In short, his wits being quite gone, he hit upon the strangest notion that ever madman in this world hit upon, and that was that he fancied it was right and requisite, as well for the support of his own honour as for the service of his country, that he should make a knight-errant of himself, roaming the world over in full armour and on horseback in quest of adventures, and putting in practice himself all that he had read of as being the usual practices of knights-errant.
The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha, written in 1605 by Miguel de Cervantes is considered the first modern novel - and aside from its influence in Western literature as a whole, a major influence in Medievalism and the chivalric romances of King Arthur.
The story follows the titular Don Quixote de la Mancha - or rather, Alonso Quijano - a shut-in who has deluded himself by reading too many stories of chivalrous knights1 and seeks to find adventures like those knights. Instead, he runs into all the mundane and grimy parts of his contemporary life and must be chased down and rescued by his “squire” Sancho Panza.
While there’s some moments to defend the idealism of Don Quixote - that there’s some admirable element to him - largely it side with disillusioning the chivalric tropes.
Man of La Mancha
It’s difficult to talk about Don Quixote without the 1965 musical response to it - which does embrace the double subversion. The character of Miguel de Cervantes here is able to grasp something through the cynicism of the time.
Footnotes
-
Primarily post-Arthurian, at least the ones called out. ↩