On this show, we are extremely fond of mythology.
And this month, we thought we'd investigate the "mythology of Spain".
Of course, that's not... actually a thing... but!
In our search, we did uncover an interesting literary tradition that held great significance
to Spain: The "Libros de Caballerias", or "books of chivalry".
Unlike the later "chivalric novel", which dealt with the deeds and biographic material
of actual knights, these books were full of monsters and fantastical realms, heroes of
superhuman strength and prowess.
In other words, they were utterly fictional.
We could easily have done a series on these alone-and maybe we will-but there's already
a very famous work of satire which deals with these stories in a far more...
intimate fashion than we ever could.
If you've ever taken a class on world literature (or even looked at a top-ten must read list),
you probably already know that we're talking about the famous novel Don Quixote, by Miguel
De Cervantes Saavedra.
For those who aren't familiar, Don Quixote is the tale of a man who becomes so obsessed
with these romantic "books of chivalry" that he falls under the delusion that he himself
is a knight-errant.
The novel's first part details his first and second sallies into his new chivalric world.
He finds for himself a "steed", a "squire", and a "princess" to complete the illusion,
and then embarks on a quest to do... very little.
At first, he mostly makes a fool of himself, engaging in small, imaginary skirmishes...
He acquires the mythical "helm of Mambrino", which is actually just a basin he wears on
his head; he gets into a number of losing battles with random travelers, mistaking them
for rogues; and most famously, he charges at a windmill thinking it's a giant, and gets
knocked from his horse by one of the sails.
Despite all of this, he manages to involve enough people in his fantasies to create some
actual results.
The climax of the first part hardly involves Quixote's blunders at all, focusing on a group
of lovers who are able to reunite because his delusions brought them together.
In the second part, we rejoin Don Quixote after a month-long hiatus.
He embarks on his third and final sally, but this time things have... changed.
This time around, Quixote doesn't cause nearly so much mischief.
Instead, over and over, he finds himself the butt of jokes and cruelties.
The people in this story have read the first installment of it, and Quixote has become
somewhat renowned as a madman.
He's invited to the court of a Duke and Duchess, who find no end of pleasure in playing with
his madness; he's paraded through the streets of Barcelona as, he thinks, a hero; and finally,
he's defeated by a false knight.
All throughout, we feel his chivalric spirit fading away.
Slowly, the role of leader drifts from him to his squire, Sancho Panza, who transforms
from a bumbling peasant into something competent and eloquent.
By the story's end, Quixote is so weak and disillusioned that he falls ill, renouncing
his knighthood altogether.
But before he dies, his friends-the priest, the barber, and the false knight Sampson Corrasco,
who had all been trying since the story's start get him to abandon his quest-beg him
not to.
Unfortunately, it's too late, and this is where the story ends.
Of course, this is a thoroughly abridged synopsis of the story.
There is a lot more to this novel beyond the plot and even the characters themselves.
We said before that Don Quixote is "satire", which means that it employs irony, exaggeration,
ridicule, or humor to provide a criticism of something.
But it's not just a satire: it's two competing satires in the same story.
It's what we call a "frame story"-that is, a story told within the diegetic framework
of another story.
We have the main story-Don Quixote, his exploits, and how they affect the people around him-and
then a sort of encompassing "super" story on top of it.
Miguel De Cervantes tries to enforce the idea that the story is actual history by narrating
through the voice of a fictional Moorish translator: Cide Hamete Benengeli, who is supposedly reading
the material from Arabic parchments.
Not only that, but in the author's preface, Cervantes interrupts himself to insert a quote
from a likely-fictional "friend" of his.
Both of these characters (and apparently Cervantes himself) carry an overwhelmingly negative
opinion of the romantic literary traditions of Spain, specifically those "books of chivalry"
we mentioned earlier.
In the words of Cervantes's "friend", the author's purpose in writing this story was:
"[...] the fall and destruction of that monstrous heap of ill-contrived romances, which, though
abhorred by many, has so strangely infatuated the greater part of mankind."
Looking at the hyper-vitriolic language Cervantes uses to describe romantic literature, it's
easy to assume that Don Quixote is a satire of those books of chivalry.
But if you pay very close attention, you begin to notice a contradiction: there's a disparity
between the authorial input and the subtext of the story itself.
The character of Don Quixote is Cervantes's representation of Spain's romantic traditions,
embodied by his mimicry of the libros de caballerias.
Though he appears to be inept, ineffectual, in some cases minorly harmful, the final result
of his adventures is positive.
He brings lovers together, provides simple joy and entertainment to a great many people,
even helps his closest and most involved friend-his squire, Sancho Panza-to discover himself and
embrace his place in the world.
Quixote becomes a genuinely sympathetic character by the novel's end, and the cruelty of his
audience-represented by the duke and the duchess-become the subject of criticism.
So it's a frame story, whose nested tales are actually two layers of competing satire.
The super story-Cervantes and his fictional translator-provides a very forthright criticism
of the negative qualities of romantic literature.
The main story, on the other hand, shows us how positive the influence of romance can
be, and, ironically, provides a criticism of its critics.
It might seem like a strange juxtaposition-obviously we're big fans of romantic literature here-but
it makes a lot of sense for the historical context of the story.
Cervantes wrote this well after the Spanish renaissance, during a time when the country
was decaying under Habsburg rule.
They were entering a literary "baroque" period, where cynicism and pessimism reigned.
Whether Cervantes embraced this shift away from romantic literature or resented it is
a matter for discussion, but his masterpiece, Don Quixote, provides us and excellent grounds
for discussion by satirizing both perspectives.
For this month's short story, we thought we'd take a shot at creating a multi-layered satire
of our own.
Like Cervantes, we'll try to set our authorial input at odds with our story's subtext to
create two competing satires at once.
Sounds... daunting, but it should be an interesting challenge.
If you'd like to give it a go as well, feel free to submit your attempts to us!
Links in the description.
We're approaching the video's end, but there were a lot of historical context details we
had to leave out for the sake of time, so if you want to get a better feel for why all
of this happened, definitely check out this video by our friend Suibhne.
Link also in the description.
And finally, if you'd like to help us make better videos faster-and claim so fun rewards
as well-we'd be really grateful for your support on Patreon.
Everything helps!
As always, thanks for watching, and keep making stuff up!
We'll see you... next week!
Bye!