Don Quijote

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

4.8

Word count: 2.1M words
Chapters: 210

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Don Quijote by Miguel de Cervantes SaavedraAuthor: Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616,Language: Spanish, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Dec 1, 1999

Editor's review

Don Quixote is a foundational work of Spanish literature. Its protagonist is a country gentleman obsessed with chivalric romances, and through his travels with his squire Sancho it dramatizes the tension between idealism and reality. Beneath its comic adventure narrative lie profound reflections on human nature, society, and literature itself: scenes that provoke laughter are shadowed by a sense of tragedy that invites contemplation. Cervantes's language is vivid and lively, and his dialogue and narration are richly layered; the book is hailed as one of the forerunners of the modern novel. This electronic edition presents the original Spanish text and is suited to readers who wish to encounter the work in its original form. Reading it offers a sense of Spanish society in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries as well as an appreciation of the author's parody and transcendence of the chivalric literary tradition. For readers studying Spanish or researching the history of Western literature, it is a classic worth reading again and again.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Spanish majors who need to read literary originals to improve their language skills
Scholars of Western literature interested in the origins of the modern novel and the chivalric tradition
General readers who enjoy classic adventure narratives and can accept a long satirical work
Readers who wish to understand the society and culture of Spain's Golden Age

Not a good fit for

Absolute beginners with no Spanish who can read only Chinese translations
Readers who prefer fast-paced plots and have little patience for satire and parody
Readers who need a teaching edition with detailed annotations rather than a plain-text electronic original

Reading tips

First learn about the chivalric romance tradition and Cervantes's life, then begin the text
Read Part One and Part Two in comparison, noting changes in character and narrative perspective
When encountering long dialogue or embedded stories, take brief notes to sort out character relationships
Read alongside a Chinese translation or annotated edition to reduce the difficulty of the original

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this edition in Chinese or Spanish?

According to the information, this electronic edition is in Spanish; it is Cervantes's original Spanish text, not a Chinese translation. It is suited to readers with some ability to read Spanish who wish to encounter the original directly.

Can I read this book without any Spanish?

Reading the original directly would be quite difficult. It is advisable first to choose a reliable Chinese translation to follow the story, or to attempt the original after reaching an intermediate level in Spanish, using annotations and a dictionary for support.

Is this book suitable as Spanish-learning material?

It can serve as advanced reading material, but the original was written in the seventeenth century, and some vocabulary and sentence patterns differ from modern Spanish. It is best read after acquiring a foundation in grammar, with an annotated edition or a teacher's guidance; it is not suitable as an introductory textbook.

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About the author

Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de, 1547-1616 Author

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547–1616) was a highly important writer in the history of Spanish literature, though details of his life are limited in publicly available sources. He is best known for Don Quixote, a novel that follows the travels of its title character and creates the classic pair of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza; it parodies chivalric romances while vividly exploring the tension between reality and ideals. The library holds sixty of his works, including multiple volumes and translations of Don Quixote in several languages, which shows how widely his writing has circulated. His narrative style is both serious and comic, using satire to convey insights into human nature. He profoundly influenced the later development of the novel and is often regarded as one of the founders of the modern novel.