Episode 88: How to Read Don Quixote
The Literary Life Podcast
Angelina Stanford
4.7 • 1.2K Ratings
🗓️ 6 April 2021
⏱️ 86 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
On this week's episode of The Literary Life Podcast, Angelina Stanford, Cindy Rollins and Thomas Banks are joined by James Banks to discuss the value of reading Don Quixote and how to approach the book. They talk about translations and how to choose a translation of this particular work. James shares how he first read Miguel de Cervantes' classic work and gives a little contextual background on him as an author. He also argues that Don Quixote is a romance in the tradition of Spenser and is more of a satire of modernity than of chivalry. Other ideas discussed are the comic duo, the Spanish Renaissance literature, the travel novel, and how to dive into reading Don Quixote.
It's not too late to register for our next Literary Life Online Conference, happening April 7-10, 2021 with special guest speaker Wes Callihan. Head over to HouseofHumaneLetters.com to sign up today!
Listen to previous episodes with James Banks by going to The Literary Life podcast Episode 32 and Episode 33.
Commonplace Quotes:
Books serve to show a man that those original thoughts of his aren't very new at all.
attributed to Abraham Lincoln
I take it to be part and parcel of the same great process of Internalisation which has turned genius from an attendant daemon into a quality of the mind. Always, century by century, item after item is transferred from the object's side of the account to the subject's. And now, in some extreme forms of Behaviourism, the subject himself is discounted as merely subjective; we only think that we think. Having eaten up everything else, he eats himself up too. And where we 'go from that' is a dark question.
C. S. Lewis
Say you're an idiot. And say you're a Congressman. But I repeat myself.
Mark Twain
I don't like the word "allegorical." I don't like the word "symbolic." The word I really like is "mythic," and people always think that means "full of lies" when what it really means is full of a truth that cannot be told in any other way but a story.
William Golding, BBC interview
Clerihew
by G. K. Chesterton
The people of Spain think Cervantes
Equal to half a dozen Dantes:
An opinion resented most bitterly
By the people of Italy.
Book List:
Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
The Discarded Image by C. S. Lewis
Lord of the Flies by William Golding
Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain
Monsignor Quixote by Graham Greene
History of Tom Jones by Henry Fielding
The Pickwick Papers by Charles Dickens
The Shadow of Cervantes by Wyndham Lewis
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Connect with Us:
You can find Angelina and Thomas at HouseofHumaneLetters.com, on Instagram @angelinastanford, and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/ANGStanford/
Find Cindy at morningtimeformoms.com, on Instagram @cindyordoamoris and on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/cindyrollins.net/. Check out Cindy's own Patreon page also!
Follow The Literary Life on Instagram, and jump into our private Facebook group, The Literary Life Discussion Group, and let's get the book talk going! http://bit.ly/literarylifeFB
Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | You're going to go. Welcome to the literary life podcast where your hosts Angelina Stanford and Cindy Rollins, explore a life shaped by books, |
| 0:26.4 | stories, and poetry. Each week we will rescue story from the Ivory Tower and bring it to your |
| 0:32.2 | couch, your kitchen, and your commute. |
| 0:35.0 | The literary life is for everyone because in the words of Stratford Caldecott, |
| 0:39.0 | to be enchanted by story is to be granted a deeper insight into reality. |
| 0:44.0 | Hello and welcome back to the Literary Life Podcast. |
| 0:50.0 | Today we are going to be kicking off the second quarter of 2021 with a very special episode on how and why to read the great Spanish, I was going to say epic, but I feel like we're going to discuss whether or not it's an epic. So we'll say the great Spanish work Don Quixote. And we've got a very special guest here for that, but first let me say hello to my two partners in crime |
| 1:14.0 | Cindy the blonde bombshell Rollins and Thomas the other mysterious Mr. Banks |
| 1:20.3 | Miss Stanford. |
| 1:21.3 | Welcome everyone. |
| 1:24.0 | Wow, you guys are super subdued. |
| 1:26.8 | I wish you at home could hear how like the juxtaposition between off the air and on the air, |
| 1:32.4 | these two become so shy so we are here today with |
| 1:35.1 | special guest James Banks James hello Angelina and Palm and Cindy. |
| 1:43.7 | We are so excited to have you here. |
| 1:45.2 | You guys who have listened to the podcast for a while, |
| 1:47.6 | will remember that James has been on here a number of times. |
| 1:50.0 | In fact, I think James now holds the record for most guest appearances. |
| 1:55.0 | Oh, wow. |
| 1:56.4 | Oh, yeah. |
| 1:57.4 | Do I get a jacket or something like that? |
| 1:59.6 | You might get a little jacket, a little stripe to sew on. |
... |
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