Chapter 11 Madrid Novel 1588 AD

Spain was late on our radar, but it was shocking when it arrived.Just like Zhuang Wang, if you don't make a song, you will be done, and you will be a blockbuster. In the long thousand years, the desolate and vast land was entangled in the competition of many forces, without a strong core.For a short hundred years, Madrid became the heart not only of Spain, but of the transatlantic world.The sudden change was astounding.It was like tearing open a curtain, revealing a mysterious door.Outside the opened door, there is a whole new world of carefree wind and dazzling light that catches people off guard.Everything becomes legendary.Within two dreamlike generations, a dream of adventure flashed like lightning across all night sky.The place illuminated by lightning is the corner of the new world.

When I think of Spain today, I can think of football, Nadal, Matador and Flamenco, everything that is burning red, Dali and Picasso, crazy imagination and passion.This is a warm and eclectic country, where the romance is an adventurous joy, a dance-like style. The golden Spain in history was only a flash in the pan.The strong hegemony lasted for two generations, and then gradually declined.Like flowers blooming like a piece of brocade, the fire cooks the oil.However, in less than a hundred years, they changed the structure of the world and themselves.Before Columbus, Spanish influence was extremely limited in Europe, but today Spanish-speaking countries make up a significant proportion.Before Cervantes, there were few famous artists in Spain. However, today, the literature, painting, song, dance and film of Spanish-speaking countries are proud of the whole world and have experienced several golden ages.

This is the temperament of Spain's destiny: change the world with an adventure. In 1588, King Philip II of Spain formed an expensive Armada to prepare for a decisive battle with the increasingly powerful Britain. Prior to this, Philip II was the most glorious king in Spanish history.Not only because of the prosperity of his era, but also because of his personal background.He is the son of Holy Roman Emperor Charles V and Queen Isabella of Portugal. Charles V is a descendant of the Habsburg family. Philip II inherited most of the Habsburg dynasty from his father. Matrilineally descended from Spain, his territories thus included Spain, the Low Countries, Italy, and Sicily—most of Europe, as well as Spanish America and Africa.Philip II was ambitious, religiously fanatical, and tough-minded. He defeated the French army in 1557 and another maritime overlord, the Ottoman Empire, in 1571.Spain experienced a golden age of near-hegemony.

At the same time, under the rule of Queen Elizabeth, Britain is also in its golden rising period, gradually finding political stability after the precarious civil strife.Elizabeth's predecessor, Mary I, was the wife of Philip II. After Mary's death, Philip II proposed to Elizabeth, but was rejected.In the early days, Spain and Britain maintained an alliance and fought against the alliance formed by Scotland and France.But slowly, when the Soviet-French alliance disintegrated, the Anglo-Spanish alliance also changed from cooperation to competition.Economic interests are increasingly conflicting, religious contradictions are prominent, and a war is brewing under the ice floe.

The religious conflicts between Spain and England have a long history.Elizabeth's father, Henry VIII, was the most arbitrary king in British history. He first married his sister-in-law Catherine, gave birth to his daughter Mary, and rejected his wife, married the court lady Anne Boleyn, and gave birth to his second daughter, Elizabeth. .He married six times in total, and from the first divorce laid the foundation for deep religious contradictions in the future.Catherine is the Princess of Aragon, Spain, a Catholic, supported by the Holy See.In order to divorce her, Henry VIII announced the establishment of the Anglican Church, separated from the Holy See, and completely broke with Catholicism.After Mary ascended the throne, the Catholic tradition was restored.After Elizabeth replaced Mary, she re-declared Protestant dominance.

In such repeated struggles, Britain has always faced pressure from the Holy See.The pope always claimed to be superior to the king, and Spain was the most loyal defender of Catholicism, with no tolerance for pagan battles.During the English Civil War, Philip II took the initiative to sponsor the rebellion of Catholics in the UK, and Elizabeth later also sheltered the Protestants in Philip II's ruling area.As the power of the British fleet increased, conflicts on the coast gradually increased.Philip confiscated all English ships and goods in the Netherlands, and Elizabeth retaliated by confiscating all Spanish ships. In 1584, Elizabeth expelled the Spanish ambassador, and Philip banned all British ships from entering Spanish ports.All of these make the contradictions more and more serious.

