Don Quixote

Within Miguel de Cervantes piece, Don Quixote, there are many elements of Renaissance-style Humanism. First of all, its important to know what humanism meant during this time period. According to http://www.jcn.com/humanism.html, Renaissance styled humanism is "the spirit of learning that developed and renewed confidence in the ability of human beings to determine for themselves truth and falsehood." Being that Don Quixote is a story that discusses a man who so deeply immerged himself within fictional stories that he himself now is in a fictitious "reality" as a knight, this enables the readers, such as myself, to determine the truth value of Don Quixote as a knight. Cervantes upholds humanism during his time by allowing the character, Don Quixote to display important knightly characteristics. If Cervantes did not want to uphold Renaissance-style Humanism within this literature, he would not have had Quixote become more knightly as the story progresses. Being that Quixote does progress into a more mature "knight" this forces readers to ask themselves, "is Quixote truely a knight or just a crazy man living in a fantasy world?"

I think the overal attitude the author has towards his main character lessens the opinion readers have in regards to Quixote. There were moments within the piece that it was difficult not to think that Quixote wasnt crazy. Also, one of the ways the writing influenced my opinion was that, i felt sympathy for Quixote which, in the end would be very offensive to a "knight." I do not necessarily think that Quixote is insane and, i confidently do not think that his surroundings make him "appear crazy." Its possible that Quixote started out a little crazy and this is supported by page 2229, "our gentleman became so immersed in his readings... he eventually went out of his mind." Clearly, Quixote did go out of him mind but, I think that towards the end, when he was given support, he really did end up showing very strong characteristics of a knight. Win a dier situation, Quixote did rise to the occasion and not only helped a young boy from being beaten, but also did so with great confidence. This confidence is found on page 2239, "He will do nothing of the sort," said Don Quixote. "It is sufficient for me t command, and he out of respect will obey." It may just be my optimistic ways revealing themselves but, I dont think Quixote was crazy. He was definitely a little odd and could have probably chosen better choices of words in certain situations but, overal, he was just in his own world. In this world of his, he was a knight who wanted to create justice out of injustice.