In canonical works of Western literary tradition, poetic genius and madness are concepts that have consistently come up across time, no matter if in works of criticism or fiction. Genius and madness are seen as forces outside the poet’s control and that lead to the production of great poetry. Using Aristotle and Friedrich Schiller’s comments on madness, simplicity, and genius as a frame of reference, this essay examines Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote and Bohumil Hrabal’s Too Loud a Solitude to uncover the role of the madman not as the author, but as the protagonist. Cervantes and Hrabal portray their main characters as mad through their thoughts, actions, and other characters’ reactions. As geniuses by virtue of their madness, the protagonists of the two works ultimately invite the reader to momentarily become mad with them as a transformative experience.
Don Quixote follows the narrative of a man named Alonso Quixano who reads so many chivalric novels that he believes himself to be a knight-errant. He convinces his neighbor, Sancho Panza, to become his squire and embark on his adventures to revive chivalry together. Though other characters, and even the narrator, view him as a madman, they occasionally humor his delusions, participating in his fantastical quests and sometimes getting caught up in his idealistic view of the world. The novel is written in the third-person perspective, and the narrator often uses a mocking tone to satirize Don Quixote’s actions.
Too Loud a Solitude is a Czechoslovakian novel self-published outside of the country during a period of heavy censorship following the Prague Spring. It is written in the first-person perspective, and the narrator’s voice belongs to the protagonist, Haňtá. Stylistically, it is composed of many run-on sentences with beautiful prose to reflect the narrator’s philosophical musings and experiences. It explores the underground side of censorship and the impact literature can have on one’s life.
Like Don Quixote, Haňtá can also be classified as a madman, but his peculiarities are more subtle than those of the former. Haňtá is a wastepaper compactor who has been working in his underground cellar for thirty-five years. He likes to save rare books, bringing some home and using others to create works of art that only he knows about. He carefully lays an open book in the center of each compacted bale of paper as his signature, then frames the bale with printed reproductions of European art. Though his cellar piles up with wastepaper that he cannot process efficiently enough, he still prioritizes creating these bales over all else. He says, “I’m the only one on earth who knows which bale has Goethe, which Schiller, which Hölderlin, which Nietzsche. In a sense, I am both artist and audience”, and calls each book he buries in his bales “a precious relic” (Hrabal 6). He detests showering, drinks all day, and does not adhere to conventional ideas of public decorum. His boss begs him multiple times to “come to [his] senses” and eventually resorts to calling him a “nitwit” before replacing him with men from the Socialist Labor movement (46, 72). Since he had been saving money to buy his hydraulic press and continue his life’s work after retirement, his termination means he loses his life’s purpose and everything he has. Defeated, he imitates Seneca and Socrates and chooses his own fall, compacting himself to death in his press and holding a book opened to a page saying, “Every beloved object is the center of a garden of paradise” (97). From the way he carries himself, is both artist and audience, must come to his senses, and ends his life, he, too, can be considered a madman.
Though the two protagonists share the characteristic of madness, their manifestations of it differ greatly. While their narratives depict them as madmen, madness is never explicitly defined, yet is evident to the reader nonetheless. Aristotle’s ideas in Poetics can create a framework for analyzing their thoughts and actions. He states that poetry stems from either natural ability or madness, which he defines as when someone is “beside himself” (Aristotle 79). To be beside oneself means to be overwhelmed by emotion to the point where one cannot make sound judgment. It is not clear, then, whether Aristotle’s “madman” refers to a temporary emotional state or a more lasting psychological affliction. Earlier in the work, he writes, “poetry is something more philosophical and more worthy of serious attention than history; for poetry speaks more of universals, history of particulars” (69). Thus, as an extension of being beside oneself, the madman is so immersed in this state that his perception of the world is altered—the madman applies poetry’s universals too diligently to the particulars of his reality. Rather than producing poetry out of madness, Don Quixote and Haňtá are mad because they are too immersed in their poetic worlds. In this sense, Don Quixote’s madness stems from his inability to distinguish universals and particulars in his delusional chivalric worldview, and Haňtá’s madness stems from his deep immersion in banned philosophical thought to the point where he neglects the particulars of his professional life.