In 1588, war was imminent.It will be the most famous showdown in history: one empire falls, one rises. Before the 15th century, Spain was never a European hegemon.The earliest historical records of Iberia come from Roman conquests.The Roman Republic led by Scipio and Carthage led by Hannibal once competed here, and the victory of Rome was accompanied by the surrender of Iberia.During the Roman Empire, Spain generally referred to the entire peninsula and was the most common province in Rome.After the division of the Roman Empire, the Visigoths established their own kingdom under the Pyrenees.When the Muslims rose, the Islamic Empire bypassed North Africa, invaded the peninsula, and occupied a considerable area.Throughout the Middle Ages, Spain was dominated by a number of disparate societies, with Christian societies, the Moors of North Africa, and Jews, each occupying territories.Hispanic culture has an oriental mix, with a lot of Arabic in the language.Before the 15th century AD, Spain was always divided among the Roman Empire, the Islamic Empire, and the princely kingdoms, and never became a unified country.

In 1469, a magical elopement marriage changed all that. In the early 15th century, the most powerful countries in Spain included the Kingdom of Castel, the Kingdom of Aragon, the Kingdom of Portugal, as well as some small countries and the Kingdom of Grenada occupied by Arabs.The kingdoms of Custer and Aragon have always been in a state of rivalry, and while there have been occasional attempts to unify, they have never been truly unified. In 1469, regardless of the opposition of her brother King Enrique, Princess Isabella of the Kingdom of Castor made a private engagement with Prince Ferdinand of the Kingdom of Aragon. Unite one nation at a time.

It was a year that changed Spanish history. Isabella and Ferdinand were personalities, two of the toughest monarchs who almost single-handedly transformed a fragmented Spain into a mighty empire.At the beginning of taking office, they launched a conquest, wiped out all the influence of Muslims and Jews in Spain, conquered Grenada, and achieved national and religious unity in Spain with ruthless determination and a strong army; then, they established the Inquisition, implemented The cruel religious persecution that even the Holy See had never completed, executed all heretics other than Catholicism, and realized the first step of absolute unity of politics and religion; then they began to extend their tentacles to the world, funding Columbus's fleet, for Legend has it that the land of gold in the east sets sail.Isabel is the queen of vision, determination and perseverance, her ruthlessness and her determination to go out into the world are two sides of the same coin, the astonishing rise of Spain and the clarion call to set sail from the shores of Madrid.

In 1492, just as the last Muslim kingdom in Spain perished and 200,000 Jews were deported, Columbus's fleet set off and arrived at the Bahamas in North America after a 70-day voyage. From this year to 1588, the fate of Spain changed completely. The trade of the colonies brought it a lot of wealth. Philip II's territory included Europe, North America and North Africa, becoming a veritable empire. This is the history that Spain is most proud of.The evaluation of Spain by later generations is often a variety of ideal simplifications, which vary from era to era.Early criticisms of Spain centered on bloodshed, power-hungry, and religious rigidity; during the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century, Spain, with its diminishing military power, was no longer seen as a symbol of cruelty, but as arrogant, lazy, and uncreative. Synonymous; Romanticism was prevalent in the 19th century, and the emphasis changed to the romantic and picturesque side of Spanish history. People went around to find exotic customs, and saw exotic customs from Spain.These disparate perceptions are intertwined, often giving very different impressions of Spain.But it's not the changing image of Spain, it's the changing perceptions.It is not so much that people comment on Spain, as it is that Spain explains people from different times.

