Don Quijote 1

A middle-aged hidalgo from La Mancha descends into glorious, heartbreaking madness. Convinced he must restore the age of chivalry, he renames himself Don Quixote, dons a rusty suit of armor, and rides forth on his skeletal horse Rocinante with only a squire named Sancho Panza beside him. He attacks windmills believing them giants. He charges innkeepers convinced they are enchanters. He declares a peasant girl Dulcinea del Toboso the most noble lady in all Christendom, worth any number of princesses from the romances that have undone him. But beneath this hilarious cascade of delusions lies something profound: a man who refuses to accept a world without honor, without adventure, without poetry. Cervantes crafted a masterpiece that functions simultaneously as savage parody, philosophical inquiry into the nature of reality, and unexpectedly moving portrait of a man who would rather be ridiculous than cynical. It invented the modern novel and cracked open the human psyche in ways we are still processing four centuries later.