Both characters are beside themselves because of the literature they consume. Don Quixote “became so absorbed in his books that he spent his nights from sunset to sunrise, and his days from dawn to dark, poring over them; and what with little sleep and much reading his brains got so dry that he lost his wits” (Cervantes vol.1, ch. 1). His absorption in and obsession with his books causes him to lose himself, as indicated by his identity change from the regular civilian Alonso Quixano to knight-errant Don Quixote. Similarly, though with a different tone, Haňtá describes reading as so:
. . . when I start reading I’m somewhere completely different, I’m in the text, it’s amazing, I have to admit I’ve been dreaming, dreaming in a land of great beauty, I’ve been in the very heart of truth . . . Lost in my dreams, I somehow cross at the traffic signals, never bumping into street lamps or people, yet moving onward, exuding fumes of beer and grime, yet smiling, because my briefcase is full of books and that very night I expect them to tell me things about myself I don’t know. (Hrabal 7)
By being in the text, he also loses himself in dreams and does not care about others’ perception of him as he exudes “fumes of beer and grime”. His boss plays the same role as Don Quixote’s narrator and calls him a “nitwit” for being so hopelessly absorbed in his books and artistic paper bales (72). Ultimately, for the two madmen, reading is a complete renunciation of the self.
Using the characters’ madness as a mask, both Hrabal and Cervantes comment on readership and censorship. In “The Author’s Preface” of Don Quixote, Cervantes references the saying, “Under my cloak I kill the king.” This saying can be a metaphor for the subversive potential of a fictional work. And, while not stated directly in his work, it is well-known that Hrabal self-published his novel outside of Czechoslovakia during a period of strict censorship, which is also a major theme in his narrative. Due to these contexts, the authors demonstrate their intent to leverage their stories for social and political commentary.
In Cervantes’s work, those around Don Quixote blame his madness on his chivalric novels and burn many of them. His niece says it is better to “fling [Don Quixote’s chivalric novels] out of the window into the court and make a pile of them and set fire to them”. However, the curate and the barber agree that they should keep some books, calling one of them the “best of all the books”, thus acknowledging some of the literature’s merit (vol. 1, ch. 5). Since some books are good and did not cause those who read them to go mad, this raises the question of whether it is the responsibility of the reader or the author that a book is read “correctly”. Cervantes’s ironic tone throughout the novel hints that Don Quixote is the bad reader and that the books are not at fault, especially given that other characters give sensible interpretations of chivalric novels in chapter 32 of volume one. Nevertheless, the other characters try to exert control over Don Quixote through censorship, but it does not work, and Don Quixote continues to live according to his own whims as a madman.
Compared to Don Quixote, Too Loud a Solitude deals more extensively with censorship, as it forms the main undertone of the novel. All the books Haňtá deals with among other wastepaper are books banned by the Czech government. The public has no access to them, so he has the privilege of accessing forbidden knowledge through his lowly occupation. Regarding censorship, he says:
How much more beautiful it must have been in the days when the only place a thought could make its mark was the human brain and anybody wanting to squelch ideas had to compact human heads, but even that wouldn’t have helped, because real thoughts come from outside and travel with us like the noodle soup we take to work; in other words, inquisitors burn books in vain. If a book has anything to say, it burns with a quiet laugh, because any book worth its salt points up and out of itself. (Hrabal 2)
In other words, thoughts and ideas are independent from the people who think them or the books which contain them, and thus censorship is of no use. Thoughts are timeless and travel through people and books as a medium. Later in the novel, Haňtá also refers to thoughts as “live, living, life-giving”, indicating that they are organic, independent, and necessary for human living (26). Though the government censors philosophy, poetry, and other literature, the thoughts contained in them continue to propagate through mankind as steadily and inevitably as the sun shines on earth. Haňtá is a rebel and follows his own principles to be both artist and audience for the silent voices of these banned books. Due to his private rebellion against censorship, he carries himself unconventionally and reflects the image of a madman. In this way, both Don Quixote and Haňtá demonstrate the madman’s loyalty to his belief system’s anchor, which is, in this case, literature. This loyalty transcends the bounds of power, oppression, and societal pressure.
While madness has a negative connotation, the two protagonists’ actions can also be interpreted as simple or naïve. In his essay “On Simple and Sentimental Poetry”, Friedrich Schiller frames a simple person as someone who rejects affectation, and deception in favor of nature and truth (Schiller 183–184). “Simplicity in the mode of thinking cannot then ever be the act of a depraved man; this quality only belongs to children, and to men who are children in heart,” he writes, indicating that simplicity is an attribute of a virtuous and childlike person (185). Schiller raises the example of Pope Adrian VI as an example of a man toeing the line between “foolishly simple” and “nobly simple”, for he censures the evil deeds of the papacy and later is accused of betraying the church due to his unfiltered moral views (185). The simple man lives by his truth without considering how outsiders perceive him. Don Quixote and Haňtá’s poetic madness, then, aligns with this simplicity, which runs contrary to societal conventions—abandoning the particulars of an artificial reality for the truth of the universal. Their loyalty to literature in the face of oppression and outside disapproval highlights their simultaneously noble and foolish simplicity.
