Some Thoughts on teaching Don Quixote.
Don Quixote by Miguel Cervantes de Saavedra (1547-1616) was written originally in Spanish. It is very long, very old, and (in The War Against Cliché) Martin Amis has described it as “outright unreadable”.
Why then would I suggest it as a great book to use in teaching Speech and Drama grades?
Many students have the ‘Amis attitude’ when they first approach Shakespeare. Most of them, a monologue or so later, have changed their minds. For many his plays become a particular passion. While Shakespeare is regarded as the world’s greatest dramatist, Cervantes’ Don Quixote is seen as the world’s greatest and most influential novel.
Cervantes and Shakespeare were contemporaries (they died on the same day) and many of the thematic concerns of Don Quixote are as universal as those of Shakespeare’s plays. Their two most famous heroes, Hamlet and Don Quixote are often compared. Both characters are driven by obsessions seen by others as madness. Both refuse to compromise their ‘unrealistically’ high ideals. Both have a more down-to-earth side-kick. And Hamlet and Don Quixote were published on the same day.
Shakespeare and Cervantes are monumental landmarks on the literary landscape, and both have had enormous influence on subsequent world literature. Too big to miss.
Readers who encounter Shakespeare and Cervantes will find their traces here and there ever after – in allusion, themes, vocabulary (“quixotic”), characters and plots. In literature, music, art and life.
In both cases some experience of the original works tends to make them less daunting, especially when students have the chance to ‘become’ the characters.
And some of Cervantes’ characters and situations lend themselves to really enjoyable student performances, while extending their understanding of literary genres, styles, influences, conventions and archetypes.
Don Quixote’s high-minded and grandiose reflections and crazy actions make for great character roles, as do Sancho Panza’s more down-to-earth contributions with his inexhaustible supply of proverbs. And I can imagine students delighting in the sheer contrast of these characters while devising duologues. Who doesn’t enjoy situations where the ‘fool’ knows more than the wise man? The comedy of Shakespeare’s fools is enough evidence of the dramatic effectiveness of this device.
The protagonists’ encounters with other characters could also supply interesting material: Cardenio’s story (the probable inspiration behind the lost play thought to be written by Shakespeare and Fletcher), visits to inns, the meeting with the ‘enchanted’ Dulcinea and more.
Sections of the book would of course also be suitable for prose readings.
Some of the many themes explored include Courtly Love, Idealism / Pragmatism, Romance, Knights, Quests, Journeys, Dreams and Visions, Reputation, Rebellion, Madness / Sanity, Friendship, Loyalty, Adventure, Battles, Reality / Unreality, Truth / Fiction.
While the book is known chiefly as the prototype of the novel, there is much drama within it, and even some reflection on the theme of acting. The story begins with Don Quixote’s decision to ‘act out’ the life of chivalrous knighthood, an obsession he has gained from much reading of books in this genre.
So he equips himself with the trappings of this Chivalric code by whipping up a makeshift suit of armour and setting off on a quest for heroic adventures. He ‘casts’ the rough country girl, Aldonza as his fair lady or damsel who will inspire him and persuades the bemused Sancho Panza to act as his offsider or squire.
At one point Quixote tells Sancho,
I know who I am and who I may be if I choose.
And elsewhere:
In my childhood I loved plays, and I have always been an admirer of the drama. Plays are the semblance of reality, and deserve to be loved because they set before our eyes looking-glasses that reflect human life. Nothing tells us better what we are or ought to be than comedians and comedy.
Role playing involves choice and is in a way a form of literary experience. This humanising experience, described so well by C S Lewis, is what we look for in reading, studying and acting literature.
"Literature enlarges our being by admitting us to experiences not our own. They may be beautiful, terrible, awe-inspiring, exhilarating, pathetic, comic, or merely piquant. Literature gives the entrée to them all. Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom realize the enormous extension of our beings that we owe to authors….My own eyes are not enough for me….
In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in a Greek poem, I see with a thousand eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself: and am never more myself than when I do." An Experiment in Criticism C.S. Lewis
In Don Quixote we not only have this experience but we see the hero himself having it. The ramshackle knight transcends himself as do those with whom he shares his adventures. The musical, Man of La Mancha, inspired by Don Quixote, celebrates this triumph of transcendence in its theme song, Dream the Impossible Dream.
And Don Quixote continues to inspire readers to aim high, to have aspirations, and, in spite of setbacks, to have fun along the way.
Texts
2005 was the 400th anniversary of the first instalment of Don Quixote. The year saw the publication of a new translation by Edith Grossman and of a retelling for children by Barbara Nichol.
There are many other translations, abridged and graphic versions and also a number of stage adaptations.
Novel
Don Quixote. By Miguel De Cervantes Translated by Edith Grossman. Ecco, 2003, ISBN 0-06-018870-7;
Adaptations for Stage
Don Quixote Anne Ludlum & David Quicksall (Stageplays.com)
Don Quixote Anne Stoddard and T. Sarg. (in Moses, Montrose Jonas,
Another Treasury of Plays for Children)
Don Quixote of La Mancha Arthur Fauquez The Anchorage Press
Musical
Man of La Mancha Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion, Mitch Leigh Random House
from The Voice Magazine NSW Speech and Drama Association April 2013
editor: Zita Denholm Triple D Books Wagga NSW
Why then would I suggest it as a great book to use in teaching Speech and Drama grades?
