Cervantes
Cervantes begins by describing his main character of his novel, Don Quixote, of the village called La Mancha. Though he lives with his extended family, he has no wife or children, despite his age of fifty years. Cervantes soon explains that of late, Quixote has spent most of his time reading books of chivalry. In fact, due to this obsession, he grows delusional, even beginning to model himself after the knights described in the books. Finally deciding to venture outside of La Mancha himself to engage in the activities of knights, Quixote flimsily reconstructs the armor of his great-grandfather which has now become old and rusty. He names his horse Rozinante, meaning “first of all hacks.” Here he begins calling himself Don Quixote de La Mancha, signifying his ancestry and his village. Now needing only a noble lady to call his own, he decides to make a “good-looking country lass,” Aldonza Lorenzo, his esteemed princess, in the tradition of knights-errant, giving her the title, Dulcinea del Toboso.