Quixote house construction. Construction company domkihot

Still from the film “Don Quixote” (1957)

In a certain village of La Mancha, there lived a hidalgo, whose property consisted of a family spear, an ancient shield, a skinny nag and a greyhound dog. His last name was either Kehana or Quesada, it is not known for sure, and it doesn’t matter. He was about fifty years old, he had a lean body, a thin face and spent his days reading knightly novels, which is why his mind became completely disordered, and he decided to become a knight errant. He polished the armor that belonged to his ancestors, attached a cardboard visor to his bump, gave his old nag the sonorous name Rocinante, and renamed himself Don Quixote of La Mancha. Since a knight errant must be in love, the hidalgo, after thinking about it, chose the lady of his heart: Aldonço Lorenzo and named her Dulcinea of Toboso, for she was from Toboso. Having donned his armor, Don Quixote set off, imagining himself as the hero of a chivalric romance. After traveling all day, he got tired and headed to the inn, mistaking it for a castle. The hidalgo's unsightly appearance and his lofty speeches made everyone laugh, but the good-natured owner fed and watered him, although it was not easy: Don Quixote never wanted to take off his helmet, which prevented him from eating and drinking. Don Quixote asked the owner of the castle, i.e. inn, to knight him, and before that he decided to spend the night in vigil over the weapon, placing it on a watering trough. The owner asked if Don Quixote had money, but Don Quixote had not read about money in any novel and did not take it with him. The owner explained to him that although such simple and necessary things as money or clean shirts are not mentioned in the novels, this does not mean that the knights had neither one nor the other. At night, one driver wanted to water the mules and removed Don Quixote’s armor from the watering trough, for which he received a blow with a spear, so the owner, who considered Don Quixote crazy, decided to quickly knight him in order to get rid of such an inconvenient guest. He assured him that the initiation rite consisted of a slap on the head and a blow with a sword on the back, and after Don Quixote’s departure, in joy, he made a speech no less pompous, although not as lengthy, as the newly-made knight.

Don Quixote turned home to stock up on money and shirts. On the way, he saw a burly villager beating a shepherd boy. The knight stood up for the shepherd, and the villager promised him not to offend the boy and to pay him everything he owed. Don Quixote, delighted with his good deed, rode on, and the villager, as soon as the defender of the offended was out of sight, beat the shepherd to a pulp. The merchants he met, whom Don Quixote forced to recognize Dulcinea of Toboso as the most beautiful lady in the world, began to mock him, and when he rushed at them with a spear, they beat him, so that he arrived home beaten and exhausted. The priest and the barber, fellow villagers of Don Quixote, with whom he often argued about chivalric romances, decided to burn the harmful books, from which he was damaged in his mind. They looked through Don Quixote's library and left almost nothing from it, except for "Amadis of Gaul" and a few other books. Don Quixote invited one farmer - Sancho Panza - to become his squire and told and promised him so much that he agreed. And then one night Don Quixote mounted Rocinante, Sancho, who dreamed of becoming governor of the island, mounted a donkey, and they secretly left the village. On the way they saw windmills, which Don Quixote mistook for giants. When he rushed at the mill with a spear, its wing turned and smashed the spear into pieces, and Don Quixote was thrown to the ground.

At the inn where they stopped to spend the night, the maid began to make her way in the dark to the driver, with whom she had agreed on a date, but mistakenly stumbled upon Don Quixote, who decided that this was the daughter of the owner of the castle who was in love with him. There was a commotion, a fight broke out, and Don Quixote, and especially the innocent Sancho Panza, got a lot of trouble. When Don Quixote, and after him Sancho, refused to pay for the stay, several people who happened to be there pulled Sancho off the donkey and began to throw him on a blanket, like a dog during a carnival.

When Don Quixote and Sancho rode on, the knight mistook a herd of sheep for an enemy army and began to destroy enemies right and left, and only a hail of stones that the shepherds rained down on him stopped him. Looking at Don Quixote's sad face, Sancho came up with a nickname for him: the Knight of the Sad Image. One night, Don Quixote and Sancho heard an ominous knock, but when dawn broke, it turned out that it was fulling hammers. The knight was embarrassed, and his thirst for exploits remained unquenched this time. The barber, who put a copper basin on his head in the rain, was mistaken by Don Quixote for a knight in the Mambrina helmet, and since Don Quixote swore an oath to take possession of this helmet, he took the basin from the barber and was very proud of his feat. Then he freed the convicts, who were being led to the galleys, and demanded that they go to Dulcinea and give her greetings from her faithful knight, but the convicts did not want to, and when Don Quixote began to insist, they stoned him.