The history of Spain is condensed in the streets of Madrid.Before Spain became Spain, each kingdom had a different center.But after the unification of Spain, no place has recorded as many glory and shame, dreams and vicissitudes as Madrid. Madrid was the capital of Spain for nearly five centuries after the unification of Spain.At first, Philip II chose to move the capital here, and it is still today.Madrid has the Spanish Royal Palace, second only to the Palace of Versailles and the Royal Palace of Vienna, and one of the most magnificent royal palaces in Europe.The Royal Palace was built by Carlos III in the 18th century. It has a square structure and luxurious interior decoration, showing the huge financial resources of the Spanish royal family from the 16th century to the 18th century.On the square outside the Royal Palace, there are sculptures of the kings and queens of all the small countries in Spain before the unification. The sculptures are rich in posture, including heroic generals and pious saints. Looking at them one by one along the time, it seems that they can experience those scattered and difficult battles. years. Outside of Madrid, Philip II also had a royal palace at El Escoria.It is a huge complex of palaces, monasteries, mausoleums, and defensive castles. It is like a small town. The richness of the works of Coco and many Spanish painters exceeds that of the Royal Palace of Madrid.The Spanish Habsburg and Bourbon kings are buried here.This is the best memory of Spain's prosperous era. In those passages and rooms up and down, among the iron tools, weapons and guardrails of the Middle Ages, bloody splendor permeates from the depths of history. Walking on the streets of Madrid, the majesty of the royal family can still be felt.The streets of Madrid are clean and orderly, and many buildings are neat and grand neoclassical style, such as the Prado Art Museum, revealing an elegant royal style.Although Puerta del Sol and the main square will gather a lot of idlers and performers, compared with Barcelona's hustle and bustle and flowing buildings, Madrid is undoubtedly much quieter and more orderly.The Prado Museum is one of the three major art museums in the world, with an extremely rich collection, including the pinnacle works of many great painters including Bosh, El Greco, Velazquez and Dali. In 1588, fighting finally broke out.With more than 100 warships and tens of thousands of soldiers, the Spanish fleet encountered storms and failed battles in the English Channel. It was almost destroyed and suffered heavy losses. The golden fleet fell like the setting sun. It was a sad end to the story of Spain's rise, but a fresh beginning to another. In 1588 a man mourned the defeat of the fleet.He was a food requisitioner for the army before the fleet set sail. He was competent and devoted to his duties, but he was falsely accused of embezzling military rations and was involved in a lawsuit.This man is called Cervantes. Cervantes is a lonely knight, even more lonely than his Don Quixote. Cervantes was the son of a poor doctor. When he was young, he was full of patriotic enthusiasm. He participated in the famous Spanish battle against the Ottoman Empire at the Battle of Rebondo. He was injured and his left hand was disabled. He was captured by pirates on the way back home. Jill was a slave for 5 years, and was not redeemed until 1580 by a group of Spanish monks. When he wrote Don Quixote, Cervantes was in the middle of a lawsuit.After he returned home, his life was difficult and he could no longer serve as a soldier. It was not until 1587 that the 40-year-old Cervantes got a position as a military requisitioner for the Armada, purchasing in Andalusia.During this period, he was maliciously framed and accused of "withholding military rations", but he was unanimously refuted at the local public trial meeting.Another time he was accused of "private collection of grain", and it turned out that it was the grain collection prosecutor at the time who avenged his personal revenge.Cervantes never bowed his head to powerful villains. His boss was framed by the underworld and accused of violating the law when he was collecting grain.The king didn't ask questions, but Cervantes was caught up in the investigation.If it hadn't been for the sudden withdrawal of the grain collection agency, he might have been in prison forever.After he was released from prison, his luck did not get any better. He worked as a tax collector, and for security reasons, he remitted a large amount of tax money to Madrid through a bank. As a result, the bank happened to close down and he was implicated in prison. In 1602, the same incident was brought up again, and "blind accounts" landed him a fourth prison term. After all this, and most of his rough life, Cervantes began to conceive a novel in prison.When he was young, he had already started to publish his works, and some of the dramas he wrote were also popular. However, in the vicissitudes of life after witnessing many injustices in the world, the novels in his heart became human comedies that are inclusive of all rivers. "Don Quixote" is a work of this time, full of adventure, absurdity and truth.The story of Don Quixote is absurd, arguably the loveliest