“Oh thou,
whosoever thou art,
rash knight!,
who cometh to touch the armor of the most valiant knight who e’er girded on a sword!
Lookest thou to what thou doest and touch it not!,
if thou wanteth not to leave thy life in payment for thy audacity!..”
...Don Quixote, perhaps the best work of fiction that I have ever read.
Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra was born in 1547 the fourth of seven children born to a surgeon father who was imprisoned in 1551 due to debt. After studying philosophy and literature in Italy, he served as a soldier where he lost use of left hand when he was shot. A few years later he was captured at sea and enslaved in Algiers for 7 years. it wasn't until he was 37 that he began writing in earnest professionally inbetween stints of imprisonment due to financial difficulty. And it wasn't until he was 58, in 1605 that he released the first part of Don Quixote. The second part was released in 1612, and he died a short time later, curiously, on the exact day as his contemporary, William Shakespeare on April 23, 1616.
From the publication of the first part of Don Quixote, the rest as they say is "history". De Cervantes Saavedra's flights of creativity resulted in the tale that has thrilled, excited, jubilated and pleased a great many millions since the day it was released.
It is interesting that in the second part of the tale, De Cervantes mentions several allusions to adventures of Don Quixote, not written by him, but by others, who, wishing to capitalize on the popularity of the tome, wrote unauthorized, forged "sequels" in the interim period between the release of Books 1 and 2.
Many things have been said about Don Quixote, but perhaps, the most and only important thing, is that it is an imaginative flight, to rival all others. One that deals with comedy in the proper way, that is, through the illustration of not contrived sequences, but sequences that could have happened, and so, due to the construction of truth and the exposition of the layering of various 'in" ironies, expectations, and sincere reactions of the "truth" of the parties involved, the tale unfurls. Reading Don Quixote is to be onboard a steam engine of misfortune as you chug scene after scene upon unsuspecting persons who found themselves in the presence of the strange and bizarre Don Quixote.
There is a fine line between mockery and curiosity, between gravity, and the grave, between that which is genuinely funny, and that which is pretentiously asinine. and one of De Cervantes Saavedra's rare talents is to dip and dodge into all of the above, in a manner so creative and seemingly, at the same time necessary and unexpected that no fault can possibly be found in the consistency and evenness of the tale.
I found that as I read the tale, i fell so in love with "Don". I loved him, as a real person, as i would have liked to have loved my own grandfather. How can one not love one who is so genuine, fallible, sincere, mislead, principled, and completely authentic and true to their construction?
is it not the strangeness, the uniqueness of life and situation that drives our curiosity? is it not the adventure, that is both adventurous, and yet, seemingly would not/could not have happened, without our own guiding hand and witnessing, that makes us feel both special, alive, and purposed in our existence?
I got "turned on" to Don Quixote by Dr. George Shipley, of the English Department of the University of Washington. I never took his class, but we had occasion to speak briefly on many occasions, seeing as i was a printer at the time, employed by the University of Washington and I was responsible for assembling and producing the readers for his classes. Somehow, through our interaction, Dr. Shipley got the idea that i would very much enjoy Don Quixote.
Dr. Shipley is now an emeritus assistant professor at the department of Spanish and Portuguese studies at the University of Washington. He received his Ph. D. at Harvard in "Golden Age Spanish Literature, Picaresque with emphasis on Cervantes". He was very intelligent, yet subtle. a very pleasant gentleman, who gave the air of a Englishman, who had lost all of his Englishness, save his countenance and manner.
It was the summer of 1993 when Dr. Shipley brought me one of his advance copies of a newer translation (1981) of Don Quixote, by Kenneth Douglas and James R. Jones. i remember reading it, The archaic language was a treat to my ear. The first real English class I took (after basic composition) I struggled, as all who first encounter Shakespeare. As is customary, soon I found comfort within it's pace, math and rhythm. Since that time, I must confess, that I have found old English speech to be quite pleasing and resonant with my own manner of thought. And so, by the time I had received my copy of Quixote, the device of old languages added a great deal to the feeling of being transported to another world, another time, another place and even another dimension of humanity.
In this old speech, I found that more easily than in contemporary speech, at times where complex expressions of wit, humor, or any type of situation where expression and complexity (time, situation, emotion, purpose, place, setting, etc) the words of De Cervantes Saavedra come through in such a fitting, complex explication of mind, that it had the effect of making one aware of a complexity of expression and feeling that must also reside within ones own mind and heart, but has yet to have been unearthed.
The reading of this piece was both patient and eager, as this great tale unwound and I savored every word, not really wanting it to end, and finding myself so fully absorbed in every sense, that i couldn't have been any closer to the action, had my name been Sancho Panza.
There are so many beautiful and sublime joys to be had in the great world of ours.
I express my deepest gratitude to Miguel De Servantes Saavedra, Don "Quejada" Quixote, and Dr. George Shipley
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