Editing Don Quixote (section)

===Setting===
====Location====
[[File:Bronze statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza.jpg|thumb|upright|Bronze statues of Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, at the {{Lang|es|[[Plaza de España (Madrid)|Plaza de España]]|italic=no}} in Madrid]]
Cervantes' story takes place on the plains of [[La Mancha]], specifically the ''[[comarca]]'' of [[Campo de Montiel (Ciudad Real)|Campo de Montiel]].

{{blockquote|text=''En un lugar de La Mancha, de cuyo nombre no quiero acordarme, no ha mucho tiempo que vivía un hidalgo de los de lanza en astillero, adarga antigua, rocín flaco y galgo corredor.''<br />(Somewhere in La Mancha, in a place whose name I do not care to remember, a gentleman lived not long ago, one of those who has a lance and ancient shield on a shelf and keeps a skinny nag and a greyhound for racing.)|sign=Miguel de Cervantes|source=''Don Quixote'', Volume I, Chapter I (translated by [[Edith Grossman]])}}

The location of the village to which Cervantes alludes in the opening sentence of ''Don Quixote'' has been the subject of debate since its publication over four centuries ago. Indeed, Cervantes deliberately omits the name of the village, giving an explanation in the final chapter:

{{blockquote|text=Such was the end of the Ingenious Gentleman of La Mancha, whose village Cide Hamete would not indicate precisely, in order to leave all the towns and villages of La Mancha to contend among themselves for the right to adopt him and claim him as a son, as the seven cities of Greece contended for Homer.|sign=Miguel de Cervantes|source=''Don Quixote'', Volume II, Chapter 74}}

In 2004, a team of academics from [[Complutense University]], led by Francisco Parra Luna, Manuel Fernández Nieto, and Santiago Petschen Verdaguer, deduced that the village was that of [[Villanueva de los Infantes, Ciudad Real|Villanueva de los Infantes]].<ref>{{cite news|url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article404423.ece|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110906215210/http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article404423.ece|url-status=dead|archive-date=6 September 2011|title=To Quixote's village at the speed of a nag|newspaper=Times Online | location=London}}</ref> Their findings were published in a paper titled "'''El Quijote' como un sistema de distancias/tiempos: hacia la localización del lugar de la Mancha''", which was later published as a book: ''El enigma resuelto del Quijote''. The result was replicated in two subsequent investigations: "La determinación del lugar de la Mancha como problema estadístico" and "The Kinematics of the Quixote and the Identity of the 'Place in La Mancha'".<ref>{{cite web|title=La determinación del lugar de la Mancha como problema estadístico |location=Valencia |publisher=Department of Statistics, [[University of Málaga]] |language=es |url=http://dmle.cindoc.csic.es/pdf/BEIO_2006_22_01_04.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110720140340/http://dmle.cindoc.csic.es/pdf/BEIO_2006_22_01_04.pdf |archive-date=20 July 2011 |url-status=dead }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |title=The Kinematics of the Quixote and the Identity of the "Place in La Mancha" |page=7 |location=Valencia |publisher=Department of Applied Mathematics, [[University of Valencia]] |url=http://www.uv.es/pla/Quixote/Kinematics2.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110718104059/http://www.uv.es/pla/Quixote/Kinematics2.pdf |archive-date=2011-07-18 |url-status=live }}</ref>

Translators of ''Don Quixote'', such as [[John Ormsby (translator)|John Ormsby]],<ref>{{Cite book |last1=Gifford |first1=William |url=https://books.google.com/books?id=GQW0VubfHBgC&q=Quixote+%22John+Ormsby%22++translation&pg=PA43 |title=The Quarterly Review |last2=Coleridge |first2=Sir John Taylor |last3=Lockhart |first3=John Gibson |last4=Elwin |first4=Whitwell |last5=MacPherson |first5=William |last6=Smith |first6=William |last7=Murray |first7=Sir John |last8=Prothero |first8=George Walter |year=1886 |access-date=2009-02-01 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110804233612/http://books.google.com/books?id=GQW0VubfHBgC&pg=PA43&dq=Quixote+%22John+Ormsby%22++translation#PPA49,M1 |archive-date=2011-08-04 |url-status=dead}}</ref> have commented that the region of [[La Mancha]] is one of the most desertlike, unremarkable regions of Spain, the least romantic and fanciful place that one would imagine as the home of a courageous knight.

On the other hand, as Borges points out:
{{blockquote|text=I suspect that in ''Don Quixote'', it does not rain a single time. The landscapes described by Cervantes have nothing in common with the landscapes of Castile: they are conventional landscapes, full of meadows, streams, and copses that belong in an Italian novel.|source= [[Jorge Luis Borges]]<ref>''Professor Borges: A Course on English Literature''. New Directions Publishing, 2013. {{ISBN|978-0811218757}}, p. 15.</ref>}}

The story also takes place in [[El Toboso]] where Don Quixote goes to seek [[Dulcinea del Toboso|Dulcinea]]'s blessings.

==== Historical context ====
''Don Quixote'' is said to reflect the Spanish society in which Cervantes lived and wrote.<ref name=":1">{{Cite book |last=Milton |first=Joyce |title=Miguel de Cervantes' Don Quixote |publisher=Barron's Educational Series, Inc. |year=1985 |isbn=0-8120-3512-7 |location=NY, USA |pages=20–22}}</ref> [[Hapsburg Spain|Spain's status as a world power]] was declining, and the Spanish national treasury was bankrupt due to expensive foreign wars.<ref name=":1" /> Spanish cultural dominance was also waning as the [[Protestant reformation|Protestant Reformation]] had put the Spanish Roman Catholic Church on the defensive, which had led to the establishment of the [[Spanish Inquisition]].<ref name=":1" /> Meanwhile, the ''hidalgo'' class was losing relevance because of changes in Spanish society which made the high ideals of [[chivalry]] obsolete.<ref name=":1" />