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Importance of Humour
critical analysis of don Quixote
critical analysis of don Quixote
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Recommended: Importance of Humour
Many people have trouble connecting the terms ‘classic novel’ and ‘humorous’. However, when reminded of the adventures of the ingenious hidalgo of La Mancha, many will be able to make the connection. The diversity, wit, charm, humor, and philosophy presented in the novel make it one of the most famous novels ever written. Don Quixote, written by Miguel de Cervantes focuses on the titular, self-proclaimed knight-errant and his squire Sancho Panza’s adventures prompted by the knight’s delusion. Quixote was originally a man of sound mind, but becomes mad and believes everything he reads in books of chivalry to be true. A second volume was added ten years later, when Quixote has been thrust into the public eye and ridiculed, leading to many philosophical discussions on the natures of deception and delusion. The novel has been considered the first piece on modern literature because of the emphasis it adds on the characters and their development, especially in the second volume. Due to the historical significance, commentary on other novels, and philosophical discussion, Don Quixote should be taught in a high school curriculum.
Cervantes’ combination of laughter and jest is still alive and well, with the actor delivering a punch line, and the audience having their merriment queued by laugh tracks played over the speakers. The drollness of Don Quixote proves that humor hasn’t changed greatly, even though it may be several hundred years old and translated from its original language. Cervantes wrote the novel to be amusing, with some scholars commenting, “Cervantes’ Spanish vocabulary is simple, based on two words, risa and burla. Literally, Sancho’s “jaws were clenched and his mouth full of laughter” (risa)… In the succeeding passage,...
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...n where many may be able to recognize his image and know at least a little of his story. Because of its explanation and history of humor, discussion on philosophies of deception and of madness, breaking of class barriers, and historical and cultural significance, Don Quixote should be taught in a high school English curriculum to allow and encourage students to obtain a better working knowledge of classical literature, tradition, philosophy, and humor.
Works Cited
Rooks, Kristin. "Don Quixote." English. Discovery Communications, Inc.. Discovery.com, Betesda, MD. 14 Feb. 2012. Class lecture.
Paulson, Ronald. Don Quixote in England: the aesthetics of laughter. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1998. Print.
Watt, Ian P.. Myths of modern individualism: Faust, Don Quixote, Don Juan, Robinson Crusoe. Cambridge [England: Cambridge University Press, 1996. Print.
Gabriel García Márquez, 1982 Nobel Laureate, is well known for using el realismo magical, magical realism, in his novels and short stories. In García Márquez’s cuento “Un Señor Muy Viejo con Alas Enormes,” García Márquez tactfully conflates fairytale and folklore with el realismo magical. García Márquez couples his mastery of magical realism with satire to construct a comprehensive narrative that unites the supernatural with the mundane. García Márquez’s not only criticizes the Catholic Church and the fickleness of human nature, but he also subliminally relates his themes—suffering is impartial, religion is faulty by practice, and filial piety—through the third-person omniscient narration of “Un Señor Muy Viejo con Alas Enormes.” In addition to García Márquez’s narrative style, the author employs the use of literary devices such as irony, anthropomorphism, and a melancholic tone to condense his narrative into a common plane. García Márquez’s narrative style and techniques combine to create a linear plot that connects holy with homely.
Palmas, at this time, took the task of retelling a traditional religious tale with his own twist, and that twist allowed him to entertain as well as criticize his own material. Criticizing religious folklore with methods of “costumbrismo” was vital in teaching his Latin American audience to be able to find the humor and irony in what they absorb through literature, and that is especially important with religious text. In a time when social and political reform went hand in hand with Latin American writing, Palmas did not just want to entertain with this humorous and enthralling piece, he wanted his audience to learn to be able to challenge religion in literature, and finally and most importantly, within the government in order to form a more liberal, secular
Rather than preventing the emergence of Cervantes's hauntological ingenium, in forcing Cervantes to circumvent its tight surveillance, the Inquisition actually facilitated his writing of Don Quixote I-II as we know it. For it forced Cervantes to sharpen his wits and develop his style by tapping into the full luster of his rhetorical palette. As a corollary, were it not for the influence of the Inquisition, Don Quixote I-II could have never been written as we know it. The result is a work much in the vein of Strauss’s “art of exoteric communication” (1952): exoteric enough to be noted, yet ingeniously crafted so as not to be (significantly) censored6 by the Inquisition while all the same exposing the latter’s failure as part of the State-enforced lawfare towards ensuring ontological
The Norton Anthology: English Literature. Ninth Edition. Stephen Greenblatt, eds. New York: W.W. Norton & Company, 2012. 2308. Print.
