An animated film imported from abroad in 1980s and 1990s shows an old man riding a donkey with a sword and shield in his hand, trying to save the world. He is serious and cute.

Don Quixote (the protagonist in Don Quixote by Spanish writer Cervantes)

This is very famous. Come to science popularization.

background

Cervantes is now arguably the most famous writer in Spain. Some people call him "the father of modern novels", but he will never know this, because in his life, despite his heroic achievements in the battlefield, he has always been frustrated and poor. Even though he devoted himself to literary creation, his works once sold well, but they were never recognized. At that time, people in literary circles held a contemptuous attitude towards his masterpiece Don Quixote, thinking that it was just a "leisure book for people to read" and could not be elegant, and the publication of this book did not improve his material life at all. Throughout his life, in the eyes of his contemporaries, he was just a poor poet or a second-rate writer, and his life seemed to be a failure-history is sometimes so ruthless and absurd. But gold will shine one day. When history turned a new page, people began to pay attention to his masterpiece Don Quixote, and Cervantes himself won people's fair evaluation after closing the coffin.

Cervantes

About the author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547- 16 16) is a Spanish novelist, playwright and poet in the Renaissance. He was born on September 29, 1547 and April 28, 2006. He is regarded as the greatest writer in Spanish literature. Critics call his novel Don Quixote the first modern novel in the history of literature and one of the treasures of world literature. His life experience is a typical Spanish adventure. He was born in/kloc-Spain in the 6th century, which was an exciting time. The Moors who believed in Islam were driven back to North Africa, and Spain was unified from region to religion. With the support of the Spanish court, Columbus discovered the new continent. Ocean exploration promoted the prosperity of colonialism, and the plunder of America stimulated the development of domestic industry and commerce. In some cities, capitalist relations of production began to sprout, and Spain had more than 1000 ships sailing around the world, becoming a powerful feudal empire that ruled Europe. However, Spain's prosperity was extremely short-lived. Philip II, the autocratic monarch, launched many failed wars abroad, which not only exhausted the assets of the national treasury, but also made Spain lose its position as a maritime hegemon.

At home, feudal nobles and monks still maintain their privileges, and exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes are varied, which makes the uneven distribution between the rich and the poor more prominent and class contradictions increasingly intensified. Although the autocratic monarchy colluded with the Catholic Church and used the Inquisition to suppress all progressive ideas and people's resistance, humanistic ideas were still spread and a number of outstanding writers emerged.

Cervantes was born in a poor family, and his father was a tramp surgeon. Because of the hard life, Cervantes and his seven brothers and sisters followed their father everywhere until 1566. His wandering childhood made him only receive secondary education.

At the age of 23, he went to Italy and became a vassal of Cardinal Julio. A year later, he refused to be content with the status quo, which prompted him to join the Spanish army in Italy and prepare to fight against the invading Turks. He took part in the famous battle of Labando. In this battle, 24 warships of the Spanish-led joint fleet severely damaged the Turkish fleet. Cervantes stuck to his post in spite of illness, and was injured three times in the fierce battle, and even his left hand was amputated. Since then, he has been called "Le Bando's one-armed man". After four years of military service, he returned home with a letter of recommendation from Juan, commander-in-chief of the Christian Coalition forces, and the governor of Sicily to the king of Spain.

Unfortunately, he met a Turkish pirate ship on the way and was taken to Algeria. Because of these two letters of recommendation, the Turks regarded him as an important person and prepared to extort a huge ransom. As a slave, Cervantes organized escapes again and again, but they all ended in failure. However, his courage and courage won the trust and love of the prisoners, and even the Turks who enslaved them were impressed by his indomitable spirit. 158 relatives and friends finally raised money to redeem him. He was 34 years old that year.

Cervantes, who returned to China as a hero, did not get the attention of King Philip and was busy with his life all day. While writing a book, he worked as a clerk in the government, a quartermaster and a tax collector. He was exposed to rural life and was sent to the United States on business. He was arrested and imprisoned more than once, because he couldn't pay the taxes he should have paid, but some of them had accidents. Even part of his immortal Don Quixote was conceived and created in prison. He died of poverty and disease.