In the Sierra Morena, one of the convicts, Gines de Pasamonte, stole Sancho's donkey, and Don Quixote promised to give Sancho three of the five donkeys that he had on his estate. In the mountains they found a suitcase containing some linen and a bunch of gold coins, as well as a book of poetry. Don Quixote gave the money to Sancho and took the book for himself. The owner of the suitcase turned out to be Cardeno, a half-mad young man who began to tell Don Quixote the story of his unhappy love, but did not tell it enough because they quarreled because Cardeno had casually spoken ill of Queen Madasima. Don Quixote wrote a love letter to Dulcinea and a note to his niece, where he asked her to give three donkeys to the “bearer of the first donkey bill”, and, having gone crazy for the sake of decency, that is, taking off his pants and turning somersaults several times, he sent Sancho to take the letters. Left alone, Don Quixote surrendered to repentance. He began to think what was better to imitate: the violent madness of Roland or the melancholy madness of Amadis. Deciding that Amadis was closer to him, he began to compose poems dedicated to the beautiful Dulcinea. On the way home, Sancho Panza met a priest and a barber - his fellow villagers, and they asked him to show them Don Quixote's letter to Dulcinea, but it turned out that the knight forgot to give him the letters, and Sancho began to quote the letter by heart, misinterpreting the text so that instead of “passionate senora” he got “fail-safe senora”, etc. The priest and the barber began to invent a way to lure Don Quixote from Poor Rapids, where he was indulging in repentance, and deliver him to his native village in order to cure him of his insanity. They asked Sancho to tell Don Quixote that Dulcinea had ordered him to come to her immediately. They assured Sancho that this whole idea would help Don Quixote become, if not an emperor, then at least a king, and Sancho, expecting favors, willingly agreed to help them. Sancho went to Don Quixote, and the priest and the barber remained waiting for him in the forest, but suddenly they heard poetry - it was Cardeno, who told them his sad story from beginning to end: the treacherous friend Fernando kidnapped his beloved Lucinda and married her. When Cardeno finished the story, a sad voice was heard and a beautiful girl appeared, dressed in a man's dress. It turned out to be Dorothea, seduced by Fernando, who promised to marry her, but left her for Lucinda. Dorothea said that Lucinda, after getting engaged to Fernando, was going to commit suicide, because she considered herself Cardeno’s wife and agreed to marry Fernando only at the insistence of her parents. Dorothea, having learned that he did not marry Lucinda, had the hope of returning him, but could not find him anywhere. Cardeno revealed to Dorothea that he was Lucinda’s true husband, and they decided together to seek the return of “what rightfully belongs to them.” Cardeno promised Dorothea that if Fernando did not return to her, he would challenge him to a duel.

Sancho told Don Quixote that Dulcinea was calling him to her, but he replied that he would not appear before her until he accomplished feats, “the grace of those worthy of her.” Dorothea volunteered to help lure Don Quixote out of the forest and, calling herself the Princess of Micomikon, said that she had arrived from a distant country, which had heard rumors about the glorious knight Don Quixote, in order to ask for his intercession. Don Quixote could not refuse the lady and went to Micomikona. They met a traveler on a donkey - it was Gines de Pasamonte, a convict who was freed by Don Quixote and who stole Sancho's donkey. Sancho took the donkey for himself, and everyone congratulated him on this success. At the source they saw a boy - the same shepherd for whom Don Quixote had recently stood up. The shepherd boy said that the hidalgo’s intercession had backfired on him, and cursed all the knights-errant at all costs, which infuriated Don Quixote and embarrassed him.

Having reached the same inn where Sancho was thrown on a blanket, the travelers stopped for the night. At night, a frightened Sancho Panza ran out of the closet where Don Quixote was resting: Don Quixote fought with enemies in his sleep and swung his sword in all directions. There were wineskins of wine hanging over his head, and he, mistaking them for giants, tore them open and filled everything with wine, which Sancho, in his fright, mistook for blood. Another company arrived at the inn: a lady in a mask and several men. The curious priest tried to ask the servant about who these people were, but the servant himself did not know, he only said that the lady, judging by her clothes, was a nun or was going to a monastery, but, apparently, not of her own free will, and she sighed and cried all the way. It turned out that this was Lucinda, who decided to retire to a monastery since she could not unite with her husband Cardeno, but Fernando kidnapped her from there. Seeing Don Fernando, Dorotea threw herself at his feet and began to beg him to return to her. He heeded her pleas, but Lucinda rejoiced at being reunited with Cardeno, and only Sancho was upset, for he considered Dorothea the princess of Micomikon and hoped that she would shower his master with favors and something would also fall to him. Don Quixote believed that everything was settled thanks to the fact that he defeated the giant, and when he was told about the hole in the wineskin, he called it the spell of an evil wizard. The priest and the barber told everyone about Don Quixote's madness, and Dorothea and Fernando decided not to abandon him, but to take him to the village, which was no more than two days away. Dorothea told Don Quixote that she owed him her happiness, and continued to play the role she had begun. A man and a Moorish woman arrived at the inn. The man turned out to be an infantry captain who had been captured during the Battle of Lepanto. A beautiful Moorish woman helped him escape and wanted to be baptized and become his wife. Following them, a judge appeared with his daughter, who turned out to be the captain’s brother and was incredibly happy that the captain, from whom there had been no news for a long time, was alive. The judge was not embarrassed by his deplorable appearance, for the captain was robbed by the French on the way. At night, Dorothea heard the song of a mule driver and woke up the judge’s daughter Clara so that the girl would also listen to her, but it turned out that the singer was not a mule driver at all, but a disguised son of noble and wealthy parents named Louis, in love with Clara. She is not of very noble origin, so the lovers were afraid that his father would not consent to their marriage. A new group of horsemen rode up to the inn: it was Louis’s father who set out in pursuit of his son. Louis, whom his father's servants wanted to escort home, refused to go with them and asked for Clara's hand.

Another barber arrived at the inn, the same one from whom Don Quixote took the “helmet of Mambrina,” and began to demand the return of his pelvis. A quarrel began, and the priest quietly gave him eight reals for the basin to stop it. Meanwhile, one of the guards who happened to be at the inn recognized Don Quixote by signs, for he was wanted as a criminal for freeing convicts, and the priest had great difficulty convincing the guards not to arrest Don Quixote, since he was out of his mind. The priest and the barber made something like a comfortable cage out of sticks and agreed with one man who was riding past on oxen that he would take Don Quixote to his native village. But then they released Don Quixote from his cage on parole, and he tried to take away the statue of the virgin from the worshipers, considering her a noble lady in need of protection. Finally, Don Quixote arrived home, where the housekeeper and niece put him to bed and began to look after him, and Sancho went to his wife, to whom he promised that next time he would certainly return as a count or governor of the island, and not just some seedy one, but the best best wishes.