absurdity in the world.Don Quixote is an ordinary old man in the small village of La Mancha. He rides an old horse, wields a broken sword, and wants to become a knight.He had read many chivalrous novels, knew fire-breathing dragons and outlaw bandits well, imagined the girls of the next village as beautiful princesses, and the world as an adventure.He found a fat and kind follower—Sancho, made a rotten armor by himself, and embarked on the imaginary road of chivalry.When staying in the inn, he used the inn as a castle, and asked the owner to make himself a knight. He couldn't take off the self-made helmet, so he had to let others feed things into his mouth.He searches the world for injustices and adventures worth going to, and is always ready to duel.He claimed to be a nobleman, and fought for the children who were beaten. He ran to the caravan to brag about his beautiful princess lover, which made the whole world laugh. He always waits for the road to be uneven, but there are not so many dangers in this world waiting for him to rescue.He dashes left and right like a ranger in a book, but in the real world there is no fire-breathing dragon waiting for him to dash.While those around him lived realistically and wisely, he wandered against all odds, taking on imaginary opponents.No matter how people around him ridicule and persuade him, he will not change his ambition.He fights windmills and takes the world seriously.He was repeatedly defeated by real knights, but he continued to move forward without changing his enthusiasm.He suffered pain, but left countless joyful stories to the world. There are various interpretations of Don Quixote in the world. There are a thousand Don Quixotes in the eyes of a thousand people, just as there are a thousand Hamlets in the eyes of a thousand people.Some people said he was an unrealistic lunatic, some said he was a fool who had read too much, and some said he was a hero against oppression.Either interpretation is reasonable. Some people say that Don Quixote is an anti-knight novel about knights. This is because there are a lot of ridicules about knight novels in "Don Quixote".Before "Don Quixote", knight novels were popular, just like martial arts novels are popular in our time. These knight novels are romantic and full of enthusiasm, telling knights' adventures, knights' battles, and knights' love. In these stories, knights The bravery lies in the battle against evil monsters, the justice is reflected in helping those who need to be saved, the romance is in the pursuit of a beautiful lady, praises but does not possess, and only maintains a pure soul in love.Such stories were the most prevalent in the late Middle Ages, especially in Spain, the most fertile ground of chivalry. The origin of chivalry is not very clear, and it is generally believed to be the result of the fusion of Germanic spirit and Christian belief.Knight culture is the most significant and unique culture in the Middle Ages.A knight is an independent individual who obtains the title of knight by declaring allegiance, and becomes the lowest level of nobleman after the ceremony, the warrior of the lord.Knights need to have noble behaviors and noble pursuits, as well as lasting enthusiasm and loyalty. Knights usually protect women and respect opponents, "reconciling the horror and madness of war" with value.In this respect the Spanish nation has a spiritual foundation.On the one hand, they are extremely religious, on the other hand, they have barbarian and oriental courage, and chivalry is very popular in Spain.The early knight culture was spread by French bards, and Spain was the place where knight culture flourished. Spanish knight novels became widely known in the 16th century. "Don Quixote" is in such an environment, turning all this into a comic novel.He directly pointed out countless times in the book that "our knight is poisoned in reading the book and always thinks about some plots in the book". Don Quixote regards the inn as a fortress, the copper basin as a helmet, and the gray donkey As a fancy horse, he regards the traveling merchants and barbers as opponents to meet. He formulates a terrible oil according to the formula of the magic medicine in the book, and talks about being beaten in order to achieve the plot of the knight's hard work, all of which Everything has a hilarious effect, and Don Quixote himself is extremely serious, making it even more comical. People laugh at Don Quixote, laughing at his funny, crazy, and unrealistic.Judging from these places, it is not an exaggeration to say that "Don Quixote" is an anti-knight knight novel or the end of a knight novel. "Don Quixote" has been recognized by readers, and it has been very popular since it was published, causing a sensation all over the country. People of all ages and sexes couldn't put it down, and it was reprinted six times in the year it was published.Before the death of Cervantes, "Don Quixote" was published in Spain, Britain and France in 16 editions, with more than 150,000 copies, which was amazing at the time.Handed down to this day, it is one of the best-selling books in the world and tops many literary lists of the greatest masterpieces of all time. This book changed the fate of Cervantes.He became