjust reality for the sake of appearance by his action? (c) How does the farmer further humor DQ in P14, and how is the real, pragmatic world shown thus to be playing along with fantasy or madness? (d) Do any such activities happen today? How, when, or why?
3. (a) How is the religious dimension of the novel manifested in the personification DQ's daughter uses for DQ's books, when she expresses her wish that they be "tried" (P11)? How is the religious motif or dimension continued in the Curate's replying that he'll conduct an auto da fé on the books? What is an auto da fé? How is the curate using the expression figuratively? (b) Through 2a, what ideas does Cervantes suggest about the negative relationship between romance literature and religion?
4. What idea or themes about the contrast between imaginary and real violence might be suggested or conveyed by the disparity between DQ's niece's description of what behavior and desires the romances have inspired in DQ (P11) and how DQ has actually fared and is faring out in the world, as shown in I.iii-v?
1.7
[first par. of this chapter in NAWM5 and NAWME-1V is P17; 1.7 in NAWM5/NAWME-1V thus = P17-28]
1. (a) How does Cervantes' sensitivity to class consciousness, social stratification, materialism, and the oppression of the poor show in P18 by the narrator's qualification about whether the title "good man" may be applied to the poor? How is Cervantes being ironic and satiric here? (b) How is Sancho's self-interested materialism shown to be a motive for his following DQ in these paragraphs?
2. (a) How are both madman-dreamer-idealist DQ and realist-peasant-materialist-pragmatist Sancho both ironically undercut in succumbing to the fantasy of counting their chickens before they hatch in these paragraphs of 1.7? (b) What relation to the theme of the borderline between fantasy/imagination and reality is suggested by the fact that DQ's promise to Sancho about a governorship of an island (P18, P21-23; I.x.P1, P12, P20-21; I.lii.P21; II.iii.P28, P30-35) is reified, comes true, in II.xlii-xlv ff.?
3. What modern colloquial expression for boyfriend, girlfriend, or spouse turns out, as shown in P24 and II.iii.P50, to have an ancient lineage?
1.8
[NAWME-1V abridges the last S of the chapter, which reads "end of this pleasing story, and Heaven favoring him, he did find it, as shall be related in the second part"]
1. (a) What does the proverbial English expression "tilting at windmills," which is derived from this chapter of the novel, mean? How does it apply to the chapter? What, exactly, is a windmill, or for that matter, a mill, up to the eighteenth century? (Prior to the advent of electricity, what two other main kinds of mills were there besides windmills?) What, exactly, is a millstone? What did the Miller, in Chaucer's Canterbury Tales do for a living, exactly? What were the tools of his trade and how did they work, exactly? (b) Through the imagery describing the windmill in P1-10 of the chapter, what unconscious symbolism is conveyed by DQ's attack, given the mill's (a) mechanical, machinery nature; (b) its use of a heavy stone on a circular track; (c) its purpose of grinding wheat for commercial purpose and making money, especially for a certain socioeconomic class; (d) the circular, repetitive motion of windmill blades, as well as of the millstone? (e) In S1-2P11, how is the initial part of DQ's response to Sancho's I-told-you-so really rather rational, as well as an acute observation of the workings of history and politics and human relations in the real world (e.g., the interrelationships among the USSR, UK, Germany, Japan, and the US in World War II and after)?
2. (a) What several thematic contrasts are established between DQ and Sancho in P14-23? (b) In P14-17, how is DQ portrayed as stoic, while Sancho is the opposite? (c) In P17-19, how is Sancho portrayed as materialistic (in a nonfinancial sense) and hedonistic, while DQ is the opposite? (d) How are the two opposites, with regard to sleep? What opposite temperaments or natures are suggested thereby?
3. (a) In P17, what relationship is suggested between animal-physical essentials or necessities and mental or spiritual outlook? (b) Is Cervantes' implied theme or idea true today?
