Don Quixote，the classic by Spanish Renaissance writer Cervantes，has inspired literary movements from the 18thcentury picaresque novels to the most special works of the 21stcentury postmodernism and has provided the power for critical works by everyone from Thackeray to Ortegay Gasset.Shakespeare paid Cervantes(his contemporary) the rare compliment of using Quixote as source material for one of his later plays，Cardenio.
The concept of the novel is simple：Alonso Quijano，a landowner from La Mancha，is attracted by the books about knights(骑士)．Driven mad by the special plots，characters and philosophy in these 17thcentury novels，Quijano decides to bring dignity back to the lost profession of knight under the name Don Quixote.He carries a sword，a suit of armor(盔甲) and a horse，and sets out into Spain.
The first few scenes involve Quixote alone against the world，meeting various people，but before a hundred pages Cervantes introduced Sancho Panza，Quixote’s talkative squire(侍从)．In the endless discussions，Quixote’s crazy conception of the world is brought crashing to earth by Sancho’s practical ideas.The reader faces，at the same moment，an ideal view of the world and the cruel facts of the actual world.
Quixote’s insistence on his own reality in the face of arguments to the contrary makes him an interesting character because we know that Quixote is just wrong.Yet，despite all of the pain he suffers in pursuit of that wrong，he continues to believe that he’s right.So we read on page after page，waiting to see how much more the man who considers himself a knight is able to take before he gives in.
Just as Quixote builds his castles from criminal campfires，we build our understanding of Cervantes’ Spain，which was so cruelly real and so dreamlike.We，like Don Quixote，are driven to hallucinate(产生幻觉) by what might be，in the end，just a very good story.
【解题导语】 本文主要介绍了西班牙文艺复兴代表作家塞万提斯的著作《堂吉诃德》。
1．We can learn from the first paragraph that Don Quixote ________．
A．is not very popular among young people
B．changed the writing style of Shakespeare
C．wasn’t well recognized at Cervantes’ time
D．has great influence in the field of literature
D 解析：细节理解题。根据第一段Don Quixote...has inspired literary movements from...power for critical works可知，《堂吉诃德》在文学领域具有巨大的影响力。
2．Alonso Quijano sets out into Spain to seek ________．
A．great wealth B．real knowledge
C．knight spirit D．personal experience
C 解析：推理判断题。根据第二段Quijano decides to bring dignity back to the lost profession of knight...可推断，Quijano即堂吉诃德本人所追求的是骑士精神。
3．According to Paragraph 3，the novel mainly ________．
A．describes the changes of a person
B．focuses on the social problems in Spain
C．criticizes the literary works in the 17th century
D．deals with the conflict between ideal and reality
D 解析：细节理解题。根据第三段Quixote’s crazy conception of the world...cruel facts of the actual world.可知，《堂吉诃德》主要探讨了理想与现实的冲突。
4．What’s the author’s purpose of writing this text?
A．To introduce and comment on Don Quixote.
B．To explain the new meaning of Don Quixote.
C．To discuss the development of Spanish Renaissance.
D．To analyse the characteristics of Renaissance literature.
A 解析：写作意图题。根据文章内容可知，本文是一篇书评，主要介绍并评论了《堂吉诃德》这部著作。
