Don Quixote

So in theory, the La Mancha team would be a smart idea, but that is where the commonalities end.

Don Quixote wasn't a gay man in a homophobic society, and Aldonza had never abandoned her children after driving her husband to suicide.

La Mancha was about the past glories of an imaginary hero.

Halloween was about the now.

Now, you see, Charlie should be impish, charming, and incredibly endearing.

Think like David Wayne or Robert Morris or Jack Cassidy.

José Ferrer was sonorous, blustery, and he radiated no charm, but he had played Don Quixote, so Marr liked that fact.

Maher even had Lee and Michaels write a pseudo The Impossible Dream in a song for Charlie called It Will Be Green Again about how you can always return to the beauty of the meadow after the harshness of spring.

Because he would go along with his father to the Free Trade Hall to hear the Hallé Orchestra.

and often the music that was performed had some sort of literary reference, like, for example, Don Quixote or A Midsummer Night's Dream.

And in his writing about music, he says that he came to literature by way of music, that he would hear something like The Midsummer Night's Dream overture first and then be curious to look it up.

And of course, there's a lot of popular song in the book as well, which is both.

I mean, you see the world operating more and more efficiently in this image.

It takes me back sometimes to Don Quixote, which was one of my favorite books.

And there's like an argument you could make where Sancho Panza kind of represents this very capitalist time is money type attitude that had taken over society and Don Quixote.

Make it

make sense.

Yes, like very rational.

And Don Quixote represents this figure lost in time who's trying to restore some of the magic and the uncertainty and the sparkle of the world.

There's a book called The Re-enchantment of the World that gets into some of this ideas.

Exactly as Cervantes took the old ideal of chivalry and showed what came of a man attempting to act as if it were real, so Ibsen takes the ideals of Brand and Peer Gynt and subjects them to the same test.

Don Quixote acts as if he were a perfect knight in a world of giants and distressed damsels instead of a country gentleman in a land of innkeepers and farm wenches.

Brand acts as if he were the perfect Adam in a world where, by resolute rejection of all compromise with imperfection, it was immediately possible to change the rainbow bridge between flesh and spirit into as enduring a structure as the Tower of Babel was intended to be, thereby restoring man to the condition in which he walked with God in the garden.

And Peer Gynt tries to act as if he had in him a special force that could be concentrated so as to prevail over all other forces.

They ignore the real, ignore what they are and where they are, not only like Nelson shutting their eyes to the signals a brave man may disregard, but insanely steering straight on rocks no man's resolution can move or resist.

Observe that neither Cervantes nor Ibsen is incredulous in the Philistine way as to the power of ideals over men.

Don Quixote, Brand, and Peer Gynt are all three men of action seeking to realize their ideals in deeds.

However ridiculous Don Quixote makes himself, you cannot dislike or despise him, much less think that it would have been better for him to have been a Philistine like Sancho.

And in the Woodhouse Handbook by Norman Murphy, Norman Murphy was very keen to find the origin of all Woodhouse's quotations.

And he had a lot of trouble with this one, but he eventually tracked it down to an early 18th century translation of Don Quixote by Peter Motto.

And in fact, In Bartlett's familiar quotations, which was the quotations dictionary that Woodhouse used the most, there are loads of quotations to this Peter Motto and his translations, including many that Woodhouse frequently used.

All of these are first recorded in English by Peter Motto.

Yeah, well, that's actually makes it all the more admirable that he used these phrases because he could have said, well, that is nonsense.

What does that mean? Ha! And just ignored all of these idioms.

But no, apparently his translation of Don Quixote is very unpopular by critics.

They think it's a terrible translation.

Uncle Toby, who's kind of idealistic and unconventional, is a kind of quixotic character, I guess you could say.

And also the second part of Don Quixote is very self-reflexive and refers to the first part.

So there's some of that that I think Stern is, or people have thoughts that Stern is influenced by.

And if there's any contemporary that he's influenced by, it's probably Swift.

It was at one of these tournaments that Edward III established the great Order of the Garter, which continues to this day and may be looked upon as a heritage left to us by the chivalric spirit of the Middle Ages.

chivalry was a thing of french creation and throve naturally on french soil it is principally the french and provencal troubadours who have celebrated it by their song in england it never developed so freely it seemed like a thing imported foreign in its very nature to english simplicity and english bluntness still throughout the middle ages the chivalric spirit ruled supreme all over europe in england and france alike when chivalry ceased to be an enthusiasm it became a fashion and lingered on as a fashion till cervantes heaped ridicule upon it in his don quixote till its absurdities became so manifest that it faded away amid the scorn and laughter of mankind edward the third aimed at being a type of fashionable knighthood in his day chivalry had not yet become an absurdity it had lost much of its early simplicity and elevation but still in the black prince and some of his knights such as sir john chandos sir walter manny and sir james audley we find all the nobleness of early chivalry let us look a little closer at this chivalry and see what it meant and what was the ideal which it held up to its followers it had no artificial origin but sprang up as a natural outcome of feudalism and so of early teutonic manners a feudal vassal owed certain definite duties to his superior knighthood was the formal act by which the fitness of a young man to take upon him these duties was recognised and he was declared worthy to enter the rank of warriors it was to the crusades that chivalry owed its religious character by taking part in the crusades the knight could best find a field in which he might give free play to all the noble sentiments which animated him and if the knight was to fight for christ it was right that religion should take under her control the important act which initiated a young man into the rank of knighthood the education of a future knight began at the age of seven it was the custom for the sons of gentlemen to be brought up in the castles of the nobles where first they acted as pages attending upon the lords and ladies afterwards they were advanced at the age of fourteen to the rank of squires and waited upon their lords both at home and abroad they aided in their toilet carved before them a table and riveted their armour as they attended them to the tournament or the battle attention was paid to their education in all things connected with the management of arms or of horses they were taught above all to be courteous to ladies to be respectful and obedient to their superiors thus bred up in the atmosphere of chivalry they were fit and eager when manhood came to be raised to the dignity of knighthood this was accompanied by many solemn ceremonies the squire who was to be knighted was first made to lay aside his clothes and enter a bath the symbol of purification on coming out he was clothed with a white garment the symbol of purity next in a red robe the symbol of the blood he was bound to shed in the service of the faith and lastly in a close black coat the symbol of the death which awaited

him he then spent the next twenty-four hours in fasting at evening he entered the church or chapel and passed the night in prayers in the morning he confessed and received absolution and then partook of the communion he was next present at the

mass of the holy ghost and sometimes listened to a sermon on the duties of knighthood then advancing to the altar with the sword of a knight hanging from his neck he knelt before the priest who took the sword and blessed it and then returned it to him after this he went and knelt before the noble who was to arm him knight who was called his godfather before him he swore to maintain the right to fight for the faith to serve his sovereign prince to protect the weak and oppressed above all to be the champion of women to obey his superiors to honour his companions to keep faith with all the world to forswear all treason and avarice to acknowledge as his only aims glory and virtue when he had taken his oath knights and ladies advanced to clothe him in his new armour the spurs the coat of mail the cuirass and the gauntlets and to gird on his sword then his godfather struck him three blows with the flat of his sword saying in the name of god of st michael and of st george i dub thee knight the young knight then seized his helmet and sprang upon his horse brandishing his lance and rode out to show himself to the crowd outside the