[The History of Don Quixote<br> Vol. I<br> Complete by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra]@TWC D-Link book
The History of Don Quixote
Vol. I
Complete

PART I, Complete
58/74

It is worth noticing how, flushed by his success in this instance, he is tempted afterwards to try a flight beyond his powers in his account of the journey on Clavileno.
In the Second Part it is the spirit rather than the incidents of the chivalry romances that is the subject of the burlesque.

Enchantments of the sort travestied in those of Dulcinea and the Trifaldi and the cave of Montesinos play a leading part in the later and inferior romances, and another distinguishing feature is caricatured in Don Quixote's blind adoration of Dulcinea.

In the romances of chivalry love is either a mere animalism or a fantastic idolatry.

Only a coarse-minded man would care to make merry with the former, but to one of Cervantes' humour the latter was naturally an attractive subject for ridicule.

Like everything else in these romances, it is a gross exaggeration of the real sentiment of chivalry, but its peculiar extravagance is probably due to the influence of those masters of hyperbole, the Provencal poets.


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