I've been dipping into a sort of "Don Quijote por las Idiotas" book, presumably aimed at people doing A-level Spanish or leisure readers (that's me, with the emphasis on leisure) .... basically he gives you little chunks of the juicy bits of Don Quixote and simplifies and/or explains some of the archaic Spanish.
So as I was strolling along with the dog this morning it popped into my head that Dickens' first novel, The Pickwick Papers, which features a bumbling old bloke with pretentions above his abilities travels around England with his faithful servant with hilarious results .... is remarkably close to Cervantes' Don Quixote in which a bumbling old bloke with pretentions above his abilities travels around Spain with his faithful servant with hilarious results.
Just a thought, you understand.So I got home and looked it up .. and look what I found ... it's official ...
Similitudes between Pickwick Papers and Don Quixote
by Merc Potau
There is a large variety of imitations of Cervantes' novel Don Quijote de la Mancha. They have quixotic heroes, whose characteristics are: The pursuit of justice, the capacity to undergo hardships and practical jokes, an awkward appearance; usually they are older than most heroes, not engaged in sexual competition, and champion illusory ideals that we consider ridiculous, though they attract love and respect despite our laughter.
Mr Pickwick, the descendant of Don Quixote and famous protagonist of Pickwick Papers, by Dickens, is unmatched among the literary quixotic heroes. Yet, his quixotic condition has been gradually neglected. Early reviewers detected it at once. Forster (1870) valued Mr Pickwick and Sam Weller as "the Don Quixote and Sancho Panza of Londoners". Edgar Johnson wrote (1952): "Like Cervantes' hero, Mr Pickwick, at first a slapstick puppet, grew into a 'Knight of the Joyful Countenance' as rotund as Cervantes' 'Knight of the Rueful Countenance' is lean,....and as fated for triumph as his predecessor was for failure". Finally, the latest of Dickens' biographers, Ackroyd, writes his Dickens (1990), as if Cervantes, and his Don Quixote had never existed. In his big book (1200 pp., 200 of them devoted to Pickwick) mendaciously affirms that "nothing is known about the genesis of Dickens' Pickwick".
[ The rest of this article is rather long and won't fit into the margin of this article, so I'll stick it on after the music ][ That's a mathematician's joke that is]
..... so, my astonishing breakthrough into a new field of literary scholarship has bitten the dust. I suppose I'll have to get famous some other way. ¡ Zas !
So, seeing as how I put Leiva on the previous post, here he is on his own with "Todavia una Canción De Amor" ...
no dudes de mi duda y mi quizás
el amor es igual que un imperdible
perdido en la solapa del azar
La luna toma el sol de madrugada
nunca jamás quiere decir tal vez
la muerte es un amante despechada
que juega sucio y no sabe perder
Estoy tratando de decirte que
me desespero de esperarte
que no salgo a buscarte porque se
que corro el riesgo de encontrarte
que me sigo mordiendo noche y día
las uñas del rencor
que te sigo debiendo todavía
una canción de amor.
No corras si te llamo de repente
no te vayas si te grito piérdete
a menudo los labios más urgentes
no tienen prisa dos besos después.
Se aferra el corazón a lo perdido
los ojos que no ven miran mejor
cantar es disparar contra el olvido
vivir sin ti es dormir en la estación.
Smashing ... now for all you keen types, here's the rest of that article about Don Quixote and The Pickwick Papers ...
Welsh regards Fielding, Sterne, Dickens and Dostoevsky as the finest readers of Cervantes. Joseph Andrews, Tristam Shandy, The Vicar of Wakefield, Pickwick and The Idiot have quixotic heroes. Joseph Andrews and Tristam Shandy, bore directly on Goldsmith's achievement and indirectly on Dickens. Dostoevsky singlet out Pickwick as the closest replication of Don Quixote and his Prince Myshkin is inspired in Cervantes' hero. After he had written the first part of The Idiot, he disclosed in a letter (1868) his plan to describe "a truly noble man -with reference to Christ, Don Quixote and Pickwick- and he said: "Of the good types in Christian literature the most perfect is Don Quixote. He is good only because at the same time he is ridiculous. The Pickwick of Dickens (an infinitely weaker conception....but still immense) is also ridiculous and succeeds in virtue of this". Pickwick, which resembles Don Quixote much more openly than The Idiot, contains not direct allusion to Cervantes, though Pickwick is the only major quixotic novel, in any language, to include a full reincarnation of Sancho Panza. Nor did Dickens ever compare his hero with Cervantes' hero. The affinity between Don Quixote and Pickwick has been also commented by Taine, Turgeniev, Washington Irving, Ramón Pérez de Ayala and other writers.
