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Deep Analysis of Don Quixote: Slashing at Wineskins (Ch.28-52) (Patreon)

Published:
2021-09-02 15:32:34
Imported:
2026-06
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Content

The first part of Don Quixote is coming to a close.

Take a moment to note down your impression, along with the date you finished this part, as the second part of this mammoth read is quite different in tone.

In this video, we're talking about the interpolated novellas, moral absolutism, perspectivism, the high ideals imposed upon Dulcinea, art for art's sake, the oral tradition of chivalric romance (plus archetypes and narrative templates), finding your own life in fiction, and much more.

As usual, I have bolded a few key discussions in the timestamp collection below for those who wish to jump around.

Introduction

  • 0:00 the 10-year wait between Part One & Two
  • 2:00 Cervantes’ interpolated novellas
  • 10:00 Joseph Campbell’s monomyth

Chapters XXVIII-XXX

  • 12:00 Dorotea, damsels in distress, and deception
  • 14:00 Sancho’s stolen donkey
  • 16:00 Don Quixote’s moral absolutism (vs moral relativism)
  • 19:00 Dulcinea as surrogate for the Christian God

Chapters XXXI-XXXII

  • 20:00 the collaborative act of character creation
  • 22:00 Don Quixote and Sancho’s conceptions of Dulcinea
  • 25:00 can a novel be harmful?
  • 28:00 reading aloud in public vs solitary reading
  • 29:00 the value of vicarious experience
  • 30:00 Dostoyevsky as the schismatic nature of literature
  • 32:00 becoming a ‘second Don Quixote’

Chapters XXXIII-XXXIV

  • 34:55 the structure of romance
  • 36:00 the archetypes of romance fiction
  • 37:00 why audiobooks connect to the original reading tradition
  • 39:00 the imagined audience of these stories
  • 40:00 courtly love is not real love
  • 42:00 the novelas ejemplares of Anselmo and Lothario
  • 43:00 perspectivism in Chaucerian tales of cuckoldry
  • 44:00 Cervantes, perspectivism, and the roles we play

Chapters XXXV-XXXVI

  • 45:00 Don Quixote slashing the wineskins
  • 47:00 blood into wine and Christian transubstantiation
  • 48:00 the many layers of reality, and Sancho losing his mind
  • 50:00 curing with more of the same?
  • 51:00 Don Quixote’s discourse on arms vs letters

Chapters XXXVII-XLII

  • 53:00 how stories reflect life
  • 54:00 how Cervantes rewrites his own life
  • 55:00 can you find your own life in these stories?
  • 56:00 book club as magic inn
  • 57:00 Don Quixote is present even when absent

Chapters XLIII-LII

  • 58:00 why does Don Quixote fill his world with enchantment?
  • 1:01:19 Mambrino’s helmet, Montaigne, Nietzsche, and perspectivism
  • 1:04:00 the 10 commandments of chivalry
  • 1:05:00 the end of Part One
  • 1:08:00 preparing for Part Two

Questions to Consider

1) How would your reading experience change if you had to wait ten years before Part Two?

2) Do you find yourself more in sympathy with Don Quixote's idealism or Sancho Panza's earthiness? 

3) Our knight errant and squire love to talk to each other. And their conversations are catalysts for character change. Has a conversation ever changed you? 

Happy reading! 

Deep breath as we embark upon Part Two!

Files

Previews only

Deep Analysis of Don Quixote: Slashing at Wineskins (Ch.28-52)

0:00 the 10-year wait between Part One & Two 2:00 Cervantes’ interpolated novellas 10:00 Joseph Campbell’s monomyth 12:00 Dorotea, damsels in distress, and deception 14:00 Sancho’s stolen donkey 16:00 Don Quixote’s moral absolutism (vs moral relativism) 19:00 Dulcinea as surrogate for the Christian God 20:00 the collaborative act of character creation 22:00 Don Quixote and Sancho’s conceptions of Dulcinea 25:00 can a novel be harmful? 28:00 reading aloud in public vs solitary reading 29:00 the value of vicarious experience 30:00 Dostoyevsky as the schismatic nature of literature 32:00 becoming a ‘second Don Quixote’ 34:55 the structure of romance 36:00 the archetypes of romance fiction 37:00 why audiobooks connect to the original reading tradition 39:00 the imagined audience of these stories 40:00 courtly love is not real love 42:00 the novelas ejemplares of Anselmo and Lothario 43:00 perspectivism in Chaucerian tales of cuckoldry 44:00 Cervantes, perspectivism, and the roles we play 45:00 Don Quixote slashing the wineskins 47:00 blood into wine and Christian transubstantiation 48:00 the many layers of reality, and Sancho losing his mind 50:00 curing with more of the same? 51:00 Don Quixote’s discourse on arms vs letters 53:00 how stories reflect life 54:00 how Cervantes rewrites his own life 55:00 can you find your own life in these stories? 56:00 book club as magic inn 57:00 Don Quixote is present even when absent 58:00 why does Don Quixote fill his world with enchantment? 1:01:19 Mambrino’s helmet, Montaigne, Nietzsche, and perspectivism 1:04:00 the 10 commandments of chivalry 1:05:00 the end of Part One 1:08:00 preparing for Part Two

