This essay examines the Renaissance qualities shared by Shakespeare's Hamlet and Cervantes's Don Quixote, two literary figures created during the first decade of the seventeenth century. Rather than fitting the mold of Renaissance polymaths like Leonardo da Vinci, both characters embody the era's spirit through personal rebirth, romantic idealism, and conflict with harsh reality. The essay contrasts Don Quixote's flamboyant chivalric fantasies with Hamlet's darker, philosophical introspection, while identifying their shared quest for honor and longing for an idealized past. Together, the characters and their plots illustrate the defining tensions of the Renaissance period.
According to the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, "renaissance" means "a revival of intellectual or artistic achievement and vigor, the revival of learning and culture, a rebirth, a spiritual enlightenment causing a person to lead a new life." The Renaissance is most commonly associated with polymathic figures such as Leonardo da Vinci — artists, scientists, and inventors who embodied its spirit across multiple disciplines. Hamlet and Don Quixote are not Renaissance men in that same sense; they were neither artists nor scientists. However, both characters did experience a form of rebirth, and each set about to change the world around him. Moreover, the works in which they appear — both written during the first decade of the seventeenth century — deal with the conflicts that arise between the harsh reality of life and romantic ideals. Thus, the characters of Hamlet and Don Quixote, as well as the plot of each work, possess the defining characteristics of the Renaissance era.
Of the two, Don Quixote is probably the most flamboyant, and possesses a deep love of romance and the art of chivalry. He is so taken by the farmer's daughter, Aldonza Lorenzo, that he remains utterly undeterred by her actual behavior, declaring:
"For what I want of Dulcinea del Toboso she is as good as the greatest princess in the land. For not all those poets who praise ladies under names which they choose so freely, really have such mistresses…I am quite satisfied to imagine and believe that…Aldonza Lorenzo is so lovely and virtuous" (Cervantes, Ch. XXV).
Don Quixote is entirely satisfied to imagine her as the princess Dulcinea del Toboso — no matter the harsh reality, in his imagination and in his world, she holds that exalted role. His obsession with reading chivalric romance novels was what brought him to this state of illusion, or madness, in the first place. The world of chivalry, romance, and virtue thus becomes his reality.
"Hamlet's depression, philosophy, and obsession with death"
"Both characters united by honor quests and longing"
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