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“Don Quijote de la Mancha” written by Miguel de Cervantes in two parts published in 1605 and 1615; it is the first of its style and one of the first to mark the beginning of renaissance literature in Western Europe. “Don Quixote is a book for all seasons”( Stavans, Ilan) with its comical anti-romantic theme that influenced many writers and has become one of the most translated books after the bible(Cook, James Wyatt. "Don Quixote.").  Cervantes manage to write this entertaining novel that veer away from the usual medieval romantic literature and used Don Quixote as a figure that mock the romantic medieval knight. “Don Quixote” is an entertaining novel that should be preserved in order to influence all future generations to be original and not usual.<!--more-->

Cervantes manage to write his best novel at the end of his failed writing career. In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes, after a disappointing literary career, convinces a printer to publish his novel (Cook, James Wyatt. "Don Quixote."). “Don Quixote” is the story of a gentleman called Quejana that owns a bookstore filled with chivalric romances. After becoming more and more submerged in the stories of knights and quests, Signor Quejana makes an illusive world in which he becomes Don Quixote, a knight, who has come to fight evil, and restore the world to the Golden Age (Cook, James Wyatt. "Don Quixote."). Don Quixote with his trusted side kick, Sancho Panza, set out to fight giants which are actually windmills and armies that actually are flocks of sheep (Fiero). “Don Quixote is the first novel of the western prose tradition to reflect in fiction the psychological growth and change that persons experienced in real life.”( Cook, James Wyatt. "Don Quixote.")

The war for Spain was inevitable with the Turks occupying Cyprus in 1570, and a young Cervantes would join this battle. Even though there were many counts of Cervantes courage during battle, there were also many tragic events which shaped his novel “Don Quixote”. Cervantes fought heroically in the battle of Lepanto in 1571 but was injured and lost full use of his left hand, on his return to Spain, his voyage was attacked and captured by pirates (Encyclopædia Britannica). Cervantes was released after his ransom had been paid, but he had spent 5 years in slavery. Finding little success working as a writer in Spain and working as a tax collector, Cervantes was imprisoned for shortcomings in his accounts. The illusion of a romantic heroism shattered by war, slavery, and incarceration showed the disappointing reality that Cervantes reflected in his novel (Burt, Daniel S. "Don Quixote.").

The insightful novel of the human mind created by Cervantes is an innovation of its era, as More’s Utopia which reflected individualism and Shakespeare searching for what makes us human. Although, Spain remained in a society which reflected medieval values, wealth was changing its social classes, and Spain was on the verge of a modern world. For Cervantes this was the perfect setting to use his modern novel to criticize the romantic medieval values instilled on Spain (Fiero). Don Quixote was not typical of its era; it was an innovation of its era to change the values of a country.

Nevertheless, Cervantes had created his masterpiece, after years of failure as a writer; Don Quixote was “an immediate success.”( Encyclopædia Britannica) Even though, Cervantes had sold the publishing right, and made little profit on the first part of Don Quixote that was published in January of 1605, and by August of the same year there were editions in Madrid, Lisbon, and Valencia. By 1612 the novel had been translated by Thomas Shelton and Cervantes had become as popular in England, France, and Italy, as he was in Spain. (Encyclopædia Britannica) Cervantes had become so popular that a fraudulent second part to his novel had appeared by 1614 with stolen material from Cervantes unpublished second part. In 1615 Cervantes published his second part exposing the fake in his novel (Cook, James Wyatt. "Don Quixote."). When published, “Don Quixote” suffered minor changes due to the Spanish inquisition which confiscated any work with heretical ideas and condemned any artist to death. Cervantes once said “I would have made the book more amusing had it not been for the holy office.”("Censorship History of Don Quixote.") In 1640 the book had again been changed for a single sentence that reflected Lutheran beliefs, but it wasn’t till 1981 that the book had completely been censured in Chile by General Pinochet “because it supported individual freedom and attacks authority.”("Censorship History of Don Quixote.")

