Steve, you write: my young (30something) Spanish (Basque) colleague from Wales speaks of the DQ tale as if Sancho Panza is the true hero/protaganist, which was what I suspected in my own first reading.
It is great that you mention this. I have pretty much felt the same way about Don Quixote and Sancho Panza. In some ways, I feel that *Don Quixote* was the spiritual predecessor of Voltaire's *Candide*. In both cases, I feel a strong sense of contempt emanating from the authors and focused upon the titular characters. In the case of Cervantes, he is quite a bit more clever. Situating Sancho Panza as the protagonist, Cervantes himself does not seem to have much patience for *idealistas*, gives us a protagonist in a submissive power role. He watches after the Don and is charged with an impossibly compassionate task. The whole affair has a wit, sarcasm, and dare I say humor. Jon
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