Don Quixote, Part II (1615)

A critical commentary on the major episodes of Don Quixote Part Two, this chapter shows how the pivotal episode of Dulcinea’s alleged enchantment (DQ II. 10) brings about a transformation in the character of each of the protagonists and in the nature of their relations, as well as providing a new unifying principle for the episodic narrative. Cervantes’s parody of the books of chivalry reaches its climax at the Duke’s palace, where an inversion occurs in the relationship between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza that will lead to the decline and fall of the would-be hero. In this second part, Cervantes’s modulations of comedy and pathos fashion the paradoxical madness of the Knight of La Mancha into an unprecedented literary phenomenon that would come to resonate powerfully with modern readers.