4. In DQ's combat with the Benedictine friar(s) and Biscayan lout, P24-42, (a) what irony emerges from the contrast between Sancho's religious oath by the Sabbath in P23 and DQ's actions in P24-32? what irony emerges from the contrast between Sancho's religious oath and what he attempts to do to the friars later in the chapter? (b) what ironic, symmetrical echo of I.iv is there in this chapter, through the role of the Biscayan's mule in the Biscayan's combat with DQ? (c) How is there a symmetry in this chapter between what DQ does in P1-10 and what he does in P24-42? How are DQ's targets alike? How are they opposites?
5. In Cervantes' arrested narration in P42, (a) how does Cervantes allude to a sly epic technique of Homer (and later epic writers) in the Odyssey, last six lines of Book IV, and lines 426-526 of Book XIX), as well as a similar devices in medieval romances? What comparable device later came to be used in short movie serials, causing them to be named "cliffhangers"? (What inside, implicit joke about such movie serials does Steven Spielberg make at the end of the tank episode in the film Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade?) (b) how does Cervantes draw attention to art, and his art, by such a device? What connections can be seen here with Velasquez' The Maids of Honor?
1.9
[NAWME-1V abridges the first few words of the first sentence of the chapter's first paragraph: "In the first part of this history, we left the valorous Biscayan and the famous Don Quixote . . "]
1. (a) In P1-11, how is the digression about the narrator's (Cervantes') search for and examination of documents only apparently a digression? That is, what themes are conveyed that connect to the principal themes of the work? (b) How might the narrator's activity be seen as a quest for truth? (c) How would the idea of a quest relate to DQ? (d) How would the aim of the narrator's quest relate thematically to the aim or aims of DQ's quest? (e) How would the narrator's quest for truth relate thematically to DQ's actions in I.viii-I.ix? (f) How would the narrator's editorial activity relate to the theme of DQ's relationship to truth in I.viii-I.ix, and in the novel generally?
2. (a) In P1-11, how does the narrator create verisimilitude? (b) How is this verisimilitude a sham or deception? How is the motif of the borderline between art and reality (and Velasquez' The Maids of Honor) manifested here? (c) How does the Cervantes the narrator now, apparently, doubly distance himself from the writing or composing of the novel?
3. (a) What idealistic statement of DQ's mission can be found in P3? (b) How is the idealistic statement undercut by ironic implications about women's real and imaginary virginity in the real world and romances, also found in P3?
1.10
1. In P1-2, how does the idealistic dreamer DQ show more realistic awareness of what this adventure represents than the earthy, materialistic, lowerclass pragmatist, Sancho?
2. (a) In P4-7, how does Cervantes satirize the injustice, disorder, and irreligion inherent in chivalry and knight errantry? (b) In P7, how is chivalry satirically shown to be an irrelevant and inessential concern for a certain group of people?
3. In P8-16, with regard to medical treatment, how do DQ's idealism and dreaming clash with Sancho's materialism and pragmatism?
4. (a) In P21-27, with regard to food and eating, how do practicality, pragmatism, and nature clash with imagination, idealism, and art? (b) How are practicality, pragmatism, and nature shown to triumph?
1.11
[possible misprint at the end of P2 in some printings: the last line should read: "may say the same as of love: that it makes all things equal."]