Cervantes likes literature very much. When he was in danger, selling literature was the only way for him to support his wife and children. He used literary language to advertise one businessman after another and one commodity after another. He wrote countless lyric poems and satirical poems, but most of them didn't arouse much response. He also wrote thirty or forty plays at the invitation of the theater, but it didn't achieve the expected success after being released. 1585 published the pastoral novel Galatia (the first part). Although the author is very satisfied with this, it has not attracted the attention of the literary world. Cervantes began to write Don Quixote in his fifties. Don Quixote is a valuable cultural heritage. The life experience of Don Quixote as a ranger in the book exposes the darkness of society, criticizes the tyranny of the church and reveals the sufferings of the people. Don Quixote and his servant Sancho are two typical images in western classical literature.

The first edition of Don Quixote was published on 1605, which immediately swept the country and was reprinted six times in a year. Although this novel failed to get Cervantes out of poverty, it won him immortal honor. The book's satire and ruthless ridicule of the current disadvantages were dissatisfied and hated by feudal nobles and the Catholic Church. 16 14 published a fake sequel, which, from the standpoint of the church and the nobility, distorted and vilified the image of the hero of the novel at will and maliciously slandered and attacked Cervantes himself. In order to resist the bad influence of fake books, Cervantes rushed to write the second part of Don Quixote, which was released in 16 15. In addition, in 16 13, a collection of stories about punishing evil and promoting good was published, which included 13 excellent short stories, including tortuous love stories, descriptions of social customs and some philosophical discussions. The book describes the evils of feudal society and the poverty of the lower classes in Spain, affirms human nature and personal freedom, and angrily protests against social injustice. These realistic short stories full of humanistic thoughts occupy an important position in Spanish Renaissance literature.

Among his works, Don Quixote is the most famous and influential, and it is the most outstanding work in Spain and Europe during the Renaissance.

abstract

Don Quixote was originally named Don Quixote Terra Man. In the preface, the author stated: "This book is only a satire on knight literature", aiming at "completely destroying the territory of knight literature". But in fact, the social significance of this work exceeds the author's subjective intention. In this work of nearly one million words, the whole Spanish society appeared in the 6th century and the early 7th century. About 700 characters, including dukes, duchesses, feudal landlords, monks, priests, soldiers, craftsmen, shepherds, farmers and men and women of different classes, sharply and comprehensively criticized the politics and laws of feudal Spain in this period.

Don Quixote, the hero of the work, is an immortal typical figure. According to the book, this thin, sad-looking little aristocrat was fascinated by chivalry literature, and even rode on a thin old horse, Luigi Nanti, found a rusty spear, put on a helmet with holes, and wanted to be a ranger, hoe the strong and help the weak and defend the people. He hired Sancho Panza, a nearby farmer, as his entourage and rode behind him on a donkey. Don Quixote imagined a milkmaid in a neighboring village as his female protector and named her Toposo da Cynthia. So he went out looking for adventure as a knight without a formal title. He completely lost his sense of reality, fell into a rambling fantasy, and treated everything with idealism. So he made a lot of troubles, suffered a lot, and made a lot of jokes, but he was still stubborn. He regarded the country inn as a castle and the boss as a castellan, forcing the boss to make him a knight. The shopkeeper was so happy that he played a joke on him. He took the book of horse account as the Bible, hit him twice on the shoulder with the back of Don Quixote's knife, and then asked a shoemaker's daughter to help him hang the knife. The sealed knight Don Quixote walked out of the inn and took the spinning windmill as a giant. He rushed up to fight it, and he was black and blue all over. He took the sheep as an army and rushed to fight. The shepherd boy hit him in the face with a stone and broke his teeth. Sancho Panza corrected him again and again, but he never believed him. He also treated a barber as a soldier, gave him a head-on blow, and regarded the copper basin from victory as the famous Mann-Bourinot helmet. He treated a group of criminals as persecuted gentlemen, killed them and saved them. He asked them to go to the village to thank their sponsors, but they beat them badly. His friends tried many ways to get him home. In the second volume, he continued to take risks and suffered a lot, which made him sick. One of his friends, Samson carrasco, pretended to be a samurai and knocked him down, so he was punished to stop being a ranger for one year. Don Quixote did not repent until he died.

