Spain experienced the growth of a strong national monarchy by the end of the fifteen century, a development that might have seemed unlikely at the beginning of the century. During the Middle Ages, several independent Christian kingdoms had emerged in the course of the reconquest of the Iberian peninsula from the Muslims. Aragon and Castile were the strongest Spanish kingdoms; in the west was the independent monarchy of Portugal; in the north the small kingdom of Navarre; and in the south the Muslim kingdom of Granada. Few people at the beginning of the fifteenth century could have predicted the national unification of Spain.

A major step in that direction was taken with the marriage of Isabella of Castile (1474-1504) and Ferdinand of Aragon (1479-1516) in 1469. This marriage was a dynastic union of two rulers, not a political union. Both kingdoms maintained their own parliaments, courts, laws, coinage, speech, customs, and politics. Nevertheless, the two rulers worked to strengthen royal control of government, especially in Castile.

Medieval Spain-Religion

   When reading this novel one could ask himself this question. Depending on ones interpretation of the role played by the knight, one could form either opinion. A statement by Lester Crocker in Hero or Fool by John Allen sums up the split in opinion "On one hand, Cervantes announces his subject as a satire; Don Quixote is a failure, Cervantes mocks him. On the other hand Don Quixote embodies the great spiritual forces of human aspiration, and Cervantes presents him as superior."(4) By pitting Quixote one can see our own disappointments; and by laughing one can see that he is no more mad than ourselves, but he said what one only thinks. Cervantes life seem to parallel Don Quixote’s with the promise and expectant joys of youth followed by the harsh realities of maturity. Just like Don Quixote, Cervantes never allowed his own problems to overwhelm him. Cervantes novel touches on parts of Spanish history and the parallels of reality, and calls on varies emotions from it’s readers. Cervantes was born in Alcal`a de Henares, September 29, 1547. When he was a student, a number of his poems appeared in a volume published in Midrib to honor the death of Elizabeth of Valois. Cervantes joined the Spanish regiment in Naples. He fought in 1571 against the Turks in the naval battle in Lepanto, were he lost the use of his left hand. While he was in route home in 1575, Cervantes was captured by Barbary pirates. For five year he try to escape with no avail, but was finally ransom by his family in 1580. After return to Spain in 1585, he took a government job as a tax collector to support himself. The government imprisoned him several times for failing to explain his tax-collecting activities. It was while he was in prison Cervantes conceived of the idea for Don Quixote. The first part was printed under the title The History of Valorous and Wittie Knight-errant Don Quixote of the Mancha in 1605.The second part was not published for 10 years, a year before his death. Don Quixote was a great success, However, Cervantes could not live on the profits, which was in part due to pirating novel. (Encart96Encyclopedia) Don Quixote has been translated in all modern languages and appears in some 700 editions. The novel has had a tremendous influence on the development of prose (straight forward) fiction. Don Quixote has been the subject of variety of works in other fields of art, including operas, poem, a German and Soviet film, a ballet and an American musical. The theme also inspired the 19th-century French artists Honore Daumier and Gustave Dore.(Encarta) Cervantes introduces Cide Hamete Benengeli a fictional Muslim narrator during the battle of Biscayan, this in part due to the history of the Muslim presence in Spain. Muslim and Christian coexisted on the Iberian peninsula, and for hundreds of years. They were of two different and distinct worlds, and had separate meaning to words. One example, the words "to be" had two separate meanings, the words suggest two different kind of being, one from the Latin and the other Arabic. The fusion of the two worlds enabled Cervantes to write the first modern novel in the Western tradition. Cervantes, was aware of both meaning, and balanced one against the other. Cervantes adopted the Christian understanding of fixed patterns, beginning ,and ending, and creator, and bind them with the Muslim literary experience, character development, unending rhythms and chain of events, and the Muslim doctrine of the universe. (Dayananda156) Cervantes masterpiece is base on different ways of perceiving reality. The reality of Don Quixote was to set the wrong in the world right, to protect the weak and oppressed, to bring about the "Golden Age" (27) which in his mind was something like the Kingdom of Heaven. Our own perception or interpretation is a matter of seeing or reading something in the present and interpreting it from our past experiences. An Example of this From the novel is Sancho inability to see what Don Quixote sees so obvious. Focusing on the adventure of the windmill, Quixote saw giants, whereas Sancho just saw windmills. After visiting Criptana Lewis J. Hutton said in Approaches to Teaching Cervantes: "If one goes to Criptana just before twilight, one could see how Don Quixote may have seen giants. In the way the windmills silhouetted against the sky, towers like monsters over the town."(155)Don Quixote insanity seems incurable, even if it is only confined to one delusion, this delusion shapes his whole reality. However, this delusion allows him lucid intervals were he can act and speak as sane as the most intelligent of all humans. It is important to understand that pity of Don Quixote as in Part I, the subject of pity is brought up following the speech on Arms and Letters; and it is Don Quixote himself who mention pity in Part II. To see himself as he does and find that he is the object of such an emotion as pity. In the letter he writes to Sancho he closes with this line: " I commend you to God, and may He keep you from becoming an object of pity to anyone."(846) The Castilian who scolds Don Quixote in the streets of Barcelona ends his speech with the statement "it is a very great pity to see the good sense they say the fool displays on all other subjects drained off like this through the channel of knight-errantry."