After the housekeeper and niece nursed Don Quixote for a month, the priest and barber decided to visit him. His speeches were reasonable, and they thought that his madness had passed, but as soon as the conversation remotely touched upon chivalry, it became clear that Don Quixote was terminally ill. Sancho also visited Don Quixote and told him that the son of their neighbor, Bachelor Samson Carrasco, had returned from Salamanca, who said that the history of Don Quixote, written by Sid Ahmet Beninhali, had been published, which described all the adventures of him and Sancho Panza. Don Quixote invited Samson Carrasco to his place and asked him about the book. The bachelor listed all her advantages and disadvantages and said that everyone, young and old, admires her, and servants especially love her. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza decided to go on a new journey and a few days later they secretly left the village. Samson saw them off and asked Don Quixote to report all his successes and failures. Don Quixote, on the advice of Samson, headed to Zaragoza, where the knightly tournament was to take place, but first decided to stop in Toboso to receive Dulcinea’s blessing. Arriving in Toboso, Don Quixote began to ask Sancho where Dulcinea's palace was, but Sancho could not find it in the dark. He thought that Don Quixote knew this himself, but Don Quixote explained to him that he had never seen not only Dulcinea’s palace, but also her, because he fell in love with her according to rumors. Sancho replied that he had seen her and brought an answer to Don Quixote’s letter, also according to rumors. To prevent the deception from coming to light, Sancho tried to take his master away from Toboso as quickly as possible and persuaded him to wait in the forest while he, Sancho, went to the city to talk with Dulcinea. He realized that since Don Quixote had never seen Dulcinea, he could marry any woman to her and, seeing three peasant women on donkeys, he told Don Quixote that Dulcinea was coming to him with the ladies of the court. Don Quixote and Sancho fell to their knees in front of one of the peasant women, and the peasant woman shouted at them rudely. Don Quixote saw in this whole story the witchcraft of an evil wizard and was very sad that instead of the beautiful senora he saw an ugly peasant woman.

In the forest, Don Quixote and Sancho met the Knight of Mirrors, who was in love with Casildeia of Vandalism, and who boasted that he had defeated Don Quixote himself. Don Quixote was indignant and challenged the Knight of Mirrors to a duel, under the terms of which the loser had to surrender to the mercy of the winner. Before the Knight of Mirrors had time to prepare for battle, Don Quixote had already attacked him and almost finished him off, but the squire of the Knight of Mirrors screamed that his master was none other than Samson Carrasco, who hoped to bring Don Quixote home in such a cunning way. But alas, Samson was defeated, and Don Quixote, confident that the evil wizards had replaced the appearance of the Knight of Mirrors with the appearance of Samson Carrasco, again set off along the road to Zaragoza. On the way, Diego de Miranda caught up with him, and the two hidalgos rode together. A cart was driving towards them, in which they were carrying lions. Don Quixote demanded that the cage with the huge lion be opened, and was going to chop it into pieces. The frightened watchman opened the cage, but the lion did not come out of it, and the fearless Don Quixote from now on began to call himself the Knight of Lions. After staying with Don Diego, Don Quixote continued his journey and arrived in the village where the wedding of Quiteria the Beautiful and Camacho the Rich was celebrated. Before the wedding, Basillo the Poor, Quiteria’s neighbor, who had been in love with her since childhood, approached Quiteria, and in front of everyone, pierced his chest with a sword. He agreed to confess before his death only if the priest married him to Quiteria and he died as her husband. Everyone tried to persuade Quiteria to take pity on the sufferer - after all, he was about to give up the ghost, and Quiteria, having become a widow, would be able to marry Camacho. Quiteria gave Basillo her hand, but as soon as they were married, Basillo jumped to his feet alive and well - he set all this up to marry his beloved, and she seemed to be in cahoots with him. Camacho, out of common sense, considered it best not to be offended: why does he need a wife who loves another? After staying with the newlyweds for three days, Don Quixote and Sancho moved on.

Don Quixote decided to go down to Montesinos' cave. Sancho and the student guide tied a rope around him and he began to descend. When all one hundred braces of the rope were unwound, they waited for half an hour and began to pull the rope, which turned out to be as easy as if there was no load on it, and only the last twenty braces were difficult to pull. When they pulled out Don Quixote, his eyes were closed and they had difficulty pushing him away. Don Quixote said that he saw many miracles in the cave, saw the heroes of the ancient romances Montesinos and Durandart, as well as the enchanted Dulcinea, who even asked him to borrow six reals. This time his story seemed implausible even to Sancho, who knew well what kind of wizard had bewitched Dulcinea, but Don Quixote firmly stood his ground. When they reached the inn, which Don Quixote, as usual, did not consider to be a castle, Maese Pedro appeared there with the soothsayer monkey and the priest. The monkey recognized Don Quixote and Sancho Panza and told everything about them, and when the performance began, Don Quixote, taking pity on the noble heroes, rushed with a sword at their pursuers and killed all the dolls. True, he later generously paid Pedro for the destroyed paradise, so he was not offended. In fact, it was Gines de Pasamonte, who was hiding from the authorities and took up the craft of a raishnik - so he knew everything about Don Quixote and Sancho, usually, before entering the village, he asked around about its inhabitants and “guessed” for a small bribe. past.

