HELPS TO STUDY

I. 1. Who was Don Quixote? 2. In what village did he live? 3. Cervantes gives several forms for the Don's name after the fashion of some scholarly biographers; of what other classes of writers does he make fun? 4. Who was Aristotle? 5. What have you read of Roland and Roncesvalles? 6. What have you read of Hercules (see SIXTH READER)? 7. Tell the story of the traitor Ganelon. 8. How did the Don prepare for his expedition? 9. What difficulty did he have with

his helmet? a morion is a mere headpiece without visor or front. 10. What heroes of romance does the Don admire? 11. What giants are mentioned? 12. Of what other giants have you read? 13. Why

did the Don need a lady-love?

2. Do you

3. What was knighthood? 4. For

II. 1. At what time of year did Don Quixote ride forth? think his armor was comfortable? what did the Don mistake the inn? 5. How did he reassure the maids? 6. For whom did the knight mistake the innkeeper? 7. How did he pass the night?

III. 1. Who was Sancho Panza? 2. What induced him to accompany Don Quixote? 3. How did the two start forth? 4. Why was Sancho a little doubtful about being a king? 5. What giants did Don Quixote discover? 6. Does Sancho share his master's brilliant imagination? 7. Describe the knight's attack. 8. The phrase "to fight windmills" has become a proverb; how is it used?

I. Notes: Don Quixote (kwix'ōt). olla, a thick stew with many ingredients. The Cid (sid), the surname of Ruy Diaz (rui dē-ăz′), was the national hero of Spain, and celebrated in many romances as the Conqueror of the Moors. The Knight of the Burning Sword was a hero of romance. Bernardo del Carpio (bĕr-när'dō del kärʼpe-o), another national hero; according to one tradition he killed Roland at Roncesvalles (rons-val'). Antæus (an-tē’us), a giant wrestler, was invincible as long as he touched the earth (Terra). Hercules lifted him off the earth and crushed him. Morgante (mor-gan'te), another fabulous giant, was made a prisoner by

Roland. Trebizond, a city on the Black Sea and for two hundred years capital of an empire; what else have you heard about it? Bucephalus (bū-sef'a-lus), Babieca (ba-be'a-sa), were horses, like their masters, famous in romance. Rosinante (ro-se-nän'te), first of all old hags. Amadis (am'a-dis) of Gaul, a hero of a most popular romance, at which Cervantes often pokes fun. Morion, the headpiece without the visor. Caraculian and Malindrania exist only in Don Quixote's fancy. Dulcinea del Toboso (dul-sin'e-a del to-bō'so), sweetest of Toboso.

II. appurtenances, belongings. castellan, keeper of a castle. gorget, throat-piece. señor (sēn'yor). corselet.

III. Sancho Panza (san'ko pan'sa). campo, plain. de Montiel (mon-ti-el'). Juana Gutierrez (hu-a'na gu-ti-ârʼrez). Briareus (bria're-us), according to Greek mythology, a giant with a hundred arms. Friston, a creation of the Don's fancy.

For Study with the Glossary: I. lentils, avidity, homespun, hardy habit, conjectures, infatuation, cartels, conceits, requisite. II. redress, espied, pinnacles, target, accosted, beaver. III. patriarch, curate, fluctuations.

Review Questions: We have had four pictures of the age of chivalry: The Song of Roland, written in the days of chivalry; "The Red Cross Knight" from the Faery Queen; Ivanhoe, the masterly re-creation of the past by a modern writer, and now Don Quixote, written just after knights and castles had ceased to have much importance, and ridiculing extravagant romances. Every reader laughs at the absurd mistakes of the Don, but after a time the reader of the novel comes to feel a sympathy for this man who is always sincere and courteous and who meets disappointment with unwavering courage. Cervantes himself wished us to feel a sympathy for the knight's idealism though he showed the ridiculousness of an idealism which could not recognize facts. Sancho, who sees facts without any romance, is still more ridiculous. Perhaps you will sympathize with these lines from Austin Dobson's sonnet on Don Quixote.

Alas! poor Knight! alas! poor soul possest!

Yet, would to-day, when Courtesy grows chill,

1. Have you read any other stories of chivalry besides those in this book? any by Tennyson? by Sir Walter Scott? 2. What can you tell about giants in story land? 3. What qualities should a true knight have? 4. Has Don Quixote any of those qualities? 5. Turn to the SIXTH READER (p. 179) and read what is said of the Age of Chivalry. 6. Tell something of the characters and adventures of some of these heroes: Roland, King Arthur, Gareth, Galahad, Richard the Lion Hearted, Ivanhoe, Don Quixote.

Topics for Oral and Written Composition: The Age of Chivalry. True Knighthood. Chivalry To-day. England at the Time of Ivanhoe. Giants and Fairies. My Favorite Knight. Sancho Panza's Account of Fighting the Wind Mills.

Topics for Oral Discussion

1. Is the Age of Chivalry past?

2. There are more heroes now than ever before.

3. Don Quixote deserves our admiration as well as our laughter. 4. Warfare is more brutal to-day than in the time of Ivanhoe.

5. Is Rowena or Rebecca the more interesting heroine?

THE APPRECIATION OF POETRY

In the opening selections in this book we have studied some examples of the chief forms in which literature has been composed. Then we read in the world's masterpieces, looking back through them at the course of civilization, especially in the great peoples of antiquity and in Europe 5 of the Middle Ages. We have been walking beside the great creative minds of the past: Homer, Plato, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Scott.

Now we approach a group of short poems that exemplify the highest calling of literature. They do not primarily 10 seek to tell stories or describe scenes; they seek to interpret the human spirit. Literature has great services to perform in giving information, in recounting deeds and facts, and in expounding ideas; but its peculiar and highest duty is the interpretation of life in ways that elevate and purify 15 our feelings. This is indeed the object and effect of poems like the Odyssey or dramas like Shakespeare's, where a crowd of men and women and a host of emotions are revealed. But in the short poem, where the subject is a single feeling, or mood, or aspiration, we are brought closer 20 to the heart of the poet. We are separated from matters of fact and deed; our spirits take flight with the poetry. Our emotions are on the mountain tops. We see the world about us as if from the pure ether whither we have been borne by the wings of the imagination.

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This is what we mean when we say a man has poetry in his nature. He has the power of spiritual flight. But the wings of poetry do not soar in a true flight without careful training and direction. The short poem permits a sort of 5 concentration of imaginative effort; but it has definite rules and requirements. The first three poems that follow are sonnets. The sonnet is one of the most precise of poetical forms; it must have just fourteen lines with a particular arrangement of rhymes, yet this form has been used for 10 the expression of the most delicate and the most elevated emotion. Our three sonnets reveal what heights and depths of feeling fourteen lines may express. Shakespeare, whose poetry has explored the whole territory of human emotions, tells us of love that is highest; Milton, stricken with blind15 ness, lifts his spirit undaunted to his Maker; Wordsworth, the poet of nature, finds the sleeping city clothed in the beauty of spirit.

Some of the other poems show the feelings aroused by thoughts of death, some by scenes in nature. From the 20 deck of the ship the poet looks out over the trackless ocean; or from a meadow he watches the lark rising ever higher into the heaven; or in autumn he broods over the golden serenity of earth and sky. These are the scenes which lift the imagination and enable it to carry its message from one heart 25 to another. Yet how skilfully the imagination must work in rhythms and words if the reader's feelings are to be stirred with anything like the same intensity as the poet's. We must be made to feel in the melody of the verse the very roll of the ocean, the enraptured flight of the lark, the