Not all the English quixotic novels confess their debt to Cervantes as openly as Joseph Andrews, subtitled "Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote", a fact now almost always omitted. Dickens' general debt to 18th Century English novelists influenced by Cervantes (Fielding, Smollett, Sterne, Goldsmith, Scott) is well known. Scott's hero in Waverley is a youthful counterpart of Don Quixote.
A resemblance between Pickwick's and Don Quixote's leading characters is fully admitted. Some scholars think that Pickwick, as a whole, is related with Don Quixote. The analogy between the novels is obvious: universality of theme; rather episodic action; quixotic heroes that, motivated by foolish pretexts, set out on adventures with vexatious results; jokes played on the men, followed by chivalric responses; interpolated tales.
However, after thorough readings and careful comparisons of the two works, beyond the affinities inherent to their quixotic condition, we have found more close analogies than the ones usually conjectured. The novels show likenesses (of theme, plot, topics, structure, even of style) that are never mentioned. The aim of this essay is to describe with some meticulousness such similarities, along with the ones well known. On occasion, the parallels pointed out are trivial or fortuitous, but an account of them all, casual or otherwise, may be, not only interesting or surprising, but helpful to emphasize the kinship between the two masterpieces, which, if really accepted, is very often forgotten. The "quixotism" of Pickwick excepted, the analogies we describe are no more than little imitations or borrowings (of no influence on the whole of Dickens' big book, and often perhaps casual or unconscious) that the author made from Don Quixote (as most novelists, Cervantes included, made from previous authors), genially transfigured into fresh, wondrous fiction. Our "similarities" are relevant only because nothing related with Dickens is irrelevant. Moreover, some parallels between the two novels could have been furthered by Dickens' exceptional circumstances. Just twenty-four, he was labouring under great pressure (parliamentary reporting, working on an operetta and other small commissions; moving into larger quarters at No. 15 Furnival's Inn because of his forthcoming marriage. Besides, Pickwick "was unique among his novels... in being in response to an external demand, instead of gradually taking shape in his mind" (Butt and Tillotson).
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To begin with we shall comment upon the main characters. Mr. Pickwick's age looks like Don Quixote's, who was "verging on fifty". Both are of an uncommon bodily build: Don Quixote is a tall, thin, rather cadaverous man; Mr Pickwick, quite the reverse, is short, healthy, derisively fat. Mr Pickwick's obesity, baldness, coat-tails, tights and garters, make him conspicuous and recall Don Quixote's grotesque aspect (lance, shield, coat of armour, head-piece). Eloquent, chivalrous, innocent men, they attract our affection. Each of them is a bachelor convinced that he will never be anything else. They are fond of adventure, and capable of performances that would suit younger men better: Mr Pickwick goes down a slide cut in the ice "with an ardour that nothing could abate" (PP, ch 30), and Don Quixote jumps in the air turning head over heels in Sierra Morena (DQ pt.1, ch XXV). Mr Pickwick seems at first a pompous ass or an amiable buffoon. Don Quixote displays a mixture of stately sanity and peculiar madness. When the stories proceed they appear dignified, above all at the end of the novels.
As to the servants, Sam Weller's and Sancho Panza's bodily shape amusingly differs from that of their masters. Sam has the cockney spirit, while Sancho is a typical peasant, but both possess the wisdom of practical experience: a blend of ignorance and shrewdness. Each of them scores a smashing record of resourcefulness: Sam, at the soirée of footmen (PP,37); Sancho, at the governorship of the isle (DQ,II,XLV). Devoted to their masters, they share their misfortunes and have a high opinion of them. On occasion, they function as their protectors. Both write amusing letters and have their relatives introduced in the books: old Weller, and Mrs Weller; Sancho's wife and their daughter. Besides, old Weller and Teresa Panza, too, write comical letters. Sam, like Sancho, is rather an epicure. (So is Mr Pickwick, who, along with Sancho's fatness, has inherited a fondness for drink and good fare.)
