The Life Of Don Quixote and Sancho

Book excerpt: The Life Of Don Quixote and SanchoA very personal essay on Don Quixote, the great work of Miguel de Cervantes, by one of the most quixotic intellectuals in Spanish culture.The philosopher and writer Miguel de Unamuno published this exemplary work on 'Don Quixote' coinciding with the third centenary of the publication of the first part of the famous novel (1605). It is an original statement in defense of Don Quixote's character and his mission as a chivalrous knight.As has been the case throughout his literary career, Unamuno used his writing as a pretext for -or a means to explore- the intellectual and philosophical issues that interested him. For this reason, Don Quixote is shown here under the philosophical lens of the prevailing existential schools of thought. Instead, its author Cervantes is treated in a very secondary way, and sometimes even with a certain antagonism.Unamuno not only narrates, but also exalts and even venerates the figure of the 'ingenious gentleman', whom he transforms into a kind of 'pseudo-God' or 'pseudo-Christ' figure in which to invest his copious religious faith.Miguel de Unamuno