Don Quixote, Part 1
by Miguel de Cervantes
Don Quixote was so immersed in the reading of knightly romances that he himself decided to become a losing knight. Accompanied by his faithful curly Sancho Panza, his exploits develop in all sorts of wonderful ways. While Quixote's fantasy often leads him astray – he leans into windmills, imagining them as giants – Sancho acquires cunning and a certain insight. A logical lunatic and a wise fool, they travel the world together, and together they have haunted readers' imaginations for almost four hundred years. With its experimental form and literary acting, Don Quixote was often considered the first modern novel. The book was a huge influence on many writers, from Fielding and Stern to Flaubert, Dickens, Melville, and Faulkner, and they re-read it once a year, "just as some people read the Bible," so does the second part of Don Quixote.