One day, driving out into a green meadow at sunset, Don Quixote saw a crowd of people - it was the Duke and Duchess's falconry. The Duchess read a book about Don Quixote and was filled with respect for him. She and the Duke invited him to their castle and received him as an honored guest. They and their servants played many jokes with Don Quixote and Sancho and never ceased to marvel at the prudence and madness of Don Quixote, as well as the ingenuity and simplicity of Sancho, who in the end believed that Dulcinea was bewitched, although he himself acted as a sorcerer and did all this himself set it up The wizard Merlin arrived in a chariot to Don Quixote and announced that in order to disenchant Dulcinea, Sancho must voluntarily beat himself with a whip on his bare buttocks three thousand three hundred times. Sancho opposed, but the Duke promised him the island, and Sancho agreed, especially since the period of scourging was not limited and it could be done gradually. Countess Trifaldi, aka Gorevana, the duenna of Princess Metonymia, arrived at the castle. The wizard Zlosmrad turned the princess and her husband Trenbreno into statues, and the duenna Gorevan and twelve other duennas began to grow beards. Only the valiant knight Don Quixote could disenchant them all. Zlosmrad promised to send a horse for Don Quixote, which would quickly take him and Sancho to the kingdom of Kandaya, where the valiant knight would fight with Zlosmrad. Don Quixote, determined to rid the duels of beards, sat blindfolded with Sancho on a wooden horse and thought that they were flying through the air, while the Duke's servants blew air from their furs on them. “Arriving” back to the duke’s garden, they discovered a message from Zlosmrad, where he wrote that Don Quixote had cast a spell on everyone by the fact that he had dared to undertake this adventure. Sancho was impatient to look at the faces of the duennas without beards, but the entire squad of duennas had already disappeared. Sancho began to prepare to rule the promised island, and Don Quixote gave him so many reasonable instructions that he amazed the Duke and Duchess - in everything that did not relate to chivalry, he “showed a clear and extensive mind.”

The Duke sent Sancho with a large retinue to the town, which was supposed to pass for an island, for Sancho did not know that islands exist only in the sea, and not on land. There he was solemnly presented with the keys to the city and declared governor of the island of Barataria for life. First, he had to resolve a dispute between a peasant and a tailor. The peasant brought the cloth to the tailor and asked if it would make a cap. Having heard what would come out, he asked if two caps would come out, and when he learned that two would come out, he wanted to get three, then four, and settled on five. When he came to receive the caps, they fit just right on his finger. He became angry and refused to pay the tailor for the work and, in addition, began to demand the cloth back or the money for it. Sancho thought and passed a sentence: not to pay the tailor for his work, not to return the cloth to the peasant, and to donate the caps to the prisoners. Then two old men appeared to Sancho, one of whom had long ago borrowed ten gold pieces from the other and claimed that he had returned them, while the lender said that he had not received the money. Sancho made the debtor swear that he had repaid the debt, and he, letting the lender hold his staff for a moment, swore. Seeing this, Sancho guessed that the money was hidden in the staff and returned it to the lender. Following them, a woman appeared, dragging by the hand the man who allegedly raped her. Sancho told the man to give the woman his wallet and sent the woman home. When she came out, Sancho ordered the man to catch up with her and take her wallet, but the woman resisted so much that he did not succeed. Sancho immediately realized that the woman had slandered the man: if she had shown even half the fearlessness with which she defended her wallet when she defended her honor, the man would not have been able to defeat her. Therefore, Sancho returned the wallet to the man and drove the woman away from the island. Everyone marveled at Sancho's wisdom and the justice of his sentences. When Sancho sat down at the table laden with food, he did not manage to eat anything: as soon as he reached out to some dish, Doctor Pedro Intolerable de Science ordered it to be removed, saying that it was harmful to health. Sancho wrote a letter to his wife Teresa, to which the Duchess added a letter from herself and a string of coral, and the Duke's page delivered letters and gifts to Teresa, alarming the whole village. Teresa was delighted and wrote very reasonable answers, and also sent the Duchess half a measure of selected acorns and cheese.

Barataria was attacked by the enemy, and Sancho had to defend the island with arms in hand. They brought him two shields and tied one in front and the other behind so tightly that he could not move. As soon as he tried to move, he fell and lay there, pinned between two shields. People were running around him, he heard screams, the ringing of weapons, they were furiously hacking at his shield with a sword, and finally shouts were heard: “Victory! The enemy is defeated! Everyone began to congratulate Sancho on his victory, but as soon as he was raised, he saddled the donkey and went to Don Quixote, saying that ten days of governorship was enough for him, that he was not born either for battles or for wealth, and did not want to obey either to the impudent doctor, and to no one else. Don Quixote began to be burdened by the idle life he led with the Duke, and together with Sancho he left the castle. At the inn where they stopped for the night, they met Don Juan and Don Jeronimo, who were reading the anonymous second part of Don Quixote, which Don Quixote and Sancho Panza considered slander against themselves. It said that Don Quixote had fallen out of love with Dulcinea, while he still loved her, the name of Sancho's wife was mixed up there, and it was full of other inconsistencies. Having learned that this book describes a tournament in Zaragoza with the participation of Don Quixote, which was replete with all sorts of nonsense. Don Quixote decided to go not to Zaragoza, but to Barcelona, so that everyone could see that the Don Quixote depicted in the anonymous second part is not at all the one described by Sid Ahmet Beninhali.

