Super SUMMARY of Don Quixote de la Mancha

Don Quijote of La Mancha is the best-known novel of Spanish literature and was written by Miguel de Cervantes. This extensive work tells us about an alleged knight (Don Quixote) who goes on adventures with his squire Sancho Panza, to conquer the heart of his beloved Dulcinea.

The book is divided into 4 parts of different length, following the structure of Amadis of Gaul, one of the most famous chivalric books of the time. In this lesson of a PROFESSOR we want to make you a don quixote summary by chapters, the most read book in the world, after the Bible.

We start this summary of Don Quijote of La Mancha, a novel that is presented as a satire to the chivalric novels, so successful and acclaimed at the time.

The work begins with a Foreword in which Cervantes mocks all the scholars of the time with some poems that use cultured words, but that reflect everyday realities. With this beginning, the author already shows his readers where his work will be focused.

After this note from the author, the work begins

describing the main character, Don Quixote, as a poor hidalgo. The real name of this character is only revealed to us at the end of the work: Alonso Quijano. This hidalgo is from an indeterminate place in the stain and the author presents him as mad for having read so many chivalric novels. Don Quixote thinks that he is a medieval knight.

The character then decides to give himself a name according to his position: Don Quijote of La Mancha, he baptizes his horse as Rocinante, he takes the old weapons that he had kept at home and chooses a lady with whom he is in love. It is here that Don Quixote he starts the first exit of it.

Don Quixote's first departure

When he hits the roads, he remembers that he has not been knighted, so he enters the first castle he sees (an inn) and asks the king (landlord) and his ladies (prostitutes) to name it as such. Then the knight goes on his way again, this time with more certainty. As he advances, a series of tragic and comic adventures, caused by the knight's idealism to help others and fight evil.

He does all this while being very clear about the deep love that he has for his beautiful lady. Dulcinea del Toboso (a farm girl named Aldonza Lorenzo).

try save a boy from the whipping of his master, he challenges the merchants to accept that his lady is the most beautiful and finally he is beaten and found by a neighbor who returns it to the village. His niece and the housewife treat his wounds and take care of him until he recovers.

second exit

While Don Quixote is still in bed, the priest and the barber arrive at his house. they burn their entire bookstore to prevent this from becoming more crazy. At that moment, Don Quixote, who believes that all this with the books has been the work of some enchanters and realizes that he will not be able to continue with the adventure on his own. He knows that he needs help, so he asks his neighbor to be his squire.

His squire is a farmer named Sancho Panza, to whom he promises great riches, including making him governor of some kingdom that he conquers in his adventures.

Once he is accompanied, Don Quixote decides go out again in search of more adventures, this time with Sancho Panza, his faithful helper. The first adventure with which he faces is the best known of the entire work. Don Quixote fight giants that turn out to be windmills:

"In this they discovered thirty or forty windmills that are in that field, and just as Don Quixote saw them, he said to his squire:

Fortune is guiding our things better than we could wish for; because you see there, friend Sancho Panza, where thirty or a little more wild giants are discovered with whom I intend to do battle, and take away all the lives, with whose spoils we will begin to enrich: that this is a good war, and it is a great service to God to remove such a bad seed from the face of the earth. Earth.

"What giants?" said Sancho Panza.

"Those you see there," replied his mistress, "with long arms, which some of them usually have, almost two leagues long."

"Look, Your Grace," replied Sancho, "those who appear there are not giants, but windmills." wind, and what appear to be arms in them are the blades, which, turned by the wind, make the stone of the windmill.

"It seems very well," answered don Quixote, "that you are not trained in this matter of adventures; they are giants, and if you are afraid, get out of there, and pray in the space that I am going to enter with them in a fierce and unequal battle.

And saying this, he spurred his horse Rocinante, without paying attention to the voices that his squire Sancho she gave him, warning him that without a doubt they were windmills, and not giants, those that he was going to undertake. But he was so convinced that they were giants that he neither heard the voices of his squire Sancho's, nor did he notice, although he was already very close, what they were; I used to say out loud:

-Non fuyades, cowards and vile creatures, that a single gentleman is the one who attacks you.