Abrams, MH, et al. Eds. The Norton Anthology of English Literature. New York. W.W. Norton & Company, Inc., 1993.
Don Quixote is considered as the first modern novel and one of the most important modernist elements available in the novel is the exploration of characters’ inner worlds, especially of Don Quixote’s. Through inner exploration of the main character, the readers observe that the real and the illusionary are interoperable within Don Quixote’s perceptions of the outside world. In that sense, a post-modern concept which suggests that truth is multifaceted and it’s a creation of mind emerges in the novel. In postmodernist sense, the notion of truth still exists, however it is no longer a problematic issue and assumed to be self-evident and self-justifying as Hutcheon argues (34). Similarly, the notion of truth is there throughout Don Quixote, but it is taken beyond everyday perceptions of the real world. It represents what Erasmus claims in In Praise of Folly: “The reality of things depends solely on opinion. Everything in life is so diverse, so opposed, so obscure, that we cannot be assured of any truth” (as cited in Fuentes, viii). Dissolution of boundaries between truth and untruth, leads to the elimination of an absolute truth and that is reflected as a postmodernist theme in Don Quixote.
Don Quixote is a parody of comedic relief and historical reference written by Miguel de Cervantes. The storyline follows the misadventures of a manic Don Quixote in his distorted view of reality. Cervantes uses the trajectory of Don Quixote’s madness to reveal that there is lunacy in everyone.
Conclusively, throughout Don Quixote, Miguel Cervantes explores the transformation of reality. By doing this, he critiques and reflects conventional societal literary norms. In three distinct scenes, Don Quixote or his partner, Sancho, transform reality. Often they are met with other’s discontent. It is through the innkeeper scene, the windmill scene, the Benedictine friar scene, and Quixote’s deathbed scene that Cervantes contemplates revolutionary philosophies and literary techniques. The theme of reality transformation does not even stop there. Sometimes the transformations of reality scenes act as a mimetic devices. Ultimately, Miguel Cervantes use of transformative scenes acts as a creative backdrop for deeper observations and critiques on seventeenth-century Spanish society.
Spanish life, thought, and feeling at the end of chivalry. Don Quixote has been called
Gabriel García Márquez story, Big Mama's Funeral, is a story filled with fantastical scenes and events much in line with Don Quixote and Candide. The introductory paragraphs of Big Mama's Funeral and Candide sound so similar in voice the two authors could be mistaken for the same. In Candide, one finds a series of episodes that are so far from the truth and yet perfectly explainable. The story of the fate of Dr. Pangloss, the death and resurrection of Cunegund and of her Jesuit brother, and the story of the old woman with one buttock are farcical in the same way as the episodes in Big Mama's Funeral. In Don Quixote, we find a man, for the most part average, who wishes to become a knight-errant. In his quest is as series of happenings so ridiculous they are nothing short of tabloid-style sensationalism, or drug induced hallucinations.
Murphy, B. & Shirley J. The Literary Encyclopedia. [nl], August 31, 2004. Available at: http://www.litencyc.com/php/speople.php?rec=true&UID=2326. Access on: 22 Aug 2010.
Don Quixote is one of the oldest forms of the modern novel. Written in the early 17th century it follows the adventures of Don Quixote and his sidekick Sancho Panza. In Don Quixote, Cervantes satirizes the idea of a hero. Don Quixote sees himself as a noble knight among the ignorant common folk, but everyone else sees him as a bumbling idiot who has gone mad. Therefore, the novel’s longevity in the western canon is due to the humorous power struggle and the quest of a hero Don Quixote faces throughout the story.
...E. "Teaching The Novel." Huck Finn's "Hidden" Lesson: Teaching Across the Color Line. N.p.: Lanham, Rowman, and Littelfield, 2006. 81-85. Print.
The Norton Anthology of English Literature. Sixth Edition Volume1. Ed. M.H.Abrams. New York: W.W.Norton and Company, Inc., 1993.
Miguel de Cervantes' greatest literary work, Don Quixote, maintains an enduring, if somewhat stereotypical image in the popular culture: the tale of the obsessed knight and his clownish squire who embark on a faith-driven, adventure-seeking quest. However, although this simple premise has survived since the novel's inception, and spawned such universally known concepts or images as quixotic idealism and charging headlong at a group of "giants" which are actually windmills, Cervantes' motivation for writing Don Quixote remains an untold story. Looking at late fifteenth- and early sixteenth-century Spain from the viewpoint of a Renaissance man, Cervantes came to dislike many aspects of the age in which he lived, and decided to satirize what he saw as its failings; however, throughout the writing of what would become his most famous work, Cervantes was torn by a philosophical conflict which pervaded the Renaissance and its intellectuals--the clash of faith and reason.