In Barcelona, Don Quixote fought the Knight of the White Moon and was defeated. The Knight of the White Moon, who was none other than Samson Carrasco, demanded that Don Quixote return to his village and not leave there for a whole year, hoping that during this time his reason would return. On the way home, Don Quixote and Sancho had to visit the ducal castle again, for its owners were just as obsessed with jokes and pranks as Don Quixote was with chivalric romances. In the castle there was a hearse with the body of the maid Altisidora, who allegedly died of unrequited love for Don Quixote. To revive her, Sancho had to endure twenty-four clicks on the nose, twelve pinches and six pin pricks. Sancho was very unhappy; for some reason, both in order to disenchant Dulcinea and in order to revive Altisidora, it was he who had to suffer, who had nothing to do with them. But everyone tried to persuade him so much that he finally agreed and endured the torture. Seeing how Altisidora came to life, Don Quixote began to rush Sancho with self-flagellation in order to disenchant Dulcinea. When he promised Sancho to pay generously for each blow, he willingly began to whip himself, but quickly realizing that it was night and they were in the forest, he began to whip the trees. At the same time, he moaned so pitifully that Don Quixote allowed him to interrupt and continue the scourging the next night. At the inn they met Alvaro Tarfe, who was portrayed in the second part of the fake Don Quixote. Alvaro Tarfe admitted that he had never seen either Don Quixote or Sancho Panza, who stood in front of him, but he saw another Don Quixote and another Sancho Panza, not at all similar to them. Returning to his native village, Don Quixote decided to become a shepherd for a year and invited the priest, the bachelor and Sancho Panza to follow his example. They approved of his idea and agreed to join him. Don Quixote already began to change their names into a pastoral style, but soon fell ill. Before his death, his mind cleared up, and he no longer called himself Don Quixote, but Alonso Quijano. He cursed the knightly romances that had clouded his mind, and died calmly and Christianly, as no knight errant had ever died.

Retold

Did you know that Cervantes originally conceived Don Quixote simply as a humorous parody of the contemporary “tabloid” chivalric novels? But the result was one of the greatest works of world literature, which remains almost the most widely read to this day? How did this happen? And why did the mad knight Don Quixote and his squire Sancho Panza turn out to be so dear to millions of readers?

About this especially for "Thomas" said Viktor Simakov, candidate of philological sciences, literature teacher.

Don Quixote: the story of an idealist or a madman?

When talking about Don Quixote, one should distinguish between the plan consciously formulated by the author, its final embodiment and the perception of the novel in subsequent centuries. Cervantes's original intention was to satirize chivalric romances by creating a parody of a mad knight.

However, in the process of creating the novel, the idea underwent changes. Already in the first volume, the author, consciously or not, rewarded the comic hero - Don Quixote - with touching idealism and a sharp mind. The character turned out to be somewhat ambiguous. He, for example, pronounced a famous monologue about the bygone golden age, which began with these words: “Blessed are the times and blessed is the age that the ancients called golden - and not because gold, which in our Iron Age represents such a huge value, in that happy times were given for nothing, but because the people who lived then did not know two words: yours and mine. In those blessed times everything was common.”

Monument to Don Quixote. Cuba

Having finished the first volume, Cervantes seemed to have finished the entire novel. The creation of the second volume was helped by an accident - the publication of a fake continuation of Don Quixote by a certain Avellaneda.

This Avellaneda was not such a mediocre author as Cervantes declared him to be, but he distorted the characters of the heroes and, logically, sent Don Quixote to a madhouse. Cervantes, who had previously felt the ambiguity of his hero, immediately set about the second volume, where he not only emphasized the idealism, sacrifice and wisdom of Don Quixote, but also gave wisdom to the second comic hero, Sancho Panza, who previously seemed very narrow-minded. That is, Cervantes ended the novel not at all the way he began it; as a writer he evolved along with his heroes - the second volume came out deeper, more sublime, more perfect in form than the first.

Four centuries have passed since the creation of Don Quixote. All this time, the perception of Don Quixote has been changing. Since the times of romanticism, for most readers, Don Quixote has been a tragic story about a great idealist who is not understood or accepted by the people around him. Dmitry Merezhkovsky wrote that Don Quixote turns everything he sees in front of him into a dream. He challenges the usual, the ordinary, trying to live, guided by ideals in everything, moreover, he wants to turn back time to the golden age.

Don Quixote. John Edward Gregory (1850-1909)

To the people around him, the hero seems strange, crazy, somehow “not like that”; For him, their words and actions evoke pity, sadness or sincere indignation, which is paradoxically combined with humility. The novel really provides the basis for such an interpretation, exposes and complicates this conflict. Don Quixote, despite any ridicule and mockery, continues to believe in people. He is ready to suffer for any person, ready to endure hardships - with the confidence that a person can become better, that he will straighten up, jump above his head.

In general, Cervantes's entire novel is built on paradoxes. Yes, Don Quixote is one of the first pathological images (that is, the image of a madman. – Note ed.) in the history of fiction. And after Cervantes, there will be more and more of them every century, until, finally, in the 20th century, almost the majority of the main characters in novels will be crazy. However, this is not what is important, but the fact that as we read Don Quixote, we get the feeling that the author is slowly, not at all immediately, showing the hero’s wisdom through his madness. So in the second volume the reader clearly faces the question: who is really mad here? Is it really Don Quixote? Aren't those who mock and laugh at the noble hidalgo crazy? And it is not Don Quixote who is blinded and maddened in his childhood dreams, but the people around him, unable to see the world as this knight sees it?

Who “blessed” Don Quixote for his feat?

It is important to understand, as Merezhkovsky writes, that Don Quixote is a man from that ancient era, when the values of good and evil were formed not based on personal experience, but with an eye to what authoritative people of the past, for example, Augustine, Boethius or Aristotle, said . And any important life choice was made only with support and an eye on the great, authoritative people of the past.

