“Don Quixote” by Cervantes (post 5): At Yale, Professor Roberto González Echevarría makes four contradictory interpretations of Don Quixote’s madness.

Down-to-Earth Madness

“…literary madness is not sufficient for Cervantes, so he gives us more about [Don Quixote’s] mental condition…What I mean is, this is not an allegorical madman; this is a particular madman with a specific illness…It is not just a literary madness” (1, p. 39).

Transcendental Madness

“Don Quixote’s most original feature as a character of fiction is his insanity. It gives him a certain transcendence. He is truly the first insane protagonist in Western literature; there have been others since but none with this kind of transcendental form of madness” (1, p. 141).

Bubble or Dream Madness

“Don Quixote returns home…to the familiar, to the place where he was Alonso Quixano, where he was sane. This makes the entire series of episodes that make up the whole book, his madness, all the more like a bubble or a dream” (1, p. 332).

Metaphor for Life’s Unreality

“So Don Quixote’s death as Don Quixote and his rebirth as Alonso Quixano are not enough to close the book; Alonso Quixano also had to die, but only if the theme of the book is—as I believe it is—the unreality of worldly life and our hope for a real life after death” (1, pp. 333-334).

Comment

As the professor says, “this is a particular madman with a specific illness…It is not just a literary madness.” So why doesn’t he discuss this particular madman’s specific illness? To say that “the theme of the book is…the unreality of worldly life and our hope for a real life after death” is to avoid the issue.

1. Roberto González Echevarría. Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Based on the popular open course at Yale University. New Haven, Yale University Press, 2015.