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The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha is a novel, just a novel.
Unless, of course, is the best novel ever written in the world, in all
languages, throughout all generations and at all times. Which is no
small thing to honor Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, a Madrid Alcala
de Henares, the son of a surgeon who drew equally six children and their
mediocrity. Miguel, a failed father, sister and mother energetic nun,
cut his teeth early in life. In fact, his life was rooted in their time.
Spain was then the leading power in the world, standing on five
continents, soldiers, monks and bureaucrats at all. Or rather, Michael
met with Philip II Philip III greatness and Spanish decline, but those
things would not see because you need some perspective. From October 12,
1547, to April 23, 1616, Miguel de Cervantes met many cities, many
trades, many hardships and little glory. He lived well, almost seventy
years, but his life was a long fall of material and moral pain, prison
and captivity. His character was gentle, sensual, prone to credulity,
bum a little to the strength and environment, as its literary son, to
run into the justice of men. But do not try to insert here your whole
life that are so dense, although resumiésemos to line per event,
would
not fit. We have to say about him: He was the author of Don Quixote and
have more than enough, but with it an injustice. ¿Injustice ... ? Yes
Have not you seen the monument to Cervantes in Madrid, and in general
all those who have raised the wide world? Is. primarily featured in the
foreground, with statues of Don Alonso Quijano natural and Sancho Panza,
and the background, a small bust of Cervantes. That is, it absorbs the
creator created, it almost cancels. Always preceded by, always dark. No
one remembers the wonderful manners Cervantes in Rinconetey Cortadillo
that know how to describe the madness The lawyer Glass, the phenomenal
efforts of the work of Persiles and Segismunda the author of La Galatea,
the playwright Numancia o of Algiers.
Say, do not say that Cervantes wrote Don Quixote. but Don
Quixote was written by a Cervantes. To me, forever. revolted me
such an injustice, though well thought of that is the best sign
of literary greatness. So great is the Quixote, as the Bible,
and The Thousand and One Nights, it seems the work of one man,
but the product of a people decanted. a doctrine, a vital
conditions.
In fact,
this happens very few books: The Iliad, The Ramayana, The Book
of the Dead, War and Peace, & Faust, and few, few more. It is
the glory of what goes round, not because perfection lies in
literary workmanship, but because it reflects, even in its
imperfections the human condition in the flat dimension of time.
And
who is this famous Don Quixote? A joke, a joke written by a
writer kindly old and tired. who dipped his pen in absolute
sincerity. fully be hitting axis of one of those times of
transition that marks the turn of history. The first edition of
Don Quixote (without quotation marks can be written, so real is
that its existence is admitted to grammatically speaking) was
published in 1605, though some speak of an earlier and
presumably Cervantes began writing in 1598. That is the first
part, one that ends when the mistress, the priest and the barber
burned the books of the hidalgo Alonso, believing finished his
adventure. That topped the history of the Knight of the
Sorrowful Countenance would have been an exemplary novel, type
the Gitanilla but had too much power and this could be seen by
the author. He writes the second part, published in 1615, six
months before the death of Don Miguel. That the book had more
match, reluctantly demonstrates that Cervantes finishes and has
had many imitators.
Since then here, from 1605 to 1965. from the edition of Juan de
la Cueva to it, which is the ultísima (although it will not be
for many days), the issues have happened without interruption.
After the Bible is the book translated and published worldwide.
It is estimated that they nearly three thousand editions and are
almost fifty which increases every year. The best artists, the
most illustrious thinkers, after Cervantes, the most illustrious
commentators have written little or a lot about Don Quixote. The
literature on Cervantes and his work is as extensive as the
editions of the novel. If that is the glory, Don Quijote de la
Mancha is a glorious book, if fame is the tacit recognition of
some virtues, is a famous writer Cervantes, and if the myth is
the human journey made topic for ever and ever, Alonso Quijano
and his squire Sancho are deeply rooted myth of world
literature.
What did the gentleman from La Mancha to be so famous? Very
little, being beaten constantly being crazy and dream of wild
adventures in a world essentially prosaic. And why it is so
famous? That and have perpetuated in bronze forever the
supremacy of the ideal of the sublime madness with the vulgarity
of existence. That and having made a buxom village the most
subtle and beautiful female figure. That and some have confused
with giant windmills. That and attack, with skinny arms and evil
forces, enemies unconscionable, without fear, without turning,
without considering the consequences, attentive only to the
dictates of chivalry, honor and justice. Quijote now called the
man who does a quixotic ie, something that was not required, but
set the world faith in the human condition and dignity in the
deal. Being quixotic efforts at combating injustice, villainy of
the powerful, to be loving Quixote is useless beauty, madness
kind, is risking his life to save a child, started a flower, for
opposing the abuse; be Quixote is maintain the supremacy of the
individual against the mass; believe in the beauty better than
the utility and tell the truth without fear of consequences.
That is why Don Quixote is eternal. The world needs this break,
this madness, this rock against the current, does not exist,
would have to invent it. The difference between what you can do
and what you owe. That is why, back in the beginning, being a
novel Don Quixote, comes almost as a religious book, or at least,
a paradigm of human virtues of a people. Here is understood that
some may not want to undermine the essence of a book of this
quality. This is where I say that such is their strength until
you magnify a bad mo
Cervantes placed his heroes in the early seventeenth century and
in a much discussed in Spain. Why La Mancha? Don Miguel, who had
traveled the world, its history could be located anywhere, and
did, intentionally, in the Channel, a natural area of five
provinces, the flat, dry, dry and sunny, almost a desert where
haven spoken life, suitable for all contrast or at least to a
gentleman, believing at the time of Amadis, collided with the
natural environment. Don Alonso wears an armor of their
ancestors two hundred years old, which is something like now, a
character created in our time, in uniform to federica.
In this situation, Cervantes upsets her gentleman, but leaves intact the world of his time. The
other, witnesses, friends, enemies or indifferent, they understand immediately that the gentleman is mad, followed or not current, but no nonsense themselves. and contrast of the brutality of the scene itself, springs the greatness of the adventure. Don Quijote de la Mancha is a 'funny book' but his is a fun sad, bitter pains in the bowels. Cervantes, with a black humor, humiliates her knight under the blows villains, but rises again, it faces the cosmos, realistic, colorful, gregarious, and again exposed to danger. May prove the ruin of the epic, but it leaves a beautiful ideal, and a fabulous legacy. And still more, not repeat, not repeat how much has been written about the subject. In reality, Don Quixote needs no comment. It is a ghost that roams the fields, imaginations, for human behavior. His strength is such that even without reading it is known.
Perhaps this is its danger. Apart from know, love, even practice
in small or large scale, see you, too, this unique, bitter,
great novel. Read it because Cervantes did wonders with the
language. Never a working tool and therefore permeated so deeply
into human tissues; ever reason and madness were subjected to
such complete analysis. The subtle line between the sublime and
the ridiculous, he was never cheated so gracefully as did the
Miguel de Cervantes Alcalá. son of Don Rodrigo, a mediocre
surgeon makes three hundred and sixty years.
PROLOGUE OF THOMAS SALVADOR, TO THE ISSUE OF
EDITORIAL Petronio 1965
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