A Comparative Overview Between the Duo Characters of Don Quixote Dela Mancha and the Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo

Abstract

Cervantes’ influence in Albanian literature has not been studied much by Albanian literary criticism, but there is still a lot of interest in finding the traces that literature leaves in another literature, revealing the reciprocal communication between them. Cervantes’ influence with Don Quixote of La Mancha the work of the Albanian famous writer Dritëro Agolli, The Rise and Fall of Comrade Zylo, which conveys the actualization of two archetypal characters of the work of Cervantes in the Albanian literature. The study of Cervantes’ grotesque occupies an important role in the analyses the Albanian literary criticism makes to Quixote. This literary figure is closely related to the creativity of many Albanian writers in the years of dictatorship, and grotesque is considered as a direct influence of Cervantes. Don Quixote of La Mancha is not considered timeless only because the fact that after centuries it continues to be published, read, translated into new languages, but most importantly, we think that literature does not stop being influenced by Don Quixote of La Mancha.