a knight of Spanish literature in one fell swoop, and his name is still synonymous with Spanish literature today.However, this did not change his lonely temperament. He didn't know how to care about wealth, and the copyright sold to the publishing house did not win him a huge fortune.His former residence in Madrid is located in a small alley, quiet and deserted. Everyone in the world reads his name, but there are only a handful of people who know his life.What Cervantes pursued was not fame and wealth. He wrote about the knight in his heart, and stepped into a lonely adventure like Don Quixote.He asked Sancho to tell the truth of all kinds of big truths in the book. "Does the author want money? No wonder he writes well!" said Sancho. "I would rather go to heaven as Sancho than go to hell as a governor." In today's Plaza de España, we can see the statues of Don Quixote and Sancho. Don Quixote holds a spear and points to an invisible distance.In front of him is a square of water, like a bright mirror reflecting the whole world.And behind them is the statue of Cervantes sitting tall, wise and deep, overlooking the world, with a calm face that has experienced everything. Why can the birth of "Don Quixote" be written in history?Why can "Don Quixote", which is comparable to a fairy tale, be selected as the first classic in the history of literature? "Don Quixote" is richer than a satirical novel.It is unique.Its publication marked the birth of the novel, which was not only the direction of art in later centuries, but also an integral and important player in social change. To say that the novel was born at this time inevitably raises doubts.Just talking about the popularity of chivalry novels, and now talking about the birth of novels, is tantamount to inconsistency.But that's just a difference in nomenclature.A novel is a way of telling a story.The story has a long history, as long as the history of human beings, there are stories as long as possible.But a novel is not the same as a story.The stories of the knights before Don Quixote should be called legends.We often think that art is pushed from the everyday to the imagination, and the legend is derived from the close cut.But the actual history is not like this.The earliest stories of human beings are legends, heroes, magical figures, love legends, and the world of gods and ghosts.This is a description of what is beyond daily life, a poetic narration, and a sublimation of the romance of the world.As is the case in almost every civilization, legends preceded the writing of stories of everyday life. People need legends.The difference between legend and reality is not whether it is true, but whether it is idealized.When Greek legends tell about Zeus and Athena, when Chinese legends tell about giant footprints giving birth, people believe that this is a part of the world, a mysterious but real part.Medieval poetry tells of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, the forest and giants, the Ring of the Nibelung, and people believe in faith, nobility and courage in these legends.The most important thing is not whether it is true, but whether those events ideally express these values. When a prince wants to fight, an evil opponent appears, and the prince overcomes dangers and knocks him down. This is a legend; when a knight longs for love, a beautiful princess appears, she is kind and pure, and the knight goes through fire and water for her. It is also a legend; when a sage wants to spread goodness and justice, he can eat and sleep in the open, supported by various miracles, which also constitutes a legend.Early Germanic folk poetry is a beautiful example, and the simple voice sings in the mountains, praising the heroic spirit in the history of the nation.In the late Middle Ages, bards were born in the Mediterranean region of southern France. They played the piano and sang the spirit of chivalry, spread chivalry culture to the world, and expressed love and religious ideals with singing.The novels of chivalry are the continuation of the same line, and they are wonderful, about adventure and the ideal spirit in adventure. However, the world is not idealized.In this world, people must work hard and operate carefully to have a chance of survival.When injustice happens, there may not necessarily be villains waiting to be challenged.Everyone lives shrewdly and rationally, and no one is a fire-breathing dragon.There is a passion for love, but the girl in front of her is not a princess.With lofty devotion, but not necessarily true feelings.Pilgrimage with pious ideals, but without any merits, he died of poverty and starvation on the road.Kindness saves the suffering once, but once it leaves, the suffering returns intensified.This is not the difference between tragedy and comedy, but the difference between romance and mediocrity.Not every lover meets love or hate, he also meets indifference and neglect; not every enthusiastic knight meets opponent, he also meets reason and ridicule.How can there be a fire-breathing dragon?The world has only interests and high walls.When Cervantes went to war with patriotic enthusiasm, he neither became a hero nor sacrificed to become a martyr, but only became a captive of pirates and died without a