This character's personality is dual: on the one hand, he is insane and ridiculous, but it is he who represents lofty moral standards, fearless spirit, heroic behavior, firm belief in justice and loyalty to love, and so on. The crazier he is, the greater the disaster he causes. Almost everyone who meets him will encounter disaster, but his excellent moral character is more distinct. Sancho Panza originally followed Don Quixote as the "governor", but it was for this reason that he was reluctant to leave. Don Quixote is ridiculous, but he is always the embodiment of idealism. He has infinite sympathy for the oppressed and the weak. From many chapters, we can find that he praised freedom and opposed oppression and slavery in warm language. It is also through this typical example that Cervantes declared the end of religionism with sadness. This just reflects the social mentality of the Renaissance when the old beliefs collapsed and the new beliefs (bourgeoisie) failed.

Sancho Panza, Don Quixote's attendant, is also a typical image. He was created to set off the image of Don Quixote. His image sets off the theme of the decline of faith from the opposite side. Don Quixote is full of fantasy, while Sancho Panza starts from reality. Don Quixote is an ascetic monk, and Sancho Panza is a hedonist. Don Quixote is rich in knowledge, while Sancho Panza is illiterate; Don Quixote is thin and tall, and Sancho Pansha is fat and short. He, Sancho Panza, is a farmer with the shortcomings of small business owners. But when he is really put in the position of managing an island (actually a village), he can handle affairs impartially, without favoritism or corruption. Later, because I couldn't stand the teasing of the nobles, I left my job. He said, "I came naked and went naked. I didn't suffer, and I didn't take advantage. This is where I am different from other governors. " Commenting on Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, Mr. Zhu Guangqian said: "One is Don Quixote who is full of illusory ideals and fights with a windmill with a spear to show chivalry, and the other is Sancho Panza who wants to enjoy life from wine, food and high officials. One of them is a ridiculous idealist and the other is a ridiculous pragmatist. But Don Quixote belongs to the past, and Sancho Panza belongs to the future. With the rising influence of the bourgeoisie, the ideal person is not Don Quixote, but Sancho Panza. "

In terms of creative methods, Cervantes is good at depicting the hero's character with typical language and actions, repeatedly emphasizing the character's personality with exaggerated methods, and boldly using some opposing artistic expressions alternately, which has both thought-provoking tragic elements and comedy elements. Although the structure of the novel is not rigorous enough and some details are inconsistent, it is a big step forward compared with previous European novels in terms of reflecting the depth and breadth of reality and portraying the typicality of characters, marking a new stage in European novel creation. Many famous European writers spoke highly of Cervantes, such as:

Goethe: "I think Cervantes' novels are really a delightful and instructive treasure house. "

Byron: "Don Quixote is a sad story. The more people laugh, the more sad they are. The hero's sole purpose is to uphold justice and surrender the bad guys. It is those virtues that make him crazy. "

Heine: "Cervantes, Shakespeare and Goethe became the three-headed rule, reaching the peak in narrative, drama and lyric creation."

Hugo: "Cervantes' creation is so ingenious that it can be described as seamless;" "The protagonist and Sancho, riding their own animals, are one integrated mass, ridiculous and sad, touching ..."

Belinsky: "In all the famous literary works in Europe, seriousness and comity, tragedy and comedy, triviality and vulgarity in life, greatness and beauty all blend so well ... This example only appears in Cervantes' Don Quixote. Abstract is selected from Xu Baogeng's Journey to Western Literature (Part I) (Hebei Education Press, 2003).

achievements of art

Don Quixote seems absurd at first glance, but in fact it implies the author's profound understanding of Spanish reality. The author uses satirical and exaggerated artistic techniques to combine reality with fantasy to express his views on the times. Realistic description is dominant in Don Quixote, and it is completely different from the decorative landscape description in the old knight novels in terms of environmental description. The author takes epic scale as the main stage, and the appearance is mainly civilians, with nearly 700 people. Under this broad social background, he painted a series of social pictures with their own characteristics and interrelationships. The author's method of portraying characters is also a combination of reality and fiction, with praise in negation and hints in absurdity, which is very artistic.