Shakespeare and Cervantes were two innovative writers of their time, who shift the literary world of their time. As they both searched for the realistic human emotions and found ways to entertain their audience using an exaggerated reality of the human life. They both change the literary world, although, Shakespeare surpasses Cervantes as a writer (Turgeniev, Ivan. "Hamlet and Don Quixote."). “Hamlet” (1602) had already been published by the time Cervantes was working on “Don Quixote.” The similarities in Hamlet and Don Quixote are vast even thought they both served different themes, as “Don Quixote” in a comical novel, and “Hamlet” is a tragic drama. Both of these characters serve as an insight into the defects of human and the realistic world we live, they are the two parts of what every human being are (Turgeniev, Ivan. "Hamlet and Don Quixote.").). Hamlet motivated by revenge, with his egoistic attitude that only lives for himself, and by his own doing hurts himself. Then there is the comical Don Quixote who has fallen far into a web of stories created by society that has played with his mind, and motivated by courage, but deceived by his illusions. “It awakened a series of thoughts in us. In these two types there are embodied two opposite fundamental characteristics of a human being, - the axis around which the nature of man moves. All men belong, to some extent, to one of these two types; almost every one of us possesses the character of either Hamlet or Don Quixote. It is true that in our times there are far more Hamlets than Don Quixotes; but even Don Quixotes are not waiting.” (Turgeniev, Ivan. "Hamlet and Don Quixote.").)

In the history of a novel, there has not been one with so many translations in so many different versions; Don Quixote is the second best selling book in history after the Bible. (Burt, Daniel S. "Don Quixote.") Today, the story of Don Quixote has only grown in popularity, as Miguel de Unamuno once said, “there scarcely exist a person of even average education who does not have an idea of Don Quixote and Sancho.”( Burt, Daniel S. "Don Quixote.") Don Quixote has served as an influence for many writers, has showed up in the works of Mark Twain and Ernest Hemingway, and even in the tongue of Shakespeare in 1612 as the “witty knight.”( Stavans, Ilan) Don Quixote and Sancho Panza will continue to influence those stories to come and bring laughter to future generation. Don Quixote is “the Bible of humanity,” as once said by the 19th century historian Sainte-Beuve.( Burt, Daniel S. "Don Quixote.")

The story of “Don Quixote” has captivated my attention trough my education as the noble yet illusive character that was manipulated by the fictional stories he possessed. It is a novel filled with laughter as an old man rite a dying horse into battle against his own dilutions. Don Quixote is a character that should be remembered and preserved for the entertainment of future generation; this book will inspire next generations to remember the past and to change for the future.

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Work Cited

--Fiero, Gloria K. “The Humanistic Tradition” Sixth Edition. The McGraw-Hill Companies, 2011.

--Miguel de Cervantes." Encyclopædia Britannica. Encyclopædia Britannica Online Academic Edition. Encyclopædia Britannica, 2011. Web. 19 Sep. 2011. &lt;<a href="http://www.britannica.com.lsproxy.austincc.edu/EBchecked/topic/103673/Miguel-de-Cervantes">http://www.britannica.com.lsproxy.austincc.edu/EBchecked/topic/103673/Miguel-de-Cervantes</a>&gt;.

--Cook, James Wyatt. "Don Quixote." Encyclopedia of Renaissance Literature. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. <a href="http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&amp;SID=5&amp;iPin">http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&amp;SID=5&amp;iPin</a>= ERL213&amp;SingleRecord=True

--Stavans, Ilan.”One master, many Cervantes Don Quixote” copyright of humanities 2001

--Bald, Margaret. "Censorship History of Don Quixote." Banned Books: Literature Suppressed on Religious Grounds, Revised Edition. New York: Facts On File, Inc., 2006. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. <a href="http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&amp;SID=5&amp;iPin">http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&amp;SID=5&amp;iPin</a>= BBR0056&amp;SingleRecord=True

--Burt, Daniel S. "Don Quixote." The Novel 100: A Ranking of the Most Influential Novels of All Time, Revised Edition. New York: Chelsea House Publishing, 2010. Bloom's Literary Reference Online. Facts On File, Inc. <a href="http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&amp;SID=5&amp;iPin">http://www.fofweb.com/activelink2.asp?ItemID=WE54&amp;SID=5&amp;iPin</a>= NOVLR001&amp;SingleRecord=True

-- Turgeniev, Ivan. "Hamlet and Don Quixote." Trans. Josef Firi Král and Pavel Durdík. Poet-Lore 4.4 (15 Apr. 1892): 169-184. Rpt. in Literature Criticism from 1400 to 1800. Ed. James E. Person, Jr. Vol. 6. Detroit: Gale Research, 1987. Literature Resource Center. <a href="http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&amp;id=GALE%7CH1420011991&amp;v=2.1&amp;u=txshracd2487&amp;it=r&amp;p=LitRC&amp;sw=w">http://go.galegroup.com/ps/i.do?&amp;id=GALE%7CH1420011991&amp;v=2.1&amp;u=txshracd2487&amp;it=r&amp;p=LitRC&amp;sw=w</a>

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