medical cause.This world is not a story, without cause, process and result. Don Quixote is a book about the real world.It's filled with such unsatisfactory stories, the gap between imagination and reality.On the one hand, Don Quixote is impractical and is pointed out and ridiculed by people around him. On the other hand, all his emotions and choices are serious and noble according to the heroes in legendary stories.So this reflects the duality of reality. On the one hand, people love legends and believe in their value. On the other hand, people are accustomed to reality and don't think there are legends in them.All mature and realistic people understand this division, but only Don Quixote is complete and unified. He moved the ideal of his belief into reality, so he became a madman in the eyes of others. "A magical veil, knotted with legends, hung before the world. Cervantes sent Don Quixote on a journey, and tore that veil. The world stood before the wandering knight, with its unpoetic , dramatic nudity, presented." This is Milan Kundera's evaluation of Don Quixote and his definition of novels in "The Curtain": novels describe the world, but not in a poetic or romantic way, but in the most irreconcilable coldness of reality in sight.Romance is a curtain under which weeds grow. Beneath this veil, there is no right or wrong.Eternal is this cold chasm.If you laugh at Don Quixote based on reality, it is an ironic attitude against legend; if you criticize reality based on Don Quixote's ideal, it is a tragic attitude of Romanticism.The world usually swings back and forth between these two attitudes, living comfortably in the split between banality and legend.Only Don Quixote in the world has never wavered.Cervantes tolerated the diversity of readers with his humor and compassion. After Cervantes, the novel became a literary genre.It is different from legend, it lifts the veil of the world. Ancient stories are mainly poems, Homer and Virgil both sang poems, medieval folk poems preserved national legends, Dante revived personal writing with "Divine Comedy", Chaucer's "Canterbury Tales" is full of interesting The collection of short stories, but also written in the form of poetry.Boccaccio created colloquial writing in the form of prose.Rabelais's is the vanguard of "Don Quixote", which is also good at exaggeration and full of humor.Beginning with Chaucer, folk tales have entered literature, and human stories have replaced the stories of gods and become the mainstream. Cervantes turned this tradition into an artistic innovation.He keeps the romance of the legend and the humor of the folktale at the same time, which creates tension.All the rage stories had knights fighting duels, but none of them described the reality of knights fighting windmills alone.Don Quixote makes people laugh out loud, but watching it makes people laugh with sighs. The well-meaning man in the story advises Don Quixote like this: "You fool! Are you a knight-errant? Have you subdued giants and captured gangsters? You'd better go home and raise children if you have children." , take care of the family property, stop running around, living your life, and let people, whether they know each other or not, treat you as a joke. You are really unlucky. How can there be a knight-errant in the world? How can there be a giant in Spain? ? Where does La Mancha have gangsters and possessed Dulcinea?" Don Quixote answered him like this: "The knight-errant travels here and there all year round, not greedy for enjoyment, hard work and hard work, and doing some good things that will last forever. Is this boring or wasting time? If heroes or nobles treat me as a fool , that's my inexcusable shame; and I don't think it's worth laughing at a pedant who is a complete amateur of chivalry if I say I have no brains. I am a knight, and God will, I will be a knight to the end. Everyone has different tastes: yes Some are servile, some are deceitful, some are godly and religious; as for me, following the guidance of fate, I take the dangerous path of a knight-errant...with this kind of heart, I do this kind of thing tirelessly , should everyone call him a fool?" This is a well-intentioned exhortation and a sober defense.Only when the curtain of life is torn off can we understand why these two passages are the truth.Well-intentioned exhortation is rational consideration, and sober defense is rational madness.There are no rangers in this world, and chivalry is just people's imagination.Chivalry has not and cannot stand against the world.The lonely knight thinks that there are opponents all around, but in fact they are all windmills, you can neither defeat nor overthrow them.They're not even monsters.It is madness to fall into the imagination of a knight, and the sensible thing to do is to take good care of your children and property. This is the moment when you need to give up your illusions, but only at this moment can the knight's belief really become a belief. The legend is about to disappear.The nation of industry will take the place of sailing, the treatise of politics instead of poetry.The last knight was treated as a laughingstock, and artillery would replace horses and spears as the theme of the times. In 1616, Cervantes and Shakespeare