How David Copperfield drew on Don Quixote
A documented line of influence: Charles Dickens demonstrably engaged Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra’s work. The commentary below is Gröblé’s, verbatim from each work’s page.
The source
Don Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra · 1605
RenaissanceThe influenced
David Copperfield
Charles Dickens · 1850
The Age of the NovelRelevance
7/10
On David Copperfield’s page
- Dickens names Don Quixote directly — it's in the father's bookroom list that "kept alive my fancy" in Chapter 4
- He read and re-read Cervantes from childhood; the book is woven into the texture of David's comic, fond, slightly deluded characters
- Read Cervantes first and you can see where Dickens learned to love a foolish heart
On Don Quixote’s page
- One of Dickens's lifelong favorites — and one of the books that built him
- Don Quixote sits in young David Copperfield's childhood book-cache, the small hoard that "kept alive my fancy" through a miserable boyhood
- Cervantes's quixotic comedy — the deluded idealist played for both laughs and tenderness — feeds straight into Dickens's gallery of lovable, self-fooling eccentrics