1. (a) How are nature and the natural shown superior to art and the artificial in the contrast between the treatment of DQ by the pastoral society of shepherds in this chapter vs. the treatment of DQ by various levels of nonpastoral society in preceding chapters? (How does "rude" in "rude politeness" [P2] not mean "ill-mannered," but a different dictionary sense?) (b) How is the narrator's, Cervantes', characterization of DQ's speech as "this long harangue . . . that might very well have been dispensed with" (P11) ironic, since Cervantes considers it not a digression or long-winded but thematically crucial? What joke is Cervantes making about readers or critics who have charged his writing with containing irrelevant digressions? (c) What is suggested about the setting by its evoking in P7-11 DQ's long speech about the Golden Age? (What is the Golden Age, according to your collegiate dictionary? How does it relate to the Silver, Bronze, and Iron Ages, in the Classical concept of the Four Ages of history?) (d) How is the Noble Savage idea (cf. Montaigne) related to the concept of the Golden Age (or the Biblical concept of Eden vs. later human settings and events)? (e) How is are the concepts of the Classical period's Golden Age and the Judeo-Christian tradition's Eden and subsequent settings and people antagonistic to the concept that developed in the eighteenth-century of the Idea of Progress (constant improvement of all things in the elapse of history)? What truths, applicable today, are there in the Classical and Judeo-Christian views of history as decline rather than progress? (f) In the natural, pastoral, Noble Savage society of the shepherds, how are the fine arts (specifically, literature) shown to be present? (g) In what ways is the pastoral society of the shepherds and goatherds shown to be a sort of utopia? (h) How do the goatherds actually possess, miraculously, but in the "real" world, something superior to both DQ's imaginary balm and Sancho's civilized, practical medication (P21)? What ideas might be suggested here?
2. In P2-5, how does the discussion of Sancho's seating arrangement during dinner (a) foreshadow the subject of romantic love in 1.xi-xiv, and (b) reveal DQ's idealism in conflict with Sancho's pragmatism and hedonism?
3. (a) How do the elements of romance, mock romance or anti-romance, comedy, and religion emerge in Antonio's song? (b) How do the aforementioned elements in Antonio's song relate in some way or ways to DQ or DQ's vision of the pastoral ideal in the Golden Age? (c) How does Antonio's song bear thematically, parallel or contrast, the Grisostomo-Marcella love story in the following chapters? (d) In P16-20 how and why does the materialistic and mundane Sancho come into conflict with poetry?
1.12
1. (a) What several parallels and contrasts, with thematic bearing, emerge between the Grisostomo-Marcella love story and DQ's life, actions, and values? (b) What parallels are there in romantic love between the characters in the love story and in DQ's life? Who is DQ's romantic love interest? (c) How have Marcella and Grisostomo both adopted masks or new identities? Parallels or contrasts with DQ? (d) What ideal is Marcella committed to, and with what harmful or injurious effects? Parallels with DQ here?
2. (a) In P12-21, what themes are implied or suggested through Cervantes' or the narrator's making rather a point of the motif of DQ correcting Pedro in the telling of the story? (b) How might the concept of correction be both parallel and ironically opposite to DQ's life and values?
3. (a) How do Grisostomo and Marcella as pretend shepherds compare or contrast to the "real" shepherds or goatherds in I.xi and I.xviii? (b) How are the themes of money and materialism paradoxically bound up in Grisostomo's and Marcella's fantasy or masquerade? How is having money crucial for their fantasy?
4. (a) How are DQ's and Sancho's responses to the Grisostomo-Marcella story (P33) appropriate to the respective temperaments and values of DQ and Sancho? (b) What ideas here, and elsewhere, might Cervantes be suggesting about literature?
1.13
1. (a) How does Vivaldo represent the voice of reason and common sense in this chapter (especially P13-21 and 35) and later chapters? How might his name relate symbolically to this defining trait? What symmetrical arrangement is there to Vivaldo's criticisms in this chapter? (b) In his discussion--really, debate (P13-21)--with Vivaldo, how, once more, against our expectations does DQ at first make a plausible, reasonable case for what he does? How does DQ, in so doing, undercut Carthusian monks and defective religion? (c) How, later in his argument, does DQ undo his rationality and plausibility by what he tries to justify in knight errantry?
2. (a) How is the theme of artifice and the artificial (art) suggested by the periphrasis for sunrise that opens this chapter, in P1? (b) In the juxtaposition of DQ's account of his love and Ambrosio's account of Grisostomo's love, how does Cervantes suggest that harm is done when love is overlaid by art--artificial conventions? Which conventions? How might Cervantes' point be true, in some way or ways, today? (c) How is the theme of artifice and the artificial suggested by the language of Ambrosio's eulogy for Grisostomo (P35)?