At this point a little wind arose and the large blades began to move, which Don Quixote saw and said:

-Well, even if you move more arms than those of the giant Briareo, you have to pay me.

And saying this, and commending himself wholeheartedly to his lady Dulcinea, asking her to help him in such a trance, well covered with his buckler, with his lance at the ready, he charged at Rocinante's full gallop, and charged with the first windmill that was in front of; and giving him a lance on the cross, the wind turned it with such fury, that he broke the lance to pieces, taking after him the horse and the knight, who went rolling very battered through the field. Sancho Panza came to help him as fast as his ass could run, and when he arrived, he found that he could not move, such was the blow that Rocinante dealt him..."

We continue to know the summary of Don Quijote of La Mancha, speaking, now of the second part of the book; but, specifically, from chapters 9 to 14.

The protagonists begin to live a series of adventures, most of which end badly, and not because of Sancho Panza's warnings, but because of Don Quixote's stubbornness. In the first adventure, Don Quixote beat a young man that he was supposedly harassing a female passerby, although she makes it very clear that she does not require the gentleman's services.

Rocinante, the horse got too close to a herd of mares and the muleteers got angry, beating up the two protagonists. Beaten and wounded, the two men enter an inn, where they try to rest. At night, Don Quixote mistakes a prostitute for the landlord's daughter and he thinks the girl is in love with him. This makes the innkeeper angry, who hits the couple again.

The next morning, Don Quixote and his squire heal their wounds for the last time and set off again. Next, the novel narrates another of Don Quixote's most famous adventures. When he sees two herds of sheep he imagines two armies about to charge, so he takes sides with one of the teams and starts fighting the other until the shepherd's horse charges him.

That same night, Don Quixote attacks a group of people dressed in mourning accompanying a coffin to his burial in another city. Next, the two friends sleep in the forest thinking that they are surrounded by giants and that they will attack them. The next day they meet a group of prisoners and Don Quixote, believing them to be slaves, frees him. The payment of his favor is another beating for the gentleman.

Then Don Quixote and Sancho Panza advance in their adventure and enter Sierra Morena, where the gentleman confesses to his friend who Dulcinea del Toboso really is and asks her to deliver a letter. So the two characters they separate.

The priest and the barber, who have left the village in search of the knight, convince Dorotea to pass themselves off as Princess Micomicona, with the aim of bringing him back to her village. The three of them disguise and they appear before Don Quixote to execute his plan. The princess asks Don Quixote to accompany her and he willingly accepts.

They spend the night in the previous inn and in it they coincide various supporting characters that intermingle their stories to create an elaborate and mysterious plot. All the conflicts that the secondary characters deal with are of a sentimental nature, so Don Quixote helps them solve them with his lucid speech. everyone stays amazed by the words of the knight and each resolve their conflict.

Once he has finished helping the other guests at the inn with his wise words, Don Quixote returns to his old ways and begins to tell stories of knights and princesses, who get on the nerves of their audience. That same night the battle against the giant of the inn takes place, when in reality the only thing he is doing is fighting against the red wine leathers and spoil all the drink.

Maritornes, the innkeeper's daughter, as revenge for the situation she put him through the previous time the gentleman stayed at the inn, she made him a trick on Don Quixote. He left him tied and hanging by one hand on one of the walls of the inn.

Finally, everyone decides to work as a team to control don quixote: they tie him up, tell him that he has been enchanted and put him in a cage from which he cannot escape, to transfer him back to the village. When they get home, the protagonist is once again cared for and healed by his niece and the housewife.

This is the moment when the novel of Don Quixote de La Mancha ends, although the author promises that there will be a second part.

We hope that this lesson has helped you to know the summary by chapters of Don Quixote. If you are interested in continuing to learn more about this topic or something similar, do not hesitate to consult our reading section.