By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary Subjects — John Shaqi
By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary SubjectsAdams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
History
By-ways in Book-land: Short Essays on Literary Subjects
Adams, W. H. Davenport (William Henry Davenport)
English literature -- History and criticism
But, as a whole, 'Don Quixote,' as rendered into rhyme by Mr. Ward,
cannot be recommended for general perusal.
There is, however, a 'Quixote' literature apart from 'Don Quixote'
itself. The great romance suggested more than one English counterpart,
such as 'The Spiritual Quixote,' by Richard Graves, and 'The Female
Quixote,' by Mrs. Lennox. The latter, published in the middle of last
century, was devoted to the adventures of one Arabella. Of her we read
that, supposing the fictions of the Scuderi school to be 'real pictures
of life,' 'from them she drew all her notions and expectations.' She
became, in fact, quite a monomaniac upon the subject, and, as a sample,
is for ever expecting that her lover, Glanville, will speak and act like
the heroes of her favourite tales. In the end she throws herself into a
river, gets brain-fever, and is brought back to sanity by a benevolent
divine. Then there is 'The Amiable Quixote; or, The Enthusiasm of
Friendship,' a novel issued later in the century, and having for central
figure a young gentleman named Bruce, who
'found in the slightest acquaintance some virtue or some
recommendation. As soon as the enthusiasm of friendship was
excited, it overwhelmed his discretion and clouded his
perspicacity.'
But this work owed very little to 'Don Quixote'--not more than did
'Tarrataria; or, Don Quixote the Second,' a romantic poetical medley in
two cantos, which appeared in the interval between the two stories just
noticed. Early in this century there was issued, for a short space, a
literary miscellany, called _The Knight Errant_, edited by 'Sir Hercules
Quixote, K.E.,' who, said the prospectus,
'following the example of his illustrious namesake and ancestor of
La Mancha, has, with the assistance of his friends, commenced an
era of Civil Knight Errantry, and zealously devoted himself to the
comforting of distressed Damsels and disconsolate Widows, the
fathering of wronged and destitute Orphans, the promotion of Virtue
and chivalrous feeling generally'--
and so on, and so on. To 'Don Quixote,' in some form or other, there
will, of course, be literary allusions to the end of time.
BEDSIDE BOOKS.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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