Cervantes and Shakespeare #229462

Don Quixote is now invested with a glory of which Cervantes never dreamed. At the time of its publication, and long afterwards, it was regarded simply as an amusing book. The author himself records that the average Spaniard clamoured for more Qu'ixotades: let Don Quixote charge and let Sancho babble, and, no matter what it be about, we shall be content with that But from the outset there were always a few who read the book with other eyes and greater understanding. There were some, it appears, who 'would have been pleased had the author omitted some of the trouncings inflicted on Senor Don Quixote in various encounters'. It was not till the romantic movement began to develop that the deeper wisdom of Cervantes's great book was tardily disengaged from the more visible humours of the story: this is well brought out by a French writer, M. J.-j. A. Bertrand, in Cervantes et le romantisme allemand, an interesting monograph which, by the irony of chance, was published during the summer of 1914s. Schlegel and the rest are entitled to due credit for their clear-sightedness. The trick of symbolic inter pretation has now been learned by many, and some of these prac titioners have obtained bizarre results. It is tolerably plain that the author of Don Quitote made sly allusions at times to persons and things that he disliked. But when we are invited to believe that his book is a caricature of some of the most glorious figures in his country's history, a satire on the army in which he served, and a covert attack on the church of which he was a devout member, our confidence in our guides diminishes.