Don Quixote Ch. 6: The Book Burning

Summary

While Don Quixote sleeps, the curate takes the niece's keys and leads the barber, the housekeeper, and the niece into the library of more than a hundred well-bound volumes. The housekeeper runs for holy water and a sprinkler so no magician in the books can bewitch them for the planned banishment. The niece and housekeeper want every title flung into the yard and burned. The curate will not agree without first reading the names.

Master Nicholas hands them up one by one. Amadis of Gaul, first of the Spanish chivalry books, is spared as the best of its kind. Esplandian, Amadis of Greece, and the rest of that lineage fly out the window to start the bonfire pile. Palmerin de Oliva becomes firewood; Palmerin of England is kept like Homer among the spoils of Darius. Don Belianis gets a stay in the barber's house until its excess bile is purged. Tirante el Blanco, where knights eat, sleep, and die in their beds, goes home with the barber as a treasury of enjoyment, though the curate still says the author deserves the galleys for composing such fooleries.

The little books of poetry fare by taste and friendship. The Diana of Montemayor keeps its prose and the honour of being first of its kind, minus Felicia's magic water. Gil Polo is preserved as if from Apollo; the Salamancan's Second Part goes to the yard. Cervantes's Galatea is shut up in the barber's quarters until a promised Second Part may win the grace now denied it. Three heroic verse treasures, the Araucana, the Austriada, and the Montserrate, are saved as the richest poetry Spain possesses. Then the curate grows tired and condemns the rest as contents uncertified. The barber holds open The Tears of Angelica, and the judge says he would have shed tears himself had he ordered that poet burned.

In this chapter: Terms Characters Key Quotes Modern Story

Why This Matters

Recognizing Curated Destruction

When someone you love is spiraling, the first impulse is to delete whatever fed the obsession. The curate and barber spare Amadis and Cervantes's Galatea while Esplandian flies into the yard, then condemn every unchecked title as contents uncertified until The Tears of Angelica forces one last reprieve.

Ask whether you are removing a source or treating a mind that has already absorbed the source.

This chapter

Inside the Mind: The Housekeeper

The housekeeper runs for holy water the moment she sees the shelves, afraid a magician will "bewitch us in revenge." The curate laughs at her simplicity, then sets her to the window, where she seizes about eight volumes at a time and enjoys the burning more than weaving. The men are sorting taste, while she throws out a danger she believes can still strike.

Continue this thoughtThe People Who Love Him Feed the Plot

Coming Up in Chapter 7

After the library is walled shut and Quixote recruits Sancho with a promised island governorship, the pair slip out unseen for a second sally. On the Campo de Montiel Sancho asks when his island arrives while Quixote scans the plain for the adventure fortune owes him.

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Chapter 06

The Book Burning

OF THE DIVERTING AND IMPORTANT SCRUTINY WHICH THE CURATE AND THE BARBER MADE IN THE LIBRARY OF OUR INGENIOUS GENTLEMAN He was still sleeping; so the curate asked the niece for the keys of the room where the books, the authors of all the mischief, were, and right willingly she gave them. They all went in, the housekeeper with them, and found more than a hundred volumes of big books very well bound, and some other small ones. The moment the housekeeper saw them she turned about and ran out of the room, and came back immediately with a saucer…

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The Book Burning

Summary

Why This Matters