The vanishing knight
Where did Don Quixote go?
Our tutoring consultant sees students according to a schedule, one that lists a particular subject for a given session. Normally he sticks to that subject, since it has been decided that it’s what the student needs to work on most. Sometimes, however, he will ask about other classes and activities, since there may be other needs and many students won’t bring them up on their own. Recently a student mentioned that he was taking Spanish. In the conversation that followed, our tutor mentioned Don Quixote. The student had never heard of the character or the book. For the first time in a long time, our tutor was surprised.
By now, we are used to the fact that High School students lack a lot of the background that we take for granted, and that we took for granted when we were at that stage. We do not expect the Hsiaos and Nguyens to be familiar with Bible references, and we understand that the Soviet Union is ancient history. But Don Quixote? The idealist but mad Spanish knight, who went around tilting at windmills? He was part of the background, even in the Anglocentric culture that we remember.
Not that everyone had read the book. In fact very few had done so. It is a long work, and even in translation can be a difficult one. The original is written in an archaic Spanish (Cervantes was contemporary with Shakespeare), and our tutor counted it a major accomplishment when he finally got through it a few years ago. It would not be assigned to any High School Spanish student (except maybe in short, modernized passages). Instead, it seems to have become part of the culture at second hand, like the Divine Comedy (people refer to “circles of Hell,” though they may never have looked at that work even in translation).
It was certainly known well enough to appear without introduction, for instance in a popular song, and in a recent cartoon the name is not even mentioned but the character is obvious. There was a musical based on the work (with at least one song we still find inspiring). You’ll find the term “quixotic” in an English dictionary. And yet he was unknown to our student; we’ve since discovered others in the same situation.
We will set aside any discussion of the influence or importance of Cervantes’ work and its main character. Our question is, where did Don Quixote go? In the cultural places where we remember “a lean and foolish knight,” what has replaced him? And how did the process happen?
It could be that nothing significant has taken place. It could be that a welcome diversity has crowded out the Man of La Mancha. But maybe something very worrying has happened.
