IVIV Saunch

[Doug Millison]

Mark the K:
With his lawyer named Saunch, is this where we get Doc as Quixote? A  
knight against the night about to turn epic---joke?
---

I smile every time I think of Don the Q.  Enjoyed reading the Edith  
Grossman translation a couple of years back, bought it at an el Greco  
exhibit in NYC.

Speaking of green and red:
http://www.el-greco-foundation.org/The-Annunciation-%28detail-1%29-1597-1600.html
That url looks funky, it's "The Annunciation" at http://www.el-greco-foundation.org

And here's an interesting example of reading Cervantes' influence on  
another author:

http://bartleby.com/220/0306.html

The Cambridge History of English and American Literature in 18 Volumes  
(1907–21).
Volume X. The Age of Johnson.

III. Sterne, and the Novel of His Times.

§ 6. Tristram Shandy and Don Quixote.

The name of Cervantes has been mentioned. And Sterne himself does not  
make any attempt to conceal that Cervantes was his model. Others— 
Rabelais, Montaigne, Burton, the last especially—may have provided  
hints and suggested methods. That, however, is only for the more  
discursive and abstract parts of the story. In the humorous handling  
of character, Sterne’s master was Cervantes and none other. My uncle  
Toby and corporal Trim are variations, but variations of genius, upon  
Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. Yet, on taking over the suggestion,  
Sterne has made it entirely his own. And the differences are even more  
strongly marked than the resemblance. Neither master nor servant, in  
Sterne’s creation, has the universal significance which makes itself  
felt even to the most casual reader of Don Quixote. And this is true  
of the relation between the two men no less than of each as taken by  
himself. There is nothing in Sterne of the contrast between sense and  
spirit, between the ideal and the material, which gives a depth of  
unfathomable meaning to the twofold creation of Cervantes. Trim is in  
no wise the foil of his master. Still less is he his critic. The very  
thought would have filled him with dismay. He is uncle Toby’s devoted  
follower, the ardent sharer of his dreams, the zealous agent of their  
fulfilment, hardly less warmhearted, hardly less overflowing with  
kindness, a point or two shrewder and less unworldly, by many points  
less simple and more studious of effect, moulded of slightly coarser  
clay but on the same general pattern; altogether, far more his  
counterpart than his opposite. The relation between the two is full of  
beauty, as well as of humour. And, just because it is so, it is wholly  
different from that which Cervantes has cunningly woven between Sancho  
and Don Quixote.
   12
   But yet further differences are to be noted. Both Don Quixote and  
uncle Toby are possessed with a dream. So, for that matter, is Walter  
Shandy. But the dream of the knight, though absurd in appearance, is,  
in essentials, noble and heroic. Those of the Shandy brothers—no  
ingenuity can conceal the fact—are futile and childish. To follow them  
is to watch “Nestor play at push-pin with the boys.” Don Quixote may  
tilt at windmills; but all his thoughts are for the weak and the  
oppressed. As for uncle Toby, “our armies in Flanders” may be upon his  
lips; but all he cares about is toy cannons and tin soldiers. The one  
point of vital resemblance is the fervour with which each rushes in  
pursuit of his delusion. The heavens might fall; but Don Quixote would  
still worship Dulcinea as a princess. The world might come to an end;  
but Toby would still be rearing midget demilunes, his brother still be  
spinning paradoxes and striking impressive attitudes.
   13
   Thus, when all is said and done, the contrast goes even deeper than  
the resemblance. And this accounts for a difference of method which  
could hardly otherwise be explained. Cervantes is so sure of his  
hero’s nobility that he is not afraid to cover him with every outward  
mark of ridicule. Sterne puts forth all his art to make us forget the  
futility of the craze which he has imagined for the central figure of  
his story. There are moments, it must be confessed, when the  
ridiculous in Don Quixote is pushed further than we are willing to  
endure. In such moments, it is clear that the satirist has got the  
better of the creative artist; and it is not on the hero, but on the  
author, that our resentment is, instinctively, apt to fall. Our  
admiration is proof against all that Cervantes himself can do to  
undermine it. Could the intrinsic nobility of his conception be more  
decisively driven home? Put either Toby or Walter Shandy to the same  
test, and who shall say that either of them would come through it? The  
delicate raillery of Sterne is not too much for them to bear. Before  
the relentless satire of Cervantes, they would shrivel into nothing.