Same for Don Quixote. For him, the authors of chivalric novels turned out to be authoritative. The ideals he read and absorbed from these books were accepted by him without hesitation. They, if you like, determined the “dogmatic content” of his faith. And the hero of the novel devoted himself entirely to bringing these principles of the past into the present, “to make it come true.”

And even when Don Quixote says that he wants to achieve the glory of a sad knightly feat, then this glory is important to him precisely as an opportunity to become a conductor of these eternal ideals. Personal glory is of no use to him. Therefore, one might say, the authors of chivalric novels themselves “authorized” him for this feat.

Did Cervantes mock his hero?

Cervantes is a man of the turn of the 16th-17th centuries, and the laughter of that time is quite rude. Let's remember Rabelais or the comic scenes in Shakespeare's tragedies. Don Quixote was intended to be a comic book, and indeed it seemed comic to Cervantes' contemporaries. Already during the writer’s lifetime, his heroes became, for example, characters in Spanish carnivals. The hero is beaten, and the reader laughs.

Alleged portrait of Cervantes

It is precisely this inevitable rudeness of the author and his readers that Nabokov does not accept, who in his “Lecture on Don Quixote” was indignant at the fact that Cervantes mocked his hero so mercilessly. The emphasis on the tragic sound and philosophical issues of the novel is entirely the merit of the authors of the 19th century, romantics and realists. Their interpretation of Cervantes's novel has now obscured the writer's original intent. Her comic side appears in the background for us. And here is the big question: what is more significant for the history of culture - the thought of the writer himself or what we see behind it? Dmitry Merezhkovsky, anticipating Nabokov, wrote that the writer himself did not really understand what kind of masterpiece he had created.

Why did a clownish parody become a great novel?

The secret of such popularity and significance of Don Quixote is due to the fact that the book constantly provokes more and more new questions. Trying to understand this text, we will never reach the end. The novel doesn't give us any definitive answers. On the contrary, he constantly eludes any complete interpretations, flirts with the reader, provokes him to dive deeper and deeper into the semantic composition. Moreover, the reading of this text will be “their own” for everyone, very personal and subjective.

This is a novel that miraculously evolves with the author before our eyes. Cervantes deepens his concept not only from the first volume to the second, but also from chapter to chapter. Jorge Luis Borges, it seems to me, rightly wrote that reading the first volume when there is a second is, in general, no longer necessary. That is, “Don Quixote” is a unique case when the “sequel” turned out to be much better than the “original”. And the reader, rushing further into the depths of the text, feels an amazing immersion and increasing sympathy for the hero.

Monument to Cervantes and his heroes in Madrid

The work was and still is opening up new facets and dimensions that were not noticeable to previous generations. The book took on a life of its own. Don Quixote came into the spotlight in the 17th century, then influenced many authors during the Enlightenment (including Henry Fielding, one of the creators of the modern type of novel), then aroused successive delight among romantics, realists, modernists, and postmodernists.

It is interesting that the image of Don Quixote turned out to be very close to the Russian worldview. Our writers often turned to him. For example, Prince Myshkin, the hero of Dostoevsky’s novel, is both “Prince Christ” and at the same time Don Quixote; Cervantes' book is specifically mentioned in the novel. Turgenev wrote a brilliant article in which he compared Don Quixote and Hamlet. The writer formulated the difference between two seemingly similar heroes who put on a mask of madness. For Turgenev, Don Quixote is a kind of extrovert who gives himself entirely to other people, who is completely open to the world, while Hamlet, on the contrary, is an introvert who is closed in on himself, fundamentally fenced off from the world.

What do Sancho Panza and King Solomon have in common?

Sancho Panza is a paradoxical hero. He is, of course, comical, but it is in his mouth that Cervantes sometimes puts amazing words that suddenly reveal the wisdom and wit of this squire. Moreover, this is especially noticeable towards the end of the novel.

At the beginning of the novel, Sancho Panza is the embodiment of the traditional image of a rogue in Spanish literature of that time. But Sancho Panza's rogue is a lousy one. All his trickery boils down to successful finds of someone's things, some kind of petty theft, and even then he is caught in the act. And then it turns out that this hero is talented in something completely different. Towards the end of the second volume, Sancho Panza becomes the governor of a fake island. And here he acts as a prudent and intelligent judge, so one cannot help but want to compare him with the wise Old Testament King Solomon.

So, at first, the stupid and ignorant Sancho Panza turns out to be completely different by the end of the novel. When Don Quixote ultimately refuses further knightly deeds, Sancho begs him not to despair, not to deviate from the chosen path and to move on - to new exploits and adventures. It turns out that he has no less adventurism than Don Quixote.

According to Heinrich Heine, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza are inseparable from each other and form a single whole. When we imagine Don Quixote, we immediately imagine Sancho nearby. One hero in two faces. And if you count Rocinante and Sancho the donkey - in four.

What kind of chivalric romances did Cervantes ridicule?

Initially, the genre of chivalric novels originated in the 12th century. In the times of real knights, these books embodied current ideals and ideas - courtly (rules of good manners, good manners, which later formed the basis of knightly behavior. - Note ed.) literary, religious. However, it was not them that Cervantes parodied.

“New” romances of chivalry appeared after the introduction of printing technology. Then, in the 16th century, they began to create light, entertaining reading about the exploits of chivalry for a wide, already literate public. In fact, this was the first experience of creating book “blockbusters”, the purpose of which was very simple - to relieve people of boredom. During the time of Cervantes, chivalric romances no longer had any relation to either reality or current intellectual thought, but their popularity did not fade.

