Won is especially significant as a contribution to the novel and to the literature of the comic. Since it grafts upon the stock of old romance the element of observation of actual, it is one of the first of modern nov els. Although its plot is episodic and inverte brate, it reflects the world of men and nature with a precision nowhere earlier equalled out side of picaresque fiction. Landscape is given in a few strokes incidentally, but men are seen in great variety, especially the folk of the road. If most are drawn merely as to externals, the two principal figures are studied both within and without. They are consistent vital beings who can accept the test of any character; that is, they can be divorced from all they do and remain alive. Their conduct in other situations can be predicated as exactly as that of persons whom we know. Character, indeed, is here more fully revealed than ever before in prose fiction, and the means for its revelation are not description and analysis but speech and ac tion. Power of characterization through dia logue is Cervantes' greatest technical achieve ment.
As a comic epos, (Don Quixote) is equally notable. For the comic is here present in all its phases, severally and combined, in unusual de gree. The comic as burlesque is to be found in the parody of incidents from the romances of chivalry — the knight's watching of his armor, his decoction of a magic balsam, his voyage with Sancho in an enchanted bark, and their aerial flight astride a wooden horse. The comic as farce is to be found in incongruities of situ ation resulting from rude practical jests and confusions by night at inns. The comic as sa tire is to be found in assaults upon chivalric and pastoral follies, upon physicians, duennas and the governors of Spanish colonies. The comic as wit is to be found in an unflagging play upon words and ideas, as in Sancho's ver bal mistakes and his wealth of proverbs. More noteworthy, however, than these four forms of the comic are two others — irony and humor in which this novel excels. In irony the in congruous relation 'is emphasized negatively, as when Don Quixote, watching a puppet show, destroys the Moorish puppets that threaten the Christians, and then asks proudly, °Who now can doubt the good of knights errant?" In humor the incongruity concerns character, the humorist exhibiting with genial toleration the clash of inharmonious natures, as when Cer vantes shows Don Quixote determined. in emu
lation of love-sick knights, to go mad and dash his head against a rock, whereupon Sancho, un able to understand his master's motives, begs the substitution of cotton, and promises to tell the lady that this substance was rock as hard as any diamond. Humor, indeed, marks the whole relationship of squire and knight, and even their conduct apart, as when the Don re jects the advances of the fair in order to re main true to his Dulcinea, or Sancho, having wisely ruled his island— a mere bend in a river— is fooled by a pretended martial at tack upon it, and, relinquishing ambition, re turns with relief to humble life. Here one feels a touch of pathos, but if there be any lim itation in the humor of this work, it lies in the rarity of such moments wherein English humor abounds.
The influence of Quixote' has been extraordinary. Although the romance of chiv alry was already dying or dead, and Byron was wrong in assuming that Cervantes °laughed Spain's chivalry away,° this book, translated into all modern languages, has been the subject of countless allusions and hundreds of adaptations in the literature of the world. It has contributed more than any other single work to the development of prose fiction. To trace this influence in detail would require a volume.
Of 'Don Quixote) some 700 editions have appeared at home and abroad. In English the first translation was that of Thomas Shelton (1612). Other versions by Philips, Stevens, Motteux, Jarvis and Kelly were popular in their day but have been superseded by those of H. E. Watts (1888) and John Ormsby (1904). The influence of this novel upon English literature is studied by Gustav Becker in 'Die Aufuahme des Don Quijote in die englische Literatur' (1906). The standard English life of Cer vantes is that by James Fitzmaurice-Kelly (1892).