The knight of the rueful countenance - Рыцарь печального образа
The words the knight of the rueful countenance appear in Don Quixote by Cervantes, the great Spanish
novelist. In his novel Cervantes discredits through ратody the “false and absurd” romances of chivalry, which
for a century had exercised a hypnotic attraction on
readers of all classes. Don Quixote, a modest country
gentleman so hypnotized, sets out to resurrect the institution of knight-errantry. He has high ideals and is a
chivalrous but very unpractical person. He is brought
up against harsh reality and defeated by it.
Admirably sane in everything else, he mistakes inns
for castles, windmills for giants, criminals on their
way to the galleys for victims of tyranny, and sees at
every turn a wrong reserved for him to right.
The knight's adventures provide both a framework
and subject matter for two men talking as they travel
the roads of Spain. There can be few themes current
in the age that the two do not discuss: the meaning
and purpose of existence, the nature of reality and of
truth, the relativity of judgement and of values, and
many others. The all-pervading humanity of Don
Quixote makes it one of the world’s most loved books.
Don Quixote is called the knight of the rueful countenance by Sancho Panza, his squire, a short, potbellied peasant, ignorant and credulous, but shrewd and
wise.
The term the knight of the rueful countenance is usually applied to an enthusiastic visionary, a pursuer of
lofty but impracticable ideals, a person utterly regardless of his material interest in comparison with honour
or devotion.