Comments

Peter F

I am moving backwards in my reading schedule. Just finished “War and Peace” last year. Not reading now, but enjoying your lectures, Ben. Choosing “Don Quixote” for my first semester big read. Time is short. My daughter is heading to University in the Fall and work remains successful/busy. So, I want to jot some thoughts on DQ before I forget: Pg 288 (Penguin) end of Chapter XXXI. Andrés returns and shames DQ. This is the first real shame that DQ receives in front of others than SP…. “because they can’t possibly be so great that your help won’t make them much worse!” (Andrés). A forceful blow to DQ. The narrator comments in the next paragraph “DQ was plunged into embarrassment by Andrés’s tale, and the others had to stifle their laughter…” I do not know the details of coming chapters, but perhaps begins to waken DQ from his stupor Pg 293 (Penguin) – Dorotea says “Our host could almost play second led to DQ”. Cardenio concurs that the Innkeeper believes the chivalric tales to the letter. The priest then tries to convince Cardenio it is only fiction saying, “ because it’s all make-believe fiction invented by idle minds…for passing the time of day.” But, the Innkeeper refutes these claims. So, the exercise I walk through is this: I am secularist (priest, Cardenio and Dorotea in this scenario) and I approach a Moron ( the Innkeeper) and say, ‘this is nonsense what you read/believe in your books…Joseph Smith was a charlatan…why do you give 10% of your wages to Latter Day Saints. They have $100 billion in their church coffers, more than most countries’ Sovereign Wealth Funds and it’s likely never been taxed. Maybe it’s enough?” Would the Moron I reproached not respond in a similar manner to me as the Innkeeper to the priest! “You can go throw that bone to another dog!” So, what is real? Real can be relative, as the banter between DQ and SP exemplifies. But, for the pragmatic person, the route DQ is taking (to this juncture in the novel) is lunacy. But, the parallel can be drawn to many other people in contemporary society, who base their laws and life on a divine fantasy. But who am I to say what is real? Perhaps tithing 10% to the LDS is a better return on investment than tax deferred growth with an average return of 8% in one’s retirement account. 293 (Penguin) is very rich. Cervantes was a very progressive thinker. This is why work is immortal.

Scott W

Ten years is a long time in (my) reading but I certainly would have re-read DQ a few times over. That would have made me all the more familiar with the characters and their escapades in Part One, and more excited when Part Two was available. Funnily, in the early chapters to Part Two, the graduate talks about how people share the first book around so much it becomes weathered and worn and everybody knows the stories so well (which had me giggling so much - because they only just got home in the narrative!). I expect my copy of DQ to become very worn indeed over the years. As it is, I left it just a few days but then really wanted to press on with the next part. DQ and SP have been friends as I read a chapter each morning and I didn’t want to be without them for too long. Do I find myself more in sympathy with Don Quixote's idealism or Sancho Panza's earthiness? I think they balance one another out, and you do see this balance developing towards the end of Part One and in the beginning of the next part. However, DQ’s idealism is so inspiring and worth serious meditation. He’s no lunatic. He is bending his reality. I think we can do that a lot more than we think we can, and we do it less than we perhaps should. How many of us never write because we think, ‘Well, I could never write Moby Dick..’, or never learn guitar because, ‘Well, I could never play like Clapton.’ Right. Maybe we can’t write or play like that - but is that really reason to not write or play at all? Sure, if we decided to believe we were great writers or musicians, we might look a bit deluded to someone more ‘grounded’ in reality, but our own lives would be enriched by the freedom that perspectivism would grant us. (I find I keep banging this same drum every DQ thread I come to, so I’m going to have to find something else to say about the book at some point!) Our knight errant and squire love to talk to each other. And their conversations are catalysts for character change. Has a conversation ever changed you? I’ve spent some time in weekly counselling (psychotherapy?) over the last few years, and there have been some landmark conversations in those sessions. It was never like my therapist told me something I didn’t know which had an immediate effect, it was more gradual, and the change came more from within the self than outside. An accumulation of small insights that I was helped to by the other party conversing with me and listening and feeding back, eventually accrued into ‘something shifting’. But yes, I do remember some of those shifts as ‘before and after’ moments. I can’t say I remember any such conversations with friends or family though. But perhaps all conversations change us in some small way? I currently believe to a large extent, ‘we are the sum of the signals we receive’, a signal being a conversation, a relationship, an article, a movie, screen time.. whatever our sense are consuming are signals, so whatever we experience shapes us and whatever we experience regularly, especially so. So conversations do of course change us in a small way, and regular conversations, especially so. Some conversations are very surface level of course, with empty language, turns of phrase and so on that we don’t really hear anymore. Some conversations go deeper and effect us more, especially if we trust the person and value what they have to say, and they listen to us too. Conversation like that, and writing/journalling, and even talking to yourself (I find!) Somehow helps us make sense and process things more than just internal thought alone, which I find, often just goes in circles without really finding much resolution - like pushing against a wall, perhaps? I am loving my morning twenty minutes with DQ. :)