Don Quixote

Don Quixote is Miguel de Cervantes' two-part novel, published in 1605 and 1615, about a man who interprets the world through chivalric romances and attempts to live as a knight. Sancho Panza's companionship brings practical needs and another kind of imagination into the journey. Their encounters repeatedly expose the gap between an ideal and the situation before them, yet the comedy does not erase the dignity of their aspirations. Stories within stories and uncertainty about narrators make interpretation part of the adventure. The second part also responds to the characters' literary reputation, giving the relationship between books and lived experience a further turn.