Don Quixote—deformation and symbolism—are the very methods of modern art, and have a significance which goes far beyond the superficial contrasts hitherto seen in the grotesque epic.
The voluntary deformation of objects has its beginning in arbitrary idealism, and has come to be recognized as an essential characteristic of all creative art. It is that process by which you see only what you want to see, represent only what you want to represent, changing, exaggerating, or reducing even that, according to the internal necessities of the creative will. Don Quixote is in this sense an artist, an artist in life though of literary origin, a true modern artist.
He is a symbolist as well, and a satiric symbolist. His voluntary errors follow a preëstablished plan. They are organically related, and grow directly out of an ironic judgment on the life of mankind. His apparently mad confusions reflect the discovery of hidden likenesses, and are necessary consequences of his skepticism. Consider the best known of these pretended errors in recognition: sheep to him are soldiers; windmills are robber giants; taverns are castles; inn-keepers are knights; basins are helmets; harlots are courtly damsels; serving-maids are enamored ladies; peasant girls are Beatrices; galley-slaves are innocent men.
In order to avoid compromising himself he attributes these mistakes to his madness. But
