The imprint of the classical world in the characterization of Don Quixote, Sancho and Teresa Panza: Chapters V and VI of the Second Part

Abstract

The possibility of glossing specific aspects of the history of Don Quixote from the source from which Cervantes’s inspiration could spring, opens new boundaries in the enjoyment and use of the masterpiece of Spanish Literature. Not only it is an alternative way of discovering and endorsing deep nuances of the author which criticism has intuted or discovered in other ways, and which with this additional help gain greater strength; it also supposes a greater understanding of the difficulty that Cervantes himself revealed in the prologue of his second installment with the tales of madmen and a technical explanation of how he managed to reach the height of a masterpiece, so rich and full of universal ideas, reasons and contents.