Don Quixote - Part I: Prologue, Ch 1-6, 8-14, 52

The Quixote is 100 times easier to read than Hamlet.  Cervantes writes with a fun style and the enchantment of Quixote's character is captivating.  I love and hate the obvious (and most often humorous) contradictions that Cervantes litters the story with.  For Example, Part 1 Prologue:


(pg 12)   I'd have liked to give it to you plain and naked, undercoated by any prologue or the endless succession of sonnets, epigrams and eulogies that are usually put at the beginnings of books.


Cervantes then immediately includes 8 full pages of exactly what he said that he would hate to include!  And not just in the prologue - Cervantes uses sonnets, ballads and Latin throughout the the entire text that I've read so far!  I do, however, love how these elements add a feel for how a chivalrous man would have spoken back in the 'good ol days.  Quixote explains to Poncho in Chapter 8, (pg 145) that "Knights errant have always known and still must know about everything... ... for there were knights errant in centuries past who would stop to preach a sermon or deliver a speech in the middle of a fair..."

To help illustrate the state of mind that Quixote is in, the part in Chapter 8 where he mistakes the windmills for the giants that stole his books does well.

(pg 66)  ...they spent that night under some trees, and from one of them Don Quixote tore a dead branch that might almost serve as a lance, and fastened on to it the iron head that he'd taken off the broken one.

Quixote tells this story to Poncho about a knight who'd lost his sword in battle and replaced it with the trunk of an oak tree.  To follow suit, Quixote finds a dead branch, one likely to break at its first chance, to replace the lance that he had broken while attacking windmills.  A dead branch from some unknown tree that won't withstand a single blow will perfectly suit Quixote - and continue to paint the picture of his delightful lunacy to the reader.