(917) to which Don Quixote does not reply. . Don Antonio telling of his reason for masquerading as the Knight of the White Moon , Remarking "madness and absurdities inspire pity in all of us who know him." referring to Don Quixote. Some of the most successful of all the humor in Don Quixote comes from Sancho. Ones laughter flows because of the way the reader sees him, not through the eyes of his wife, or through the insight of his master, but through his inner self. In part II of the novel where Sancho is governor of Barataria assures laughter, as well as the incident of the Countess Mafalda, along with other occurrences that happen in the dukes castle are some of the best adventures in the novel. In part II the greatest part of the humor is that it is no longer external, but has become deeper and internal. With this Don Quixote and Sancho are drawn closer together. Cervantes manipulates the novel to where the principal characters are actually aware of the world that exist beyond the story. Cervantes also mentions himself as if he were a personage who exists together with the characters’ he manifest himself as an author, a friend of the priest and a soldier in the novel. He is everywhere and nowhere: as God is. By bring characters into the novel, who have read Part I of Don Quixote, he bring the public into the illusion. Therefor by making Don Quixote and Sancho aware of the world it gives them a real life instead of just fictional. As in the critical essay of Cervantes has brought up, can someone by pretending fiction is history turn verisimilitude (seeming to be real) into something as potent as historical truth.(LoweryNelsonjr.131) In other word bring illusion into reality or vise a versa’ this concept is throughout Don Quixote. Cervantes gives his novel multiple perspectives, he observes his novel not only as an author, but as character and reader as well. Cervantes seem to be playing a game with mirrors, by refraction, he add or seem to add another dimension to his novel. It is evident that noninterference was not only part of the theme of Don Quixote, but also the theme of Cervantes in his old age. He too spread himself to thin over the world and came back like Don Quixote to keep himself to himself. Before his novel even begins he warns his reader of noninterference: >From what concerns you not keep clear Nor into Lives of others peer, In this your wisdom will appear. Don Quixote is punished for disturbing without need, interfering with affairs that did not concern him and that he could only handle on the superficially. An example of this is the tell of Andres, when Quixote demand that Andres be set free, then leaves him to his employer and rides off well pleased. In a later chapter Andres reappears an tells that the tell dose not end there. No sooner was the knight’s back turned than his master tied him up again and nearly flayed ( to strip of the skin) him alive. I should have been better off, he says, if you had gone on your way without coming to where you were not called or interfering in other people’s affairs(I,31.)Don Quixote anger at the treatment of Andres was honorable, however his solution was insufficient. Don Quixote expression of faith in his commitments, is the main heroic ingredient in his fight with reality. Early in the novel the foundation of Don Quixote’s character is laid. As with the adventure of the silk merchant, Toledan. The knight demands that he swear to the beauty of Dulcinea. Toledan, ask to see a portrait of the lady, even one no big than a grain of wheat, " in order that we may not have upon our consciences the burden of confessing a thing which a thing we have never seen or heard" Where as Don Quixote states his opinion: "The important thing is for you , without seeing her, to believe, confess, affirm swear, and defend that truth" (45) This is in accord with Hebrews 11:1, with Saint Paul’s definition of faith : "Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen"(Saint James.) Don Quixote faith is strong and is being compared to the faith we have in Christ, who we have never seen, but who we confess to be real through faith. Don Quixote’s and Sancho’s relationship is strangely like that of Peter and Jesus. Man and master will come to form one in our mind, just like Peter and Jesus, as the human and the divine identities coincide in the figure of Christ. Don Quixote will forever be trying to teach Sancho in the secrets of his faith (Willam Byron 428.) Thomas Mann felt the true Christianity of Don Quixote is never so apparent as in the adventure of the lions, where Cervantes both elevates and humiliates his hero at the same time(Schwartz196.) As Don Quixote return home he has lost all his illusions, but his faith in Christianity still continues. The readers who say that Cervantes does not attack Don Quixote’s faith, are right, for this is the lesson of the "Story of the one Who Was Too Curious for His Own Good." Readers who say he is a hero, are right, because he dies victor over his own insanity. Readers who say that Cervantes did not attack Chivalric idealism ,are right, because Quixote is victor over himself before he renounces chivalry. However, readers who say Don Quixote is the object of Cervantes’ Satire, are right, Cervantes’ way of emphasizing on the knight’s pride allows one to laugh at the knight’s expense. Readers who say that Don Quixote’s mission was a failure, are right, because his defeats were deserved, not because his mission was foolish (Allen87.) Don Quixote’s own words while dictating his will lets the reader realize that Don Quixote is now and forever sane. "Not so fast, Gentlemen," said Don Quixote. " In Last year’s nest there are no birds this year. I was mad and now I am sane; I was Don Quixote de la Mancha, and now I am, as I have said, Alonso Quijano the Good. May my repentance and the truth I now speak restore me to the place I once held in your esteem"(986) Quixano achieves a genuine victory in his realization that the ills of the world cannot be defeated by extraordinary feats of knightly valor. The novels central message thus reaffirms the Spaniards’ obligation to renew their allegiance to Catholicism, the most vital constant of their culture and the only authentic expression of true Spaniard’s life.(Donald w. Bleznick)

Allen, John J.. Don Quixote Hero or Fool? University Presses of Florida, Florida, (1969).

Bell, Aubrey F. G.. Cervantes. University of Oklahoma Press, Oklahoma, (1947).

Bjornson, Richard. Approaches to Teaching Cervantes’ Don Quixote. Modern Language Association of America, New York, (1984).

Byron, William. Cervantes: a Biography. Double Day & Company Inc., New York,(1978).

Encarta(R)96 Encyclopedia. Microsoft Corporation, (1993-1995).

King James Version. Holy Bible. The World Publishing Company, New York, (1913).

Nelson, Lowry Jr..Cervantes: A Collection of Critical Essays Prentice-Hall Inc., New Jersey, (1969).

Putman, Samuel. The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote de la Mancha, Viking Press,New York, (1949).