Sancho keeps it up raining proverbs, a trait that provides much mirth for the reader, which Sam echoes by repeating samples of sophisticated similes, the famous Wellerisms ("as the ...said"), some of them supremely amusing. After having used pre-wellerisms in his Sketches by Boz, later on, Dickens suppressed them; which shows that Dickens came to see that this kind of locution should be the monopoly of Sam. Surprisingly, we have detected prewellerisms in Walter Scott's Journal (1/12/1826; 10/1/1828; 11/1/1828; 13/5/1831), told by Scott himself, not by fictional characters. Possibly, such sayings were taken from life. We have also discovered one prewellerism in Don Quixote: Near the end of Part I, Ch.L, Sancho Panza says to the Canon: "So, for heaven's sake, let me have the estate, and then we 'l see, as one blind man said to the other".
The unconventional roles of Mrs. Bardell and Dulcinea in the novels shows a special kind of likeness. As female pseudo-protagonists, they afford continuity to the loose episodic action by supplying a plot-interest. The men are victimised through ludicrous amatory misunderstandings by women whom they could never marry. Don Quixote behaves as if he were in love with Dulcinea, while Mrs. Bardell, a kind of reversal Dulcinea figure, forces herself into seeing nuptial designs in Mr. Pickwick. Because of the Knight's pretended infatuation , his defeat by Sampson Carrasco is the most tragic event he experiences, as it implies his giving up all future knight-errantry adventures. And because Mr. Pickwick rejects Mrs. Bardell's predatory matrimonial designs, he meets with his major catastrophe: imprisonment caused for his quixotic decision to defy the judgement against him at the trial for breach of contract.
A minor similarity: Sam is sent to Goswell Street (Mrs. Bardell's abode) and Sancho is sent to El Toboso (Dulcinea's dwelling-place) to inquire into the two women's designs concerning their respective momentous affair (PP. ch. 26; DQ, I, XXV).
The beginning of the two second chapters of each novel era remarkably similar. In Dickens we read:
"Chapter 2. The First Day's Journey, and the First Evening's Adventure with their consequences.
That punctual servant of all work, the sun, had just risen, and begun to strike a light on the morning of the thirteenth of May...., when Mr Samuel Pickwick burst like another sun from his slumbers, threw open his chamber window, and looked out upon the world beneath. Goswell Street was at his feet, Goswell Street was on his right hand....and the opposite side of Goswell Street was over the way. "Such", thought Mr Pickwick, "are the narrow views of those philosophers who, content with examining the things that lie before them, look not to the truths that are hidden beyond. As well might I be content to gaze on Goswell Street for ever, without one effort to penetrate to the hidden countries which on every side surround it". And having given vent to this beautiful reflection, Mr Pickwick proceeded to put himself into his clothes, ....and in another hour Mr Pickwick, with his portmanteau in his hand, his telescope in his great-coat pocket, and his note-book in his waistcoat, ready for the reception of any discoveries worthy of being noted down, had arrived at the coach stand in St Martin's-le-Grand".
Here is the correlative beginning by Cervantes (DQ, pt. I, ch. II):
"Chapter II. Which treats of the First Expedition which the ingenuous Don Quixote made from his village.
Once these preparations were completed, he was anxious to wait no longer before putting his ideas into effect....So, one morning before down....he armed himself completely, mounted Rocinante, put on his badly-mended head piece, slung on his shield, seized his lance and went out into the plain....As our brand-new adventurer journeyed along, he talked to himself, saying: "Who can doubt that in ages to come, when the authentic story of my famous deeds comes to light, the sage who writes of them will say: 'Scarce had the ruddy Apollo spread the golden threads of his lovely hair over the broad and spacious face of the earth, and scarcely had the forked tongues of the little painted birds greeted.... the coming of the rosy Aurora who.....showed herself at the doors and balconies of the Manchegan horizon, when the famous Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha, quitting the slothful down, mounted his famous steed Rocinante and began to journey across the ancient and celebrated plain of Montiel'?....and he went on: "Fortunate the age and fortunate the times in which my famous deeds shall come to light, deeds worthy to be engraved in bronze, carved in marble and painted in wood, as a memorial for posterity."
