5 Lessons from Cervantes

Volume IV

This Volume IV on Cervantes is the final in my Cervantes series on the novel Don Quixote de La Mancha. I discuss the remaining chapters in this great, sprawling novel about honor, passion, imagination, delusion, tragedy, and comedy set in the Spain of the 1500s and 1600s. What is interesting, as this pioneering novel winds down, is the continued and surprising emergence of Sancho Panza, the peasant squire of Don Quixote, as the central character of the novel. His combination of malapropisms, ubiquitous proverbs often beside the point, shrewd common-sense realism, and authentic, deep affection for Don Quixote (and also Sancho's affection for his own donkey and the gentle horse Rocinante belonging to Don Quixote) make Sancho the unforgettable central character despite our conventional assumptions. Both characters are perfect complements to each other: the unserious but shrewd realist Sancho balances the grave, honorable Don Quixote with his passionate and unrestrained imagination. This is a novel full of insights about our human lives and how to live and enjoy them.