Don Quixote

Miguel de Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote in 1605, with the second part arriving a decade later in 1615. This massive volume launched the career of Alonso Quijano, a minor nobleman from La Mancha who loses his mind after reading too many chivalric romances. He renames himself Don Quixote and sets out to revive knight-errantry, recruiting a pragmatic farmer named Sancho Panza as his squire. Their journey blends high fantasy with harsh reality as the pair encounters windmills they believe are giants and flocks of sheep they think are armies. The narrative shifts between Quixote's delusional grandeur and Sancho's grounded humor, creating a dynamic where the master slowly learns from the servant while the servant occasionally adopts his master's illusions. The novel stands as a cornerstone of Western literature and one of the most translated works ever produced. It effectively dismantled the popularity of medieval romance tropes, a shift Mark Twack noted when he said the book swept away admiration for chivalric silliness. Later authors like Alexandre Dumas and Edmond Rostand referenced the story directly in their own works. The term quixotic entered the language to describe impractical idealism, proving how deeply this tale of a madman trying to fix the world has penetrated culture.[edit]