The Enduring Power of Don Quixote
The word quixotic, defined as being “exceedingly idealistic; unrealistic and impractical,” as well as the phrase “chasing (or tilting at) windmills,” meaning fighting a lost cause, have become part of our everyday speech. Their origin? One of the great classics of Western literature, Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. Written more than four hundred years ago, Cervantes’ great work still speaks to us today. But why is this “Man of La Mancha” on my mind?
Amazingly, last week in the span of about an hour, I encountered Don Quixote in three separate classes. The first reference came in my own class where my 9th grade English students are reading the contemporary novel called Balzac and the Little Chinese Seamstress by Dai Sijie. Set in China during Mao’s horrific Cultural Revolution, the novel explores what happens when two impressionable young men come upon a treasure trove of forbidden Western classics. One of the boys recalls fondly that his aunt had read Don Quixote to him before Mao’s Red Guard confiscated and destroyed such books. “It was about an old knight errant,” the boy recalls, “and it was a great story.”
Coincidentally, our AP Spanish Literature class is delving into Don Quixote right now as well, reading in the original Spanish of course, and spending quality time exploring the book’s themes and literary techniques. I spoke to Angela Espinosa, a DU professor who is helping cover CA Spanish teacher Sonia Sitja’s classes for a few weeks, that same day. She confirmed for me that the enduring power of Cervantes’ book is because it’s a novel “that questions sanity vs. insanity, reality vs. fantasy, art vs. life. I think that Cervantes' playfulness in raising these questions--his way of fostering these questions in his readers--is ultimately very liberating for all of us.”
Finally, and even more coincidentally, I encountered Quixote in the Digital Video Portfolio class that same day. Visiting artist Rob Milazzo, a filmmaker and teacher from New York, was running a discussion about the upcoming film called The Man Who Killed Don Quixote. This Terry Gilliam-directed epic has been twenty years in the making, and will finally get its release this spring. Gilliam’s fascination with the topic ironically has made him quixotic in his own right as the seemingly cursed history of the project has become something of a cautionary tale for other ambitious filmmakers. If you recall any of Gilliam’s previous films (Time Bandits, Brazil, The Fisher King), you can anticipate this new movie will be a wild ride.
So there you have it: three different subject areas, one great novel. The enduring power of a classic made abundantly evident! All of us teaching the book either directly or indirectly rely on the fact that Cervantes’ language (even in translation) and timeless themes will continue to speak to younger readers today.
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