The famous Nigerian writer Aux said with emotion: "Life is alive. If there is anything that must be read, it is Don Quixote.

When I first came into contact with this novel, I was young and just thought it was funny. I'm used to reading China's traditional novels with plots, but I have nothing to say except that I am riding a tall and thin horse with armour and his donkey has a chubby cartoon-like image. When I read this novel again, it was already college time. I learned about the development of foreign literature and what knight literature is. I find Don Quixote an alternative to traditional knight literature, because I think traditional knight literature is tragic and elegant. The absurdity of other chivalrous literature seems to be like Stephen Chow's nonsense movies. As far as literary style is concerned, I always think that there is not much difference between good and bad (because I think that even if there are some flaws in any literary form, it is only summed up after comparing the history of literary development, but it has its own advantages in occupying a period in cultural history and influencing that generation). If we put Tang's novels in the cultural atmosphere of the Renaissance at that time, we would insist on attacking knight novels. When Cervantes wrote Don Quixote, he planned to write several short stories. Later, he wrote his own life experience and life ideal. His thoughts became more and more rich, and his characters became more and more realistic, until he described the disasters brought by Spanish society to the people and became an encyclopedia for us to understand and study the politics, economy, culture and customs of Spanish society at that time.

From this point of view, the broad social picture and overflowing rich thoughts displayed in the book are far from a simple motive to sweep away knight novels.

A classic book will always give people different feelings and new enlightenment. People with different times, different life experiences and different ideal goals in life will have different understandings. Such a work will not only be translated into many languages at that time, but also new versions will appear with the evolution of the times, which is the vitality of the work. When I realized this, I suddenly realized: Isn't Don Quixote such a work? Since ancient times, ideal and reality have always been an irreconcilable contradiction around human beings. Don Quixote profoundly and vividly reveals this contradiction in the form of literature, which makes every generation feel that it is true and agrees with it. Don Quixote is a poor squire. He is crazy about knight literature. He not only yearned for chivalry in his heart, but also put this desire into action. He left home several times to help the weak, and made a vigorous career to go down in history. However, times have changed, and chivalry has long since become history. Naturally, he could not become a knight, so he had to rely on fantasy to realize his wish to become a knight, and he did many stupid, absurd and even crazy things: he regarded the windmill as the devil's head and rushed to fight it regardless of his own safety. As a result, it caused losses to others and I suffered greatly. In today's society, as big as the country (it is reported that the United States after 9 1 1 is like Don Quixote in Sese's works) as small as each of us, it seems that there is a shadow of Don Quixote.

Secondly, from an artistic point of view, Cervantes laid the foundation of modern novels in the world through the creation of Don Quixote, that is to say, some writing techniques of modern novels, such as truth and imagination, seriousness and humor, accuracy and exaggeration, story setting in the story, and even the author's pointing fingers when he walks into the novel, all appeared in Don Quixote. For example, in Don Quixote, stupidity and intelligence and erudition, absurdity and truth and kindness, incompetence and courage and tenacity are in such conflict. This is a ridiculous but not evil, even lovely visionary. Sancho, the figure to be imitated, has both the same side and the opposite side, with similarities and differences. In contrast, if Hall is similar, it is that he is not only stupid, but also has a little flash of wisdom in his trial as "governor". If Don Quixote is a clever fool, then Sancho should be a wise man among fools. In addition to these two prominent and contrasting protagonists, the book also portrays 700 characters with different occupations and personalities, who reflect the times and reality from different angles. The significance it brings may not be deeply felt by modern people who are full of various multidimensional stimuli of electronic multimedia synthesizing music images all day, but at that time, people's only way of entertainment was reading by burning lights, so it was as early as17th century, so he was the first person in modern novels. Just because he is the first person, Don Quixote's influence on Spanish literature, European literature and even the whole world literature is immeasurable.