1.14
1. (a) What fault, appropriately, does the representative of reason and common sense, Vivaldo, find in Ambrosio's song, which he forces the singer to admit? (b) What other moral and psychological defects of Grisostomo and convention are revealed in Ambrosio's song, besides those pointed out by Vivaldo (question 1a)?
2. (a) How is the theme of deceiving appearance vs. reality, as well as unjust perception, sugggested by Marcella's arrival and explanation of her apparent cruelty and caprice? How has she not, in fact, been cruel and capricious? How have her actions been based on reason and rationality? (b) What parallel discrepancies between appearance and reality, including unjust perception, which apply to Marcella (quest. 2a), also apply to DQ? How?
3. (a) How is the power of irrational forces in human life--here the emotion of love, particularly as applied to men--shown by the response of the male audience to Marcella's long and rational speech against love? (b) What does Cervantes suggest about human beings, as well as men in particular, through the men's response to the content of the speech (language) and Marcella's appearance? (c) What parallel is there between 3a and the opening of Erasmus' The Praise of Folly?
1.18 (NAWM5 omits P1-8 and 42-63; the paragraphs in NAWM5 should be numbered as P9-41)
1. (a) How is Sancho's (perhaps the average person's) susceptibility to DQ's fantasy suggested in the early part of the chapter? (b) How Sancho's pragmatic common sense and resistance to DQ's fantasy shown reemerging by P28? (c) What truths are suggested here about the average person, with regard to fantasy and reality?
2. (a) How does DQ unwittingly satirize romance exaggerations in his description of the combatants he sees (P21-27)? (b) How might the blinding dust obscuring the view symbolically apply to romances and to DQ? (c) How is the comic and foolish element of romance conventions suggested by the heraldic convention of pictures and mottos on shields, particularly the shield with Miau on it?
3. (a) In P32, in explaining why Sancho can't see the armies, how is what DQ says about the effect of psychological forces or emotions on perception generally true? What examples can you give from your own observation, experience, or knowledge? (b) How does DQ ironically fail to apply to himself the truth of his observation in P32?
4. (a) In P36-38, how are the shepherds, their actions, and their values a vivid contrast to the shepherds of I.xi-xiv? (b) What shrewd idea is Cervantes suggesting about classifying or stereotyping any group?
1.22
1. (a) What thematic parallels and contrasts are there between DQ and the prisoners? (b) As a parallel, what transformation of their actions, behavior, and lives do the prisoners create by how they speak about their pasts? Where and how do the prisoners use metaphor and euphemism to achieve this transformation? (c) As a parallel, how does DQ share criminality with the prisoners, from a similar motivation or goal? (d) As a contrast, what parts do idealism, humanitarianism, selfishness, self-denial, and altruism play in DQ's and in the prisoner's lives and actions?
2. (a) What serious political issue, revolving around the relationship between the individual and the state (or group), is raised by whom or what DQ comes into conflict with here, through his fantasy or imagination? (b) What connections are there between 2a and Sophocles' tragedy Antigone? (c) Because of events in Cervantes' own life, what extra resonance is there in the depiction here (and elsewhere in the novel) of prisoners? (d) How in this chapter, and for Cervantes in his own life, might the issue of freedom versus restraint be suggested as a pressing concern?
3. (a) How do the fallen, postlapsarian (look up this word and prelapsarian in your collegiate dictionary) traits of humanity in the real, modern world help defeat DQ's idealistic mission and behavior in this chapter? (b) How is the outcome or result of his actions the opposite of or quite different from what DQ intends? (c) What ideas about justice and human nature are suggested or implied here, and by the chapter generally?
1.52
1. (a) How, once again, does DQ's delusion or fantasy precipitate physical violence and disorder? (b) What ironic idea or ideas about human psychology, human emotions, and human behavior might be suggested, ironically, by the length of time that elapses in the transformation of DQ's address to Eugenio the herdsman from "brother goatherd" (P2) to "Brother Demon" (P9)?
