In the olden days, adventure and chivalry were two things that were celebrated in Europe. No wonder, Don Quixote, a novel by Miguel de Cervantes was one of the most widely read novels in the western world. This Spanish novel is a saga of Alonso Quixano, a noble from La Mancha who loses his mind as a result of reading too many chivalric romances. He decides to become a knight-errant to revive chivalry and serve his nation, under the name Don Quixote of La Mancha.
Don Quixote employs Sancho Panza, a farmer as his squire. Sancho Panza possesses a unique, earthy wit in dealing with Don Quixote’s rhetorical monologues on knighthood. The ideas that Don Quixote holds onto were already considered old-fashioned at that time. He does not see the world for what it is and chooses to imagine his life as a knightly story of chivalric quest instead.
Don Quixote was an instant success and the readers found it comic; it is considered to be the prototype of the modern novel.
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