SOURCE: Young, Howard. “Game of Circles: Conversations Between Don Quixote and Sancho.” Philosophy and Literature 24, no. 2 (2000): 377-86.

In the following essay, Young explores the complex friendship between Don Quixote and Sancho Panza by analyzing their intimate conversations, which he says express their tenderness, love, respect, anger, frustration, and growing closeness.

Accolades accumulated during the centuries weigh heavily upon Don Quixote de la Mancha (Part 1, 1605; Part 2, 1615) making it a behemoth of a classic, not only in terms of its size and tendency on occasion to ramble, but also due to the enormous applause it has received from authors and critics the world over. More than a trail-breaking predecessor like the first picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) or one of its famous imitations Huckleberry Finn (1884), Cervantes's book has earned the unqualified praise of critics and writers alike. To top off the devotion of Fielding, Smollet, Sterne, Diderot, Stendhal, Flaubert, Daudet...