Both passages arouse similar feelings. They display humour and eloquence in a mock-scientific or mock-heroic language becoming to each man. The authors make affectionate fun of their elated protagonists and agree on the essential facts narrated: Both heroes started alone, in summer, early in the morning, without either a squire or the thought of having one. Mr Pickwick burst like another sun from his slumbers; Don Quixote quitted the slothful down when scarcely had Apollo spread the golden threads of his hair over the earth, so that Don Quixote was also like another sun bursting from his slumbers. Mr Pickwick's "chamber-window" parallels the "door and balconies" of the Manchegan horizon. Mr Pickwick took portmanteau, telescope, and note-book; Don Quixote took head-piece, shield, lance. The authors even pass on the heroes' high-sounding thoughts: Mr Pickwick's pedantic philosophy of a futile man matches Don Quixote's ludicrous nonsense phrased after knight-errantry fashion. The men are engrossed in times to come: Mr Pickwick imagines "discoveries worthy of being written down" and Don Quixote dreams of future "deeds worthy of being engraved in bronze or carved in marble".
Such close resemblances cannot be fortuitous. It seems that Dickens's inspiration came from Cervantes here. Don Quixote was present in the novelist's mind, as is sustained by a fact, remarked to us by Mrs. Tillotson: Don Quixote and Oliver Twist begin almost identically. Cervantes writes: "In a certain village in La Mancha, which I do not wish to name". And Dickens says: "In a town, which for many reasons it will be prudent to refrain from mentioning". (The serialising of Oliver Twist overlapped that of Pickwick since the Ninth of Pickwick's twenty Numbers).
Another parallel: Both heroes begin their first journey carried by horses but not at all customary ones. Don Quixote "mounted his famous steed Rocinante", a skin-and-bone animal; at the coach-stand, Mr. Pickwick set out in a cab driven by a Rocinante-like horse.. In the course of his first adventure, Mr. Pickwick is dealt blows on the nose and chest and has his spectacles knocked off; this event echoes one of Don Quixote's inveterate mishaps.
It is interesting that Sam and Sancho appear at a similar stage of each narrative. Both masters made their first journey without a servant: They went through several events, returned home and since their second expedition (DQ, pt. 1, .VII;PP,l3), each of them engaged a retainer. Sancho Panza contributed enormously to the success of Cervantes' novel and delighted all kind of readers. With the Fifth Number of Pickwick, when Dickens introduced Sam, sales increased prodigiously.
Sam and Sancho provide the most conspicuous and steady of all the parallels: the likeness between the master-.servant relationship, which is kept up throughout both novels: A multifarious similarity , with ingredients of patronage and parenthood on the part of the masters, and almost filial devotion on the part of the servants, is common to both novels.
There are also relevant similarities between several episodes in the books. For instance, "The Antiquarian Discovery" (PP,11) echoes the "Winning of the Mambrino's Helmet" . Mr Pickwick sees a stone with an inscription, buys it because on the stone these letters appear: "BILST UM PSHI S.M. ARK", which he thinks implies a weighty discovery. Learned Societies start speculating on the meaning of the lettering, without any success. The man who sold the stone assures that he is who had carved the inscription, intending to write: "BILL STUMPS, HIS MARK", but "to this day the stone remains an illegible monument of Mr Pickwick's greatness"(PP, end 11).
In Cervantes' episode (DQ,I,XXI;XLV), Don Quixote sees a man wearing what he imagines to be the famous helmet of Mambrino. (It is, really, a barber's brass-basin. that, at the moment, protects the barber against the rain.) Carried away by his craziness, Don Quixote gains the "helmet" by force. The object is amply discussed, with fights following. The barber from whom the "basin-helmet" had been taken assures that it is simply his basin, which he needs for his trade. Yet, "in Don Quixote's imagination the basin remains a helmet" (DQ,I,XLV,408).
The similarity between Mr Pickwick's "Discovery", and the "Winning of the helmet" is clear. The infatuation of an amateur antiquarian parallels Don Quixote's distraction.
The Antiquarian by Scott includes a similar episode: Oldbuck exchanges good fields for a piece of bad ground (the scene of an historic conflict), discovers in the ground a stone with letters on it, and attributes to them the meaning he wishes for. Later on, Oldbuck knows he has made a mistake. He is not a fool, but a cheat, and pampers Ochiltree (the discloser of the real clue to the inscription) to silence him.
Dickens' "Discovery" might imitate Scott. But it seems that Cervantes' episode is the model here. In Pickwick and Don Quixote, the dubious objects are discovered suddenly and taken away at once, its identity is largely contested, and each possessor rejects the obvious interpretation, which fully discloses his foolishness, as both authors wanted. Nothing of this occurs in Scott's story. Possibly, to ridicule antiquarians, Dickens "borrowed" the stone from Scott's Antiquarian, which, precisely, recalls Cervantes, as four pages before Oldbuck's tale comes in his novel, Scott tells us that Don Quixote sold corn-land to buy chivalry books (DQ, beginning of pt.I ) as bad a bargain as Oldbuck's.