Don Quixote and Haňtá are both at the same time foolishly and nobly simple for living by their own naïve principles, untouched by the corrupting artifice of society. When Don Quixote approaches a landlord to request that he dub him a knight, the landlord has “some suspicion of his guest’s want of wits” and decides to humor him “to make sport for the night” (Cervantes vol. 1, ch. 3). Here, Don Quixote’s foolish simplicity shines through. Those around him are aware of his insanity, yet he continues with his delusions, unaware. At the same time, he can be nobly simple, too. Upon encountering criminals being transported to become galley slaves, he decides that it is unjust that “these people are going where they are taking them by force, and not of their own will”. Despite hearing about their crimes, he still sets them free, and they end up beating and robbing him and Sancho. Even the criminals were “thoroughly convinced that Don Quixote was not quite right in his head”, but Don Quixote still obstinately follows his own, albeit naïve, principle of justice and freedom, making him both foolishly and nobly simple (vol. 1, ch. 22).
Haňtá is more self-aware than Don Quixote, but embodies both types of simplicity, too. In the narration, he says, “I felt how vile I was and how fed up with me he was, because he kept calling me a name no one had ever called me before—nitwit, nitwit, nitwit,” indicating his awareness of the effect he has on others (Hrabal 72). Yet, as he helps his kneeling boss up after he begs Haňtá to come to his senses, he says, “I felt him shake all over, so I asked him to forgive me, without knowing what for, but that was my lot, asking forgiveness, I even asked forgiveness of myself for being what I was, what it was my nature to be” (46–47). Though he knows how much he exasperates his boss, he does not know why, for he is only foolishly living by his own principles. It is his nature to be so, and by asking forgiveness for this, he demonstrates that he cannot change this aspect of his character. His noble simplicity shines through in his close ties with nature. He is affectionate toward the mice in his cellar despite others’ negative perception of them. He describes them as “playful as kittens”, saying that “they’re always in a good mood and even look forward to their bath” when he hoses down the wastepaper to clean it (15, 16). Sometimes, they sneak into his clothing, and when they jump out at the bar he frequents, “the waitresses go wild, climb on chairs, stick their fingers in their ears, and scream bloody murder.” Despite the reaction, he “just smile[s] and wave[s] a wet good-bye,” thinking of nothing but his next bale (16). His complete disregard for others’ perception of himself showcases his foolish yet nobly loving simplicity.
The two characters’ madness can, through the lens of simplicity, be considered a manifestation of genius. Schiller states, “True genius is of necessity simple, or it is not genius” (186). Since the characters’ madness is linked to simplicity, their simple madness can be seen as indicators of their genius. As stated earlier, Aristotle says poetry is either a product of natural ability or madness. Thus, poetry is also a product of genius. However, these literary theories were created in the context of poets and their works. While Don Quixote, with his dramatic imitations of chivalric prose, and Haňtá, who embodies both artist and audience, can be loosely classified as poets, they are also the subjects of literary works. As stated previously, they are mad because of their deep immersion in their poetic worlds. What happens, then, if it is not the author who is genius, but the subject of the poem himself?
The genius of the two characters lies in their ability to, as readers themselves, make their readers mad along with them. The two works’ focus on readers makes them a metaliterary commentary on the act of reading. If, for the two protagonists, reading is renunciation of the self, then the reader of these works also becomes mad for the time they engage with the work and is momentarily in touch with the characters’ simplicity. Through the vicarious experience of someone living out their fantasy delusions, we can learn to appreciate the value of literature beyond academic analysis and the magic it can bring. Literature comes with the possibility for immersion, escape from harsh realities, and life-giving thoughts. Literature is an enabler of freedom, but at the same time, a leverage for oppression through censorship. Don Quixote and Too Loud a Solitude work to bring a snapshot of madness to the reader’s life through the simply mad genius of their protagonists.
Works Cited
- Aristotle, et al. Classical Literary Criticism. Translated by Penelope Murray and T. S. Dorsch, Penguin Books, 2004.
- Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel De. Don Quixote. Edited by David Widger. Translated by John Ormsby, Project Gutenberg, 1997.
- Hrabal, Bohumil. Too Loud a Solitude. Translated by Michael Henry Heim, HarperCollins Publishers, 1990.
- Schiller, Friedrich. “On Simple and Sentimental Poetry.” Aesthetical and Philosophical Essays, Anodos Books, 2017, pp. 180–195.
- Photo by Ethan Hu on Unsplash