Ruskin and Cervantes

Despite Ruskin 's keen enthusiasm for Don Quixote in his childhood, he grew increasingly disaffected with both the novel and its author in his belief that the novel advocated a pernicious, because apparently unobtainable, ideal of 'Utopianism' ('Quixotism') ( Works, 12.56). Ruskin compared Thomas More's Utopia to Don Quixote as two of the most 'mischievous' works ever published ( Works, 37.12).

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