Realism versus Idealism in Don Quixote
Cervantes' Don Quixote presents a classic illustration of the conflict between Realism and Idealism. The Knight of La
Mancha is a deluded idealist, for whom a peasant girl becomes a noble lady, and an inn a castle. His squire, Sancho Panza, is in contrast an earthy realist, whose chief "ideals" are to enjoy good meals and comfortable lodgings, and to stay out of trouble or danger as much as possible. Yet by the end of the novel, Don Quixote has emerged as a figure of dignity, while even Sancho has given in to idealistic standards of conduct. Through the centuries since it was written, reactions to Don Quixote have continued to reflect changing attitudes towards the ideal and the real (Close 1, 9, 37).
I. Don Quixote's Delusions of the Ideal
As a pursuer of the Ideal, Don Quixote is much more than
simply "unrealistic." Cervantes makes it clear at the very outset that Don Quixote is not merely idealistic, or naive or even eccentric, but plainly mad (Cervantes 60):
At last, when his wits were gone beyond repair, he came to conceive the strangest idea that ever occurred to any madman in this world.
This statement of Don Quixote's madness is not merely
stated once and forgotten; it is repeated frequently. The nature of this madness appears to be delusionary; he sees things not as they are, but as they ought to be.
Sometimes, Don Quixote's idealizations seem to be not purely delusionary, but at least partly witting. In renaming the peasant girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, he (Cervantes 63):
... wished a name that should not be incongruous with
his own and that would convey the suggestion of a
princess or a great lady; and, accordingly, he resolved to call her "Dulcinea del Toboso," she being a native of that place. A musical name to his ears, out of the ordinary and significant ...
This gives us the impression that he thought out consciously
the rec...