Terms

Knight-Errant In Spanish, caballero andante, the knight-errant: the knight who roams the world in search of adventures. Don Quixote defines him to the goatherds as a member of an instituted order, established when the times had grown worse and malice had increased, to... Gentleman In Spanish, hidalgo, the nobleman without title and, in the book, almost without property. The narrator presents the protagonist by what he has: a lance on its rest, an old leather shield, a skinny nag, and a fast greyhound. His niece reminds him that... Books of Chivalry In Spanish, libros de caballerías, or books of chivalry: prose narratives of knights who roam exotic lands killing giants and rescuing maidens, of which Amadís of Gaul is the model. They are the reading that dries up the gentleman's judgment, the library that... Insula Insula, in Old Spanish, means island. The gentleman dreams of the island of the giant Malindrania in chapter I and promises one to Sancho in chapter VII. In Part Two, Barataria is a place of about a thousand inhabitants, among the best of the duke's, and... Enchanters The gentleman explains every refutation by an enemy magician. Frestón swaps the giants for windmills to steal from him the glory of victory, and the sage who looks after his things answers for the flocks and for the cage. In Part Two the explanation passes to... Holy Brotherhood In Spanish, Santa Hermandad, the Holy Brotherhood: the justice force that deals with those who fight in the open country, in Sancho's words. Its constables reach the inn with an arrest warrant against the gentleman for freeing the galley slaves, and the... Avellaneda The name under which a Second Volume of Don Quixote was signed in Tarragona in 1614, by an author never identified. The prologue to Part Two answers it without naming it, as someone said to have been engendered in Tordesillas and born in Tarragona; the name... Bacielmo Baciyelmo, Sancho's word joining bacía, the barber's basin, and yelmo, helmet. It appears only once, in chapter XLIV of Part One: the owner of the basin says the piece is a basin, the gentleman swears it is the helmet, and Sancho calls it baciyelmo. In the... Interpolated Novella In Spanish, novela, a short self-contained narrative of its own subject, which the novel fits in along the road or at the inn. Part One has the one of the Curious Impertinent, which the priest reads aloud, and the one of the captive, which the captive himself... Knight of the Sorrowful Countenance The name Sancho gives his master in chapter XIX of Part One, by torchlight, after the fight with the men in white shrouds: it is the sorriest sight he has ever seen, whether from the weariness of the fight or from the lack of teeth. The gentleman says the...