Many students have the ‘Amis attitude’ when they first approach Shakespeare. Most of them, a monologue or so later, have changed their minds. For many his plays become a particular passion. While Shakespeare is regarded as the world’s greatest dramatist, Cervantes’ Don Quixote is seen as the world’s greatest and most influential novel.
Cervantes and Shakespeare were contemporaries (they died on the same day) and many of the thematic concerns of Don Quixote are as universal as those of Shakespeare’s plays. Their two most famous heroes, Hamlet and Don Quixote are often compared. Both characters are driven by obsessions seen by others as madness. Both refuse to compromise their ‘unrealistically’ high ideals. Both have a more down-to-earth side-kick. And Hamlet and Don Quixote were published on the same day.
Shakespeare and Cervantes are monumental landmarks on the literary landscape, and both have had enormous influence on subsequent world literature. Too big to miss.
Readers who encounter Shakespeare and Cervantes will find their traces here and there ever after – in allusion, themes, vocabulary (“quixotic”), characters and plots. In literature, music, art and life.
In both cases some experience of the original works tends to make them less daunting, especially when students have the chance to ‘become’ the characters.
And some of Cervantes’ characters and situations lend themselves to really enjoyable student performances, while extending their understanding of literary genres, styles, influences, conventions and archetypes.
Don Quixote’s high-minded and grandiose reflections and crazy actions make for great character roles, as do Sancho Panza’s more down-to-earth contributions with his inexhaustible supply of proverbs. And I can imagine students delighting in the sheer contrast of these characters while devising duologues. Who doesn’t enjoy situations where the ‘fool’ knows more than the wise man? The comedy of Shakespeare’s fools is enough evidence of the dramatic effectiveness of this device.
The protagonists’ encounters with other characters could also supply interesting material: Cardenio’s story (the probable inspiration behind the lost play thought to be written by Shakespeare and Fletcher), visits to inns, the meeting with the ‘enchanted’ Dulcinea and more.
Sections of the book would of course also be suitable for prose readings.
Some of the many themes explored include Courtly Love, Idealism / Pragmatism, Romance, Knights, Quests, Journeys, Dreams and Visions, Reputation, Rebellion, Madness / Sanity, Friendship, Loyalty, Adventure, Battles, Reality / Unreality, Truth / Fiction.
While the book is known chiefly as the prototype of the novel, there is much drama within it, and even some reflection on the theme of acting. The story begins with Don Quixote’s decision to ‘act out’ the life of chivalrous knighthood, an obsession he has gained from much reading of books in this genre.
So he equips himself with the trappings of this Chivalric code by whipping up a makeshift suit of armour and setting off on a quest for heroic adventures. He ‘casts’ the rough country girl, Aldonza as his fair lady or damsel who will inspire him and persuades the bemused Sancho Panza to act as his offsider or squire.
At one point Quixote tells Sancho,
I know who I am and who I may be if I choose.
And elsewhere:
In my childhood I loved plays, and I have always been an admirer of the drama. Plays are the semblance of reality, and deserve to be loved because they set before our eyes looking-glasses that reflect human life. Nothing tells us better what we are or ought to be than comedians and comedy.
Role playing involves choice and is in a way a form of literary experience. This humanising experience, described so well by C S Lewis, is what we look for in reading, studying and acting literature.
"Literature enlarges our being by admitting us to experiences not our own. They may be beautiful, terrible, awe-inspiring, exhilarating, pathetic, comic, or merely piquant. Literature gives the entrée to them all. Those of us who have been true readers all our life seldom realize the enormous extension of our beings that we owe to authors….My own eyes are not enough for me….
In reading great literature I become a thousand men and yet remain myself. Like the night sky in a Greek poem, I see with a thousand eyes, but it is still I who see. Here, as in worship, in love, in moral action, and in knowing, I transcend myself: and am never more myself than when I do." An Experiment in Criticism C.S. Lewis
In Don Quixote we not only have this experience but we see the hero himself having it. The ramshackle knight transcends himself as do those with whom he shares his adventures. The musical, Man of La Mancha, inspired by Don Quixote, celebrates this triumph of transcendence in its theme song, Dream the Impossible Dream.
And Don Quixote continues to inspire readers to aim high, to have aspirations, and, in spite of setbacks, to have fun along the way.
Texts
2005 was the 400th anniversary of the first instalment of Don Quixote. The year saw the publication of a new translation by Edith Grossman and of a retelling for children by Barbara Nichol.
There are many other translations, abridged and graphic versions and also a number of stage adaptations.
Novel
Don Quixote. By Miguel De Cervantes Translated by Edith Grossman. Ecco, 2003, ISBN 0-06-018870-7;
Adaptations for Stage
Don Quixote Anne Ludlum & David Quicksall (Stageplays.com)
Don Quixote Anne Stoddard and T. Sarg. (in Moses, Montrose Jonas,
Another Treasury of Plays for Children)
Don Quixote of La Mancha Arthur Fauquez The Anchorage Press
Musical
Man of La Mancha Dale Wasserman, Joe Darion, Mitch Leigh Random House
from The Voice Magazine NSW Speech and Drama Association April 2013
editor: Zita Denholm Triple D Books Wagga NSW