It must be said that Cervantes did not consider Don Quixote his best work at all. Having conceived Don Quixote as a humorous parody of the chivalric novels that were then written for the entertainment of the reading public, he then undertook to create a real, genuine chivalric novel - The Wanderings of Persiles and Sikhismunda. Cervantes naively believed that this was his best work. But time showed that he was wrong. This, by the way, often happened in the history of world culture, when a writer considered some works to be the most successful and important, and subsequent generations chose completely different ones for themselves.

Title page of the Spanish edition of Amadis, 1533

And something amazing happened with Don Quixote. It turned out that this novel is not only a parody that has outlived the original. It was thanks to Cervantes that these “tabloid” chivalric romances were immortalized. We would not know anything about who Amadis Galsky, Belyanis the Greek or Tyrant the White were, if not for Don Quixote. This happens when a text that is important and significant for many generations pulls along entire layers of culture.

Who is Don Quixote compared to?

The image of Don Quixote is somewhat reminiscent of an Orthodox holy fool. And here it must be said that Cervantes himself, towards the end of his life, gravitated more and more towards Franciscanism (Catholic mendicant monastic order founded by Saint Francis of Assisi. - Note ed.). And the image of Francis of Assisi, as well as his Franciscan followers, in some ways echoes the Orthodox holy fools. Both of them consciously chose a poor lifestyle, wore rags, walked barefoot, and constantly wandered. Quite a lot of work has been written about Franciscan motifs in Don Quixote.

In general, quite a lot of parallels arise between the plot of the novel and the gospel narrative, as well as life stories. The Spanish philosopher José Ortega y Gasset wrote that Don Quixote is “a Gothic Christ, withered by the latest melancholy, the funny Christ of our outskirts.” Miguel de Unamuno, another Spanish thinker, titled his commentary on Cervantes's book The Lives of Don Quixote and Sancho. Unamuno styled his book after the life of the saint. He writes about Don Quixote as a “new Christ” who, despised and reviled by everyone, walks through the Spanish outback. In this book, the famous phrase was restated that if Christ had appeared on this earth again, we would have crucified him again (it was first recorded by one of the German romantic writers, and later repeated by Andrei Tarkovsky in “The Passion of Andrew”) .

By the way, the title of Unamuno’s book will later become the title of a film by Georgian director Rezo Chkheidze. Even Vladimir Nabokov drew parallels between the plot of the novel and the gospel story in his “Lectures on Don Quixote,” although it is difficult to suspect anyone but Nabokov of any special interest in religious themes.

Indeed, Don Quixote, together with his squire Sancho Panza, especially in the second part of the novel, very much resemble Christ and his apostle. For example, this is noticeable in the scene when in one city local residents begin to throw stones at Don Quixote and laugh at him, and then even hang a sign on him for fun that says “Don Quixote of La Mancha,” which is very reminiscent of another famous inscription, “Jesus of Nazareth.” , King of the Jews."

How is the image of Christ reflected in world literature?

Even St. Augustine considered becoming like Christ as the goal of Christian life and a means of overcoming original sin. If we take the Western tradition, St. Thomas a à Kempis wrote about this, and St. Francis of Assisi proceeded from this idea. Naturally, this was reflected in literature, for example, in “The Little Flowers of Francis of Assisi,” the biography of the saint, so valued, including by Cervantes.

There is “The Little Prince” with a hero who came to earth to save, if not all people, but at least one person (that’s why he is small). There is an amazing play by Kai Munch “The Word”, recently published in the journal “Foreign Literature”, but long ago known to cinephiles from the brilliant film adaptation by Carl Theodor Dreyer. There is a novel by Nikas Kazantzakis “Christ is Crucified Again.” There are also texts with rather shocking images - from a traditional religious point of view. All this indicates that gospel history is one of the foundations of European culture. And judging by the new and new variations on the themes of the Gospel images (no matter what strange transformations they undergo), this foundation is quite strong.

Judging by Don Quixote, evangelical motifs can appear in literature implicitly, latently, even imperceptibly for the author himself, simply due to his natural religiosity. You need to understand that if the 17th century author had intentionally introduced religious motifs into the text, he would have emphasized them much more noticeably. The literature of that time most often openly demonstrates techniques, does not hide them; Cervantes thinks the same way. Accordingly, speaking about religious motives in the novel, we independently build a complete picture of the writer’s worldview, conjecture what he outlined with only a few timid strokes. The novel allows this. And this is also his true modern life.

