| Synopsis: |
Don Quixote (1880) fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes, with circa 360 illustrations from Gustave Dore. Follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, who reads too many chivalric novels, and sets out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a Earthy wit. He is met by the world as it is, initiating themes like intertextuality, realism, metatheatre and literary representation. Don Quixote, first published in 1605, is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In one such list, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written". |