Chesterton does not connect Mr Pickwick with Don Quixote, but comments "how fitted he was to rescue ladies, to defy tyrants". One of such exploits is the Boarding-School episode (PP,16), the attempt to expose the real character of Jingle who, so Job pretends, is going to elope with a young heiress, the pupil of a boarding-school. Mr Pickwick's innocent credulity, and the results of his involvement in the imaginary flight, parallel many of Don Quixote's wrong-redressing deeds: the liberation of the galley-slaves (DQ,I, XXII); the defence of a lad against a flogging, which increases the lad's wretchedness (DQ,I,IV); etc.
Between the picaresque pair Jingle-Trotter and the pair Mr Pickwick-Weller, an antagonism is going on with alternate results. Mr Pickwick, assisted by Sam, helps to chase Jingle, who has run away with the deluded Miss Wardle (PP,9,10). In the Boarding-School episode, Mr Pickwick and Sam are ridiculed by the couple of rascals. And at Ipswich, Jingle (who has changed name) and Job, are exposed by Mr Pickwick and Sam, and expelled as impostors from Mr Nupkins' (PP,25). It turns out that the couple Don Quixote-Sancho has also their adverse counterpart: Sampson Carrasco and his servant Tomé Cecial. Like Jingle, Sampson changes his name and, fighting with Don Quixote, is vanquished in a first encounter (DQ,II,XIV; XV), but he defeats Don Quixote in a second joust (DQ,II,LXIV). At the end of the novels the antagonism disappears through acts of generosity: Jingle and Trotter are befriended by Mr Pickwick and set free from prison and misery; and it is found that Sampson, Don Quixote's pretended adversary, had exerted himself to keep the knight away from hardships originated in his chivalric mania. On each occasion, good overcomes evil.
We observe also affinities between other episodes in the books. Some of them are described here:
There is a surprising coincidence: In each novel we see the two servants in convivial companionship. Dickens tells us that Sam called for a pot of porter and
"Trotter raised the pot to his lips and by gentle and almost imperceptible degrees, tilted it into the air....."(PP,45).
In Don Quixote we read that Tomé Cecial, Sampson's squire, took a bottle of wine
"and he gave it to Sancho, who tilted it, put it to his mouth and gazed at the stars a quarter of an hour on end." (DQ,II,XIII,).
Both heroes are removed on wheeled vehicles: Mr Pickwick, intoxicated by punch and fast asleep, is carried by his friends in a wheel-barrow, caged in a village pound, and reviled by the mob (PP,19). The demented Don Quixote, while sleeping peacefully, is put in a cage and taken away in an ox-cart, because his friends are trying "to get him cured from his madness" (DQ, pt. I , XLVII).
Mr Pickwick's incident with the "middle aged lady" (PP,22), echoes Don Quixote's error (DQ, pt 1,XVI)) when he meets Maritornes in a garret. The women's jealous lovers get angry, take revenge, etc. (Such episodes are common in comic literature; but there is here a special resemblance on account of the innocence of the two men.)
Don Quixote agrees to be rescued from the martyrdom he intended to suffer in Sierra Morena "to gain renown" (DQ,I,XXV), and instead to undertake exploits in order to avenge a Princess upon a perverse giant (DQ,I,XXIX). And Mr Pickwick, who had chosen to spend the rest of his life in a debtor's prison rather than dishonour himself by submitting to Dodson and Fog's greedy extorsions (PP,34,40), does as Don Quixote, and agrees to be released from Fleet Prison (PP,47) to rescue Mrs Bardell from that den of wretchedness, and help a couple in distress (Arabella-Winkle). The result is: like the Princess that the knight was going to protect, Mrs Bardell and the lovers, after suffering under evil powers, are rescued through goodness. In both episodes (PP;47,title) "the knights benevolence proves stronger than their obstinacy.