Now, after 8 months, and 6 months were promised under the contract, our construction was completed. The builders left, leaving behind heaps of garbage, cigarette butts, nails, and screws. The snow melted and everything immediately became visible. And now, in order: they were built by the House Quixote company. We entered into an agreement on August 29, 2018 and within 3 days we paid 1m 200 thousand. (first payment), and construction actually began 1.5 months later. The money was paid, but the foreman Alexey fed him with promises... The money was in the bank, so no interest was received and there was no construction. After each part of the payment, we waited for the start of the next stage of work 1-1.5 (we lost our money on this). Architect Daniil Vasyukov, apparently due to his youth and inexperience, did not pay our close attention to many of the nuances in our project: the opening of the balcony door to the veranda turned out to be very narrow (we were told that all clients were happy); the garage was designed in height without our participation; the porch was designed without our consent and we saw all this during construction, when everything was built. When we drew attention to these points, we were told that we had signed everything and nothing could be changed. Be careful when signing projects, they can deceive you in order to surprise you with the project, and in fact take more money. This also happened with windows. Our windows should all be tilt-and-turn, but in fact two of our windows are simply tilt-and-turn. In response to all our requests regarding windows, the architect said that he would sort everything out and redo it, but nothing was remade and the money was not returned. After you have paid the first installment under the contract, the office communicates with you differently: they promise, but do nothing. Foreman Alexey Andreev is extremely incompetent in many matters; one gets the impression that he has no construction education. He imposed additional work and offered to pay for it not through the office, but directly to the construction team and took a percentage from this. The foreman tried to hide construction defects from us, when we discovered them and pointed them out to him, he said that it was no big deal and it would do! Constantly monitor the work of the team!!! Now about the construction teams. This company does not have its own builders on staff: the foreman is looking for builders on the side! Accordingly, they have no experience in building frame houses. They did everything for the first time with us! The crews are not paid for the work done and therefore they either flee the site or beg for money from the customer. We changed 5 teams... We didn’t even think that the construction would drag on for 8 months and so many nerves and hemorrhoids! ! If we had not controlled all the construction, then everything would have been much worse! After signing the act of acceptance and handover of the house, we saw still hidden deficiencies and contacted the company with a request to eliminate these deficiencies under the guarantee that we were promised for 15 years. The company told us that they would consider our complaint and asked us not to write bad reviews and not to sue, but there was no answer... After communicating with this company, I was left with a negative aftertaste and a lot of damaged nerves. The company personnel with whom we spoke are: Timur - manager, Daniil Vasyukov - architect, Alexey Andreeev - foreman, Ivan Khraputsky - manager, when they communicated with us, they promised that everything would be wonderful, but in fact there were continuous nerves and frustrations... We recommend You should not deal with this company. We did not write this review by order, our contract number is 1808-070, 08/29/2018. We have experienced all this ourselves, think again before entering into an agreement with this company. And we are collecting documents to file a claim in court.

Eager to remake the world. There is a contradiction in the pages of the book. What the world really is and how the main character sees it are two different things. Romanticization played a cruel joke on the old nobleman, and his aspirations turned out to be useless. Meanwhile, Cervantes's novel had a huge impact on the development of world culture.

History of character creation

The Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes decided to make fun of chivalric literature after reading the book “Interludes of Romances.” It is noteworthy that Cervantes' seminal work was written in prison. In 1597, the author was imprisoned on charges of embezzlement of public funds.

The work of Miguel de Cervantes consists of two volumes. The first, “The Cunning Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha,” was seen by bookworms in 1605, and the next novel, entitled “The Second Part of the Brilliant Knight Don Quixote of La Mancha,” was published ten years later. The year of writing is 1615.

The writer Germán Arciniegas used to say that a possible prototype for Don Quixote was the Spanish conquistador Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada. This man traveled a lot and became the first seeker of the mysterious Eldorado.

Biography and image of Don Quixote

The biography of the popular literary hero is shrouded in an aura of mystery. The author himself wrote that one can only guess about the character’s real name, but presumably the rider’s name is Alonso Quejana. Although some believe that his last name is Quijada or Quesada.

Don Quixote is considered the most daring interpretation of the novel. The American classic started working back in 1957 and spent 15 years filming. But Jesus Franco and Patsy Yrigoyen finished what they started. They restored the filming in 1992. The film received mixed reviews from critics.
Miguel Cervantes planned his book as a parody, and the hero Don Quixote himself was invented to be ridiculed. But the eminent philosopher noted that the meaning of the novel is the most bitter of all in the entire history of mankind.
The theater and film actor received the Soviet Union Prize for his leading role in the musical “Man of La Mancha.”

On June 25, 1994, the audience saw a ballet called “Don Quixote, or Fantasies of a Madman.” Wrote the libretto.
Although the book by Miguel de Cervantes became a world bestseller, one could only sympathize with the author’s financial situation.

Quotes
Don't get angry if they say something unpleasant to you. Live in harmony with your conscience, and let people tell themselves what they want. It is as impossible to tie the tongue of a slanderer as it is to lock a field with a gate.
“Now you can see an inexperienced adventurer,” noted Don Quixote. - These are giants. And if you are afraid, then move aside and pray, and in the meantime I will enter into a cruel and unequal battle with them.
If ever the rod of justice bends in your hands, then let it happen not under the weight of gifts, but under the pressure of compassion.
When noble women or modest girls sacrifice their honor and allow their lips to cross all boundaries of decency and divulge the cherished secrets of their hearts, this means that they are driven to extremes.
Ingratitude is the daughter of pride and one of the greatest sins that exist in the world.
Be moderate in your drinking for the reason that a person who drinks too much does not keep secrets and does not keep promises.
Bibliography
1605 - “The cunning hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha”
1615 - “The second part of the brilliant knight Don Quixote of La Mancha”

Filmography
1903 - Don Quixote (France)
1909 - Don Quixote (USA)
1915 - Don Quixote (USA)
1923 - Don Quixote (Great Britain)
1933 - Don Quixote (France, Germany, Great Britain)
1947 - Don Quixote of La Mancha (Spain)
1957 - Don Quixote (USSR)
1961 - Don Quixote (Yugoslavia) (cartoon)
1962 - Don Quixote (Finland)
1964 - Dulcinea Toboso (France, Spain, Germany)
1972 - Man of La Mancha (USA, Italy)
1973 - Don Quixote is on the road again (Spain, Mexico)
1997 - Don Quixote returns (Russia, Bulgaria)
1999 - Chained Knights (Russia, Georgia)
2000 - The Last Knight (USA)