ENGL 217
Prof. G. Steinberg

Response Paper:  Don Quixote, Part I

We have seen how the fabliau in the hand of Boccaccio is very different from its medieval counterpart.  Don Quixote gives us an example of what the Renaissance did to the romance.  Some people argue that Cervantes put the last nail in the coffin of the Middle Ages.  After Cervantes, there was no more going back.

What is clear is that Don Quixote shows us two sets of values.  Don Quixote, believing himself to be a medieval knight from a romance, upholds one set of values, and everyone else, living in 17th-century Spain, upholds another set.  Since Don Quixote gives us two sets of values in conflict with one another (as Don Quixote travels the countryside and continually gets into trouble with everyone else), it's only natural to wonder whose values are better.

Choose one of the following areas as the focus of your response paper:

1. What is the difference between the two sets of values?  What does Don Quixote value?  What do the people around him value?  Why do their values come into conflict with his?  Look at a specific episode or chapter that seems to you to illustrate the conflict best.
2. Don Quixote may seem like a fool at times, but I'd like you to look very closely at what he actually does and says.  Why is Don Quixote mad?  What is wrong with his thinking?  Is it so very wrong?  If not, wherein is it right?  Wherein lies its flaw?  What does Don Quixote stand -- and stand up -- for?  Why are his values ridiculed as madness by all who meet him (except maybe Sancho Panza)?  Are they right to ridicule him?  Look at a specific episode or chapter that seems to illustrate Don Quixote's madness best.