Notes

Hola, remember me? Carmen from Seville in Spain. Many famous people have been born here, but the most famous were two who never really lived at all. I think you’ve heard of the fictional character Don Quixote, you know, the man of La Mancha and his faithful squire, Sancho Panza. These two were probably the world’s first comedy duo, the crazy old gentleman, who believes he’s a knight, who challenges a windmill to a duel and thinks a barber’s basin is a magical helmet. The bumbling, hard-headed sidekick who sticks by his master’s side through one misadventure after another. Don Quixote and Sancho Panza embody the two sides of every person: the dreamer and the realist. These immortal characters were dreamed up by a man named, don Miguel de Cervantes, who lived about the same time as William Shakespeare. Today, Cervantes is almost as important to Spain as Shakespeare is to England. When he first wrote his famous novel, though, he was considered a failure. In fact, he wroteDon Quixotewhile serving time in a debtor’s prison. The book was an immediate sensation and went into multiple printings, but it never made Cervantes rich. Unfortunately, he wrote it before there were copyright laws.