2. (a) What is Cervantes' attitude toward sane people, upholders of law (the Holy Brotherhood, troopers), and representatives of religion (the curate) by their enjoyment of the fight between DQ and Eugenio? (b) Why do the sane people, including representatives of law and religion, want some physical punishment or harm for DQ? Why is this wish reprehensible, considering DQ's mental condition? What basic culpable human impulses and desires are satirized by the sane people's feelings and behavior here? (c) How do 2a and 2b foreshadow the behavior of Samson Carrasco in Part 2 of the novel?
3. (a) What commendatory and condemnatory symbolism is there in DQ's attack on the religious procession of penitents and priests, accompanying an image of the Virgin Mary (P10-20)? (b) How, in some sense, is the Virgin Mary or religion being held captive or misused here, evoking DQ's right and righteous action? What is the purpose of the procession, exactly? (c) Simultaneously, what criticism is Cervantes making of chivalry (and its embodiment in romances)?
4. (a) Toward the end of the chapter, how does the portrayal of the lower class (Sancho and his wife), in its behavior and values, contrast with and criticize the behavior and values of the upper class (through actions of its members earlier in the chapter)? (b) How does the concept or issue of love bear on and unify all parts of this chapter?
2.3
1. (a) How is the focus of this chapter on the subject of aesthetics (also spelled "esthetics")? What is the relevance of this subject to Humanities courses? (b) What specific aspects of literature are discussed or implicitly analyzed in the chapter?
2. (a) What does Cervantes do to the borderline between imagination (or art) and reality, when he makes imaginary characters in a book--DQ and Samson Carrasco--discuss, as if it is real, DQ having been put in a book? What is real, and what is imaginary in the discussion? (b) What equivalents to 2a have you ever observed in a television show (or series) or movie?
3. (a) How does Cervantes respond to the charge of digression in his novels (P38-40, 42)? How is Cervantes' defense valid or invalid? (b) What ideas are expressed about history, the novel (fiction), and epic in P14-20? What ideas about the epic apply to the material of Humanities 221?
2.12
1. (a) How does the discussion of drama in the early paragraphs relate to questions G5 and G6? (b) In P11, how is Sancho's figurative language mishandled so that it conveys, unintentionally, an insult to DQ? How is Sancho's unwitting insult partially true? (c) How is Sancho shown to be a rounded rather than flat character in this chapter, by way of having a certain complexity that is characteristic of real human beings?
2. (a) How in the later portion of the chapter that begins with the arrival of a stranger does DQ show that he has mellowed or seasoned over time? (b) When he sees the unknown knight (at first identified by the chapter title as the Knight of the Wood) and his squire, how does DQ show a certain new reserve or reservation about or limitation regarding this "adventure" (P18, P21-22)? (c) How does DQ's immediate physical response to seeing the knight, suggest the idea of 2a? (d) What provocations does the unknown knight offer DQ, and how does DQ's response to these provocations suggest the idea of 2a?
2.13
1. What several foreshadowing hints in the chapter about the true identity of the Knight of the Wood's true identity are suggested by (a) the Knight of the Wood's proposed appointment of his squire to a canonry (P6-7), together with Sancho's comment "then he must be a churchly knight," (b) the recurrence several times of the squire of the Knight of the Wood to the idea of getting Sancho to quit or retire?
2. (a) What might be the meaning or meanings of the nose motif that Cervantes emphasizes throughout 2.xiii-xvi? (b) How is this motif first manifested by the Wood Knight's squire in the proverb he quotes in P18? (c) How does the nose motif recur in 2.14.P24, 2.14.P35, 2.14.P38-39; 2.14.P48-49, 2.14.P57; 2.15.P3; 2.16.P3-4?
