quixote

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05-24-2005, 06:07 PM
david inkey

quixote

DON QUIXOTE+ If DON QUIXOTE is the world’s comic masterpiece, it is the clearest explanation of what Socrates must have meant when he remarked that the genius of comedy is the same as the genius of tragedy, for the one book by which Cervantes is known is both ludicrous and sad. Its hero is the foolish old man who sets out from home in the belief that the world is the ideal place which romancers have described: a place where virtue and vice will appear plainly marked, and where the first will always, after heroic effort on the part of its knights, triumph over the second. The Don’s first adventure would have been adequate evidence to the contrary for any ordinary man. But, he was a hero. He could not be disillusioned by any number of misadventures, whether with windmills, with robbers, or with cynical ladies who exploited his chivalry. Some people think that he had too many adventures, or misadventures, and that the length of the book is excessive, but the book, in order to make its point, had to be long. What is the point of the book? Is the joke on Don Quixote? As I read, it was not so clear that that was the case; and at the end I felt that I had been left with an insoluble problem. It seems quite possible that the joke is on the world for not being what this great man assumed it to be. The book presents the ideal and the actual, and makes the reader choose one, but the book seems to say that both are indispensable, just as it says that both Don Quixote and his hardheaded companion Sancho Panza are right in their irreconcilable views. + This is an essay I wrote in l953 at the age of 21... I have saved few papers from college, but this is one of the few and I only re-read it when I was 61 years young... There is something about what I have written that I find hallowed and haunting... (June l996).
01-31-2006, 11:19 AM
sniesse

I enjoyed reading your essay, an astute reading of Don Quixote. I was especially moved by the part about the irony, that causes us to "weigh and measure," the fact that the world does not live up to Don Quixote's idealistic expectations. I agree, the joke is on us who create a world where chivalry is not always understood or appreciated.
05-24-2006, 09:50 PM
Zinc

thank you too

I agree with sniesse about David's essay and David about Don Quixote. From their words and this book, I'm also reminded of Nietzsche who said that "the great end of art is to strike the imagination with the power of a soul that refuses to admit defeat even in the midst of a collasping world"....
09-18-2006, 01:50 PM
darksun

Quote:

Originally Posted by david inkey

DON QUIXOTE+ If DON QUIXOTE is the world’s comic masterpiece, it is the clearest explanation of what Socrates must have meant when he remarked that the genius of comedy is the same as the genius of tragedy, for the one book by which Cervantes is known is both ludicrous and sad. Its hero is the foolish old man who sets out from home in the belief that the world is the ideal place which romancers have described: a place where virtue and vice will appear plainly marked, and where the first will always, after heroic effort on the part of its knights, triumph over the second. The Don’s first adventure would have been adequate evidence to the contrary for any ordinary man. But, he was a hero. He could not be disillusioned by any number of misadventures, whether with windmills, with robbers, or with cynical ladies who exploited his chivalry. Some people think that he had too many adventures, or misadventures, and that the length of the book is excessive, but the book, in order to make its point, had to be long. What is the point of the book? Is the joke on Don Quixote? As I read, it was not so clear that that was the case; and at the end I felt that I had been left with an insoluble problem. It seems quite possible that the joke is on the world for not being what this great man assumed it to be. The book presents the ideal and the actual, and makes the reader choose one, but the book seems to say that both are indispensable, just as it says that both Don Quixote and his hardheaded companion Sancho Panza are right in their irreconcilable views. + This is an essay I wrote in l953 at the age of 21... I have saved few papers from college, but this is one of the few and I only re-read it when I was 61 years young... There is something about what I have written that I find hallowed and haunting... (June l996). 

I agree and would go as far to say he encourages us to a life worth living what do you think?