The ending of each novel is the end of its hero's adventures. In Pickwick we have what suited best to Dickens' readers: a "happy ending": The Pickwick Club exists no longer; the hero's adventures are over and our hero is now and old gentleman, comfortably established in Dulwich, surrounded by his friends and attended by Sam, who is ready to sacrifice his own hymeneal inclinations and submit to a possibly long celibacy, to attend his master till his dying day. Cervantes' hero has been defeated by Sampson Carrasco and, because of a prior solemn pledge, his exploits are forcibly over. At home, seized by a fever, having rejected his quixotic career, he is now Alonso Quixano "who was mad but is sane now" (DQ.pt. II,LXXIV). Sancho is ready to sacrifice his domestic peace and go with his master into the fields, both turned shepherds as they had planned. But Don Quixote's judgement is now clear. As an old Spanish "hidalgo", he asks for a priest and dies comforted by Sancho and his other friends.
At the last page of Dickens' work we are told that "Mr Pickwick is somewhat infirm now", and the author's last words state that between Sam and his master "there exists a steady and reciprocal attachment which nothing but death will terminate". We can conclude that the actually suggested endings of the novels are essentially alike.
General features common to the books
They are big books, with similarly structured titles:
EL INGENIOSO HIDALGO DON QUIJOTE de la MANCHA
THE POSTHUMOUS PAPERS of the PICKWICK CLUB
Cervantes does not claim to be Don Quixote's father (Reed,p.28) but its "step-father", by using the intermittent fiction of the Arab historian Cide Hamete Benengeli. Dickens' device is to profit by the Transactions of the Club. Both authors mention other minor sources: the archives of La Mancha, a translation of an Arabic manuscript; Mr Pickwick's and his friends' memoranda. Many chapter-titles are typically humorous. The reader is welcome to peruse Dickens' and Cervantes' Chapter-titles and judge for himself about their striking similarities. Among Dickens' works, Pickwick is almost the only one with verses and many interpolated tales, sometimes dull or debasing the whole work, and, as in Don Quixote, with tragedy as well as comedy. In both books we find hundreds of varied characters and humorous social criticism. The life of Victorian England and of Spain ruled by Philip II and III, flows like a truthful picture. Allowing for the lapse of almost two centuries, there are similarities as to literary qualities, such as brilliant examples of satirical-comic-epical prose. Neither Don Quixote nor Pickwick are novels in a strict sense: their formlessness is clear.
Both works were extraordinarily successful and brought their authors instant popularity. Cervantes, transcended his initial aim (to ridicule romances of chivalry) and created the pattern of the novel of common life and customs. Dickens, the unrivalled painter of English society and manners, engaged to supply letterpress for a series of plates depicting the mishaps of cockney sportsmen, issued the most amusing of all jocose, not indecent, books, the humorous novel most widely read in the world, and a work "with a hero and a fiction that are as different from the rest of Dickens' creations as is Don Quixote from Cervantes romances.
Words from the novels became universal: Pikwickian, Quixotic, Wellerism, Welleresque, Dulcinea, Maritornes, Rocinante.
Cervantes, already an old man, put an end to his Don Quixote with two paragraphs which include these lines:
"And said Cide Hamete to his pen: Here you shall rest, hanging from this rack....you shall live long ages there....leave Don Quixote's weary and mouldering bones to rest in the grave..... I shall be proud and satisfied to have been the first author to enjoy the pleasure of witnessing the effect of his own writing" (DQ,II,LXXIV).
Dickens, feeling that he was achieving something greater than he had aimed at, wrote to his publishers on 1 Nov 1836, when only seven months had elapsed since the appearance of the First Number of Pickwick:
"If I were to live a hundred years and write tree novels in each, I should never be so proud of any of them as I am of Pickwick, feeling as I do, that it has made his own way, and hopping, as I must own I do hope, that long after my hand is withered as the pen it held, Pickwick will be found on many a dusty shelf with many a better work".
(It seems there is a certain kinship between these two fragments emphasizing the novels: The phrases "live a hundred years", "I should never go so proud", my hand is withered as the pen it helds", in Dickens' letter, recall those written by Cervantes at the end of Don Quixote: "pen... you shall live long ages", "I shall be proud" , "Don Quixote weary and mouldering bones".)
Charles Dickens was too modest. He could hardly have dreamed that years to come he would be celebrated by Philip Collins with words such as these:
"Dickens and Shakespeare are the two unique popular classics that England has given to the world, and they are alike in being remembered not for one masterpiece (as Dante, Cervantes or Milton are) but for a creative world, a plurality of works populated by a great variety of figures in situations ranging from the sombre to the farcical." ("Encyclopaedia Britannica", 1974, vol. 5, p. 711)
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You can get the original ... over 1000 pages long!