Don Quixote
Questions
The most common questions about Don Quixote, answered from the book.
- What is the story of Don Quixote?Don Quixote tells the story of a gentleman from La Mancha who, from reading so many books of chivalry, loses his wits, takes the name Don Quixote de...
- What Is Don Quixote About?Don Quixote is about who decides what a scene is, and what one pays for disagreeing. A gentleman sees giants where there are windmills and a castle...
- What is the most famous line from Don Quixote?There is no official line. The one most repeated outside the book, "They bark, Sancho, a sign that we are riding on," is not in it: the phrase does...
- What illness or mental condition did Don Quixote have?The book gives no name for an illness. What the text says, right in chapter I, is that the gentleman, from little sleep and much reading, had his...
- Is Don Quixote hard to read? Is it worth reading?Don Quixote is long, but it is not hard to understand: the difficulty is one of size and rhythm, not of plot. It is worth reading because the book...
- What is the message of Don Quixote?The book does not carry a single message, and the only purpose Cervantes declares is to topple the ill-founded machine of books of chivalry, as the...
- Why Does Don Quixote Die?No one kills Don Quixote: he falls ill at home, regains his wits, and dies in bed, in chapter LXXIV of Part Two, as Alonso Quijano the Good. The...
- What does La Mancha mean in Don Quixote?La Mancha is the region of central Spain where the book begins, and the gentleman carries it in his name: "Don Quixote de la Mancha" is the name he...
- What is Don Quixote a parody of?Don Quixote is, above all, a parody of books of chivalry, the genre the prologue says it wants to topple, and especially of Amadis of Gaul, the...
- Does Don Quixote Have a Happy Ending?It depends on what one calls happy. The ending of Don Quixote is serene and sad: the defeated gentleman returns home, regains his wits, and dies a...
- Why is Don Quixote so famous?Don Quixote is famous for being the book in which the novel looks at itself in the mirror: a hero who draws his life from reading, a squire who...
- What does it mean to call someone a Don Quixote or quixotic?To call someone quixotic is to say that he pursues an ideal with generosity and stubbornness, without measuring what the world answers back, like the...
- Who is Sancho Panza in Don Quixote?Sancho Panza is Don Quixote's squire: a poor farmer from the village, "a good man, if such a title can be given to a poor man, though not overly...
- Who Is Dulcinea del Toboso?Dulcinea del Toboso is Don Quixote's lady, and she is his invention: a farm girl named Aldonza Lorenzo, to whom the gentleman thought it fitting to...
- What are the windmills in Don Quixote?The windmills are the most famous episode of the book: in chapter VIII of Part One, Don Quixote sees thirty or so outrageous giants where Sancho sees...
- Who is Cide Hamete Benengeli, and why does the book pretend to be a translation?Cide Hamete Benengeli is the Arab historian to whom the narrator attributes the story of Don Quixote. The book presents itself as a translation of...
- Who was Avellaneda, and what is the false Don Quixote?Avellaneda is the name under which the never-identified author of a Second Volume of the ingenious gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha signed himself,...
- What are the interpolated novellas in Don Quixote?The interpolated novellas are stories with their own subject matter that Part One places within the inn, without the gentleman as protagonist. The...
- How Many Pages Does Don Quixote Have?Don Quixote runs to about 1,200 pages in an ordinary edition, divided into two parts: Part One, of 1605, with 52 chapters, and Part Two, of 1615,...
- Where should one begin reading Don Quixote?Begin at the beginning, in order, with the prologue and the first ten chapters of Part One: the gentleman who reads until he loses his wits, the inn...
- Where and when does Don Quixote take place?Don Quixote takes place in Cervantes's Spain, beginning in the region of La Mancha, along roads, inns, and villages. The book gives no date: the...