died together. They witnessed the war on both sides of the strait, and recorded the exploration of the soul at both ends of the literature.Don Quixote and Hamlet are the two extremes of the world's least hesitation and hesitation, but they stand together in the purity and sincerity of their hearts.The world no longer needs them, but it will always need them. The knight will die in this world, but the world remembers the story of the knight. Madrid's international routes are as convenient as other European capitals, and the city's subway is even more convenient and cheap. It has 13 extremely powerful subways, and the daily ticket is 4 euros, which is clean and fast. 1.Spanish Royal Palace: The second largest and most beautiful royal palace in Europe after the Palace of Versailles. The palace is rich and luxurious, and many rooms are painted with exquisite zenith murals.There are sculptures of kings of all dynasties on the square outside the palace. 2.Puerta del Sol: the elliptical square in the center of Madrid; the main square: on the west side of the Puerta del Sol, the beauty of the 17th century, the place where bullfights are crowned. 3.Plaza de España: Center of the West End of Madrid, with sculptures of Cervantes, Don Quixote and Sancho. 4.Prado Museum: One of the most famous art museums in the world, a must-see when visiting Spain.There are many famous paintings by Velázquez, Grieco, and Goya, as well as a special collection of paintings by the Nordic painter Bosh. 5.El Escoria: A huge building complex built by Philip II from 1563 to 1584, located in the Guadama Mountains, one hour from Madrid by train (multiple round trips per day), integrating the Royal Palace, Monastery, and Library It is a majestic mausoleum, with famous paintings by Grico and other painters, and many Spanish kings are buried. 6.La Mancha: The central plateau region of Spain, where Don Quixote's footprints are located, can be traced all the way from Madrid.Consuela: Famous for its windmills and castles, the large flowers and the windmills in the farmland are beautiful.Here Don Quixote takes an oath to become a ranger. "Don Quixote" [West] Cervantes (1547～1616) translated by Yang Jiang When Cervantes wrote the book, according to his own words, it was "a kind of satire on knight literature", with the purpose of "completely destroying the territory of knight literature", so he wrote a crazy old guy who claimed to be a knight, Play around in the world of knights.But in the end, after experiencing all kinds of knights in the world, big and small, the only one who really has the spirit of chivalry is Don Quixote.Cervantes wanted to use non-knights to satirize knights, but in the end he left the only knights. This may be the greatest irony. According to statistics, Cervantes wrote about 700 characters, including dukes, duchesses, feudal landlords, monks, priests, soldiers, craftsmen, shepherds, farmers, etc., each character is vivid and interesting, lifelike, It shows its unknowingly funny in its own way.There are also many small stories that digress along the way, which are meaningful.After reading it, I can't help but think, what kind of experience should it be to be humorous and open-minded in such insight. Perhaps the mad knight is the only spectator with his eyes open. Don Quixote: "The wisest character in comedy is the foolish clown; for it is never the fool who plays the fool." Don Antonio said: "Ah, sir, you have done harm to the whole world by trying to cure this marvelous madman; God forgive you! Do you know, sir, that the wise Don Quixote Not much use, and the madness of Don Quixote is very interesting. But in my opinion, it will take no use of your bachelor's efforts to restore reason to such a madman." Sancho: "I came naked and went naked again. I neither suffered a loss nor took advantage of it. This is the difference between me and other governors." Don Quixote: "Sancho, you are a great philosopher! I don't know who taught you this. I tell you, there is no chance in the world; no matter good or bad, nothing happens by accident. But it was arranged intentionally by God. As the old saying goes, 'everyone makes their own destiny'. My destiny has always been decided by me." "Curtain" [Jie] Milan Kundera (1929～) Translated by Dong Qiang Kundera's literary review is better than any of his novels.After reading this review, his novels will be easier to read.Kundera has always followed his artistic philosophy, looking for and letting the "ambiguity emerge" of things, and tearing away the superficial meaning of mediocrity and repetition.This is a kind of cold humor, and it is also a consistent artistic tradition inherited from Cervantes' novels. "If history can have a bad taste of repetition, the history of an art cannot stand repetition. One day, what will be left of Europe will not be its history of repetition, because it has no value in itself. The only chance What survives will be the history of its art. "It was by tearing the veil of preinterpretation that Cervantes set in motion this new art; his destructive gesture is reflected and continued in any work worthy of the title of novel, the art of the novel identity mark." Carlyle Lectures on Literary History [Scotland] Thomas Carlyle (1795～1881)