In reading Don Quixote

Abstract

The article is devoted to close reading of The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha. The author supplies his literary-critical and existential comments to various episodes in the novel. He discusses the novel’s relation to myth and parody as well as the possibility of such an interpretation of ‘quixotism’ and statements that would resonate with the present-day realia. Reading the book again, the critic recognises it as the epitome of parody. Thomas Mann referred to parody as a myth (imitation, following in somebody’s footsteps). Here, parody gave rise to a new myth. The scene of the book burning would probably read more interesting if one had the knowledge of those books and could perceive the poignancy of this highly relevant intimation, this literary jibe — to the fullest extent, as we do while reading certain jibes in the modern press. But for this to happen, Cervantes will need his own Bakhtin. The critic suggests that Cervantes’ idea of the book underwent changes in the process of the novel’s writing, and so did the writer’s self-awareness: the author in the second part is noticeably different from the author in the first.