Don quixote: on laughter, cruelty and other pursuites

Abstract

Cervantes invents the modern novel. Don Quixote and its sidekick, Sancho Panza, traverse a universe full of adventures, double toil and trouble, turning into two characters who move to reflection, laughter, and tears through the author’s groundbreaking narrative techniques. The novel is a hymn to freedom, to reason and madness—the realization of literary utopias.