3. (a) What ironic symbolism and understatement can be found in the description of Sancho gazing up at the stars for a quarter of an hour while he drinks in companionship with the Wood Knight's squire (P31)? What ironic discrepancy between spiritual or transcendent concerns and earthly or earthy concerns is conveyed, and how? (b) What Paul Bunyan dimension is suggested by Sancho's fifteen-minute time, and how? (c) How is both squires' materialism suggested throughout the chapter? How does this materialism show even in Sancho's tall-tale "digression" story of the two great winetasters in Sancho's father's family (P34-37)? How is doubt ironically cast on Sancho's assertion of familial discriminating palates (wine connoisseur, oenophile) by 3a?
2.14
1. (a) What multiple symbolism is suggested by Samson's adopted name or identity or role as the Knight of the Mirrors? (b) How might the name and role be connected to the concept of deception? (c) How might the name and role be connected to the concept of the doppelganger? How does this concept connect with Proverbs 26:4-5 and with the property of commutation in mathematics (if A is like B, then . . . )? (d) Name and role's connection to the issues of knowledge or self knowledge? (e) The subsidiary symbolism that the Knight's mirrors on his armor are said to "resemble little moons" (P25)? Possible symbolism of the moon, both by itself and in relation to mirror? (f) With regard to names, what irony is conveyed by Carrasco's forename, given the outcome of his struggle with DQ? How is the forename related to the physical description of Carrasco in P25?
2. (a) What irony is suggested through the role magic or enchantment seems to have played in the outcome of the joust between the Mirror Knight and DQ? (b) What connections are there between 2a and 1.4 questions 3c-d, and 1.8 question 4b? (c) Overall, what does Cervantes seem to be suggesting about the real world? In what way or ways might he be correct, according to your own experience and observation?
2.15
1. (a) How has Cervantes deceived us earlier in the narrative (e.g., in 2.3, about his attitude toward DQ's questing) about Carrasco, thus making the revelation of the identity of the Knight of the Mirrors at the end of 2.14-15 a surprise to the reader? (b) How does 1a help equate us readers to and give us readers the emotional feeling or sensations of DQ?
2. (a) Which theme listed in G5 is explicitly discussed by Tomé Cecila in P4-7? (b) How does the sane or adult world come off looking bad in the decision Samson Carrasco makes at the end of the chapter? (c) From 2b, how are some clergy and faulty religion criticized? (d) From 2b, how is Carrasco living up to, or down to, his first name? (e) From 2b, how has Carrasco become a mirror opposite of DQ?
3. (a) How are DQ's earlier deluded, fantastic, imaginary excuses about persecution by a malevolent enemy or enchanter now, in an ironic inversion reified or actualized? (b) How does 3a relate to the motif of the borderline between imagination (fantasy) and reality?
2.16
1. (a) In P1, what are the implications about human psychology, pertaining to short term memory of hardships and misfortunes when good fortune happens, perhaps briefly? (b) How does this material apply to the episode "Terminus" of the Peter Davison part of the British SF series Dr. Who?
2. (a) In ironic contrast or contradiction to P1, how, by P8, is DQ again using deluded or fantastic rationalization? (b) In P6, what ironic criticism is implied by DQ's sensible query about why Samson Carrasco would come after DQ in such a disguise? Why, indeed?
3. (a) In P8, what basic issue or question is posed about human perception when two observers or witnesses see the same events? How does this subject emerge from Sancho's vs. DQ's perception of the Mirror Knight and Dulcinea? (b) How is it true, with regard to modern physics, that no human being fully perceives the real world--for example, atomic structure of matter, the spectrum of light and electromagnetic radiation, and so on?
4. (a) How is the character Don Diego de Miranda presented by Cervantes as a kind of ideal? (b) What onomastic symbolism is conveyed by Don Diego's honorific, "de Miranda"? (c) What might the symbolism be of the repeatedly-mentioned green greatcoat of Don Diego? (d) How do P24-29 contribute to 4a? (e) In P40, how does Don Diego's (the man in green's) reaction to DQ's literary theory show two sides to DQ, a complexity in appearance (or external) vs. reality (or internal)?
5. (a) What metapoetic criticism or analysis of literature occurs in P32-39? (b) How is the literary controversy of the Ancients versus the Moderns, as well as the related question of the use of the vernacular in literature, manifested in these paragraphs?
6. (a) How is one of the two great, universally relevant literary subjects and themes, the relationship of parents and children, manifested in P31-34? (b) What from these chapters can you apply to yourself as child or parent or both? What lessons can prospective parents learn from these paragraphs?
2.17
1. (a) What "shtick" in P1-9 could be transferred directly to a Three Stooges or Laurel and Hardy film? (b) What aspects of human behavior, human psychology, or daily life are suggested through 1a? (b) How does 1a undercut the portrayal of DQ in 2.16? (c) What comic behavior and psychology on the part of Sancho are portrayed in P9? How does he use a "DQ excuse" to extricate himself from the situation?
2. (a) In the main episode, DQ vs. the lions, how does DQ in P24 reveal a north-by-northwest madness (to use phrasing from Shakespeare's Hamlet applied to the title character)? (b) How does Don Diego's estimate of DQ after hearing DQ (P51), as well as DQ's inference about Don Diego's thoughts (P52) bear on part a of this question? (c) How have many, if not most, human beings been mistaken about the ultimate purpose or function or effect of an incident in their lives--what it was ultimately for or did in their lives? For instance, has anything that first appeared a good thing turned out ultimately to be a bad thing, or vice versa, in your own life? (d) On the motif of imagination or fantasy vs. reality, how does the sane world turn out to be wrong, the apparently insane world, right, in their estimates of what would happen in this episode? (e) How does DQ show himself eminently reasonable and rational in his response to the lionkeeper's argument about the treatment of the lions in P40-41?
3. (a) How are DQ's remarks justifying himself and knight errantry (P52-54) based on valid or invalid reasoning, valid or invalid syllogism (cf. Erasmus' Praise of Folly)? (b) How does Don Diego's comment on this speech (P56) suggest Cervantes' estimate of the validity or invalidity of DQ's reasoning?
4. (a) What two subjects are covered in the signature passage of P55? (b) How does the same subject of Montaigne's essay "Of Cannibals" recur in this signature passage?
2.64 (pars. 1-6 omitted; begins with P7)
1. How does Samson Carrasco's new outfit and identity simultaneously symbolize (a) DQ's lunacy, (b) Samson's lunacy, (c) DQ's imagination, (d) DQ's chastity or purity, and (e) the coming night of DQ's death and disillusionment (in more than one sense of "disillusionment")?
2. How are the issues of fantasy or illusion vs. reality, and perception, suggested by the sane world's quandary of whether to let the combat proceed or not?
3. How are Samson's kindness and a kind of magic conveyed by the details of how DQ is unhorsed?
4. What foreshadowing of the novel's end occurs in the simile describing the sound of the fallen DQ's voice issuing from his helmet in conceding defeat (S1 of P15)?
2.65
1. How does Don Antonio's response to the revelations of Samson Carrasco suggest the selfishness and inhumanity of the sane, middle- or upperclass world?
2.73
1. (a) To what epic omens in Homer's Iliad or Odyssey, or Vergil's Aeneid are the mock epic omens of this chapter (satirically) comparable? (b) With reference to the novel's end, how are the mock epic omens true?
2. By inference, what components of the pastoral literary genre and conventions satirized in the second half of this chapter (e.g., what is implied about names and naming in this genre or convention)?
2.74
1. (a) What anti-romanticism is conveyed in the responses of the niece, housekeeper, and Sancho to DQ's lingering illness? (b) How does this portrayal of others' responses to one's illness have some truth?
2. (a) What idea is conveyed about the interrelationship of a dream, goal, or purpose to lifespan in this chapter? (b) How have medical discoveries over the last few decades validated Cervantes' insight?
3. (a) How do representatives of the sane, pragmatic world ironically turn fantastic and illusionary with regard to DQ? (b) How, ironically, does the sane DQ withstand them? (c) Why does Cervantes want his readers to feel sorrowful about the triumph of reason, rationality, and practicality, with regard to questions 2-3 on this chapter?
