Quixotic

English Adjective en quixotic. en w:Thomas Jefferson w:Thomas Jefferson Randolph Correspondence Memoirs, Correspondence, and Private Papers of Thomas Jefferson, Late President of the United States. Now First Published from the Original Manuscripts. IV London Henry Colburn and Richard Bentley,New Burlington Street 19 July 1822 1829 362 Don Quixote undertook to redress the bodily wrongs of the world, but the redressment of mental vagaries would be an enterprise more than Quixotic. en w:Thomas Paine Rights of Man. Being an Answer to Mr Burke’s Attack on the French Revolution. Part I The Political Writings of Thomas Paine, Secretary to the Committee of Foreign Affairs in the American Revolution.To Which Is Prefixed a Brief Sketch of the Author’s Life. A New Edition with Additions. II New York, N.Y. Printed and published bySolomon King,148 Fulton Street 1830 1791 55 When we see a man dramatically lamenting in a publication intended to be believed, that “The age of chivalry is gone;” that “the glory of Europe is extinguished forever!” that “the unbought grace of life (if any one knows what it is,) the cheap defence of nations, the nurse of manly sentiment and heroic enterprise is gone!” And all this because the Quixotic [1791: Quixote] age of chivalric nonsense is gone, what opinion can we form of his judgment, or what regard can we pay to his facts? en James Crabb I. Cobbin Further interesting Correspondence The Gipsies’ Advocate; or, Observations on the Origin, Character, Manners, and Habits of the English Gipsies: To Which Are Added, Many Interesting Anecdotes, on the Success That Has Attended the Plans of Several Benevolent Individuals, Who Anxiously Desire Their Conversion to God London Seeley,Fleet Street; Westley and Davis,Ave-Maria-Lane; Hatchard,Piccadilly; Lindsay and Co., South Street, Andrew Street, Edinburgh; Collins, Glasgow; Wakeman, Dublin, Wilson and Son, York 1831 153 But I never met with very warm support in carrying on this object, but was often exposed to some sarcastical insinuations or sardonic smiles from those who thought the attempt to ameliorate the condition of the Gipsies, only Quixotic. en 1. Mémoires de la Cour d’Espagne sous le Règne de Charles II, 1678–1682. Par le Marquis de Villars. London: 1861. [Printed for the Philobiblon Society.] 2. Lettres de Madame de Villars à Madame de Coulanges, (1679–1681).Nouvelle édition, avec Introduction et Notes par Alfred de Courtois. Paris: 1868 The Edinburgh Review, or Critical Journal CXXIX CCLXIII London Longmans, Green, Reader, and Dyer; Edinburgh: Adam and Charles Black January 1869 6–7 The Queen-mother had a right to daily rations from the palace for her household. She complained once that her rations were not sent, whereupon she was told with Quixotic humour, that her servants might come and take their dues daily; for the King’s cupboards were all open—and all empty. en James Y[oung] Gibson Translator’s Preface Journey to Parnassus Composed by Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; Translated into English Tercets with Preface and Illustrative Notesby James Y. Gibson; To Which Are Subjoined the Antique Text and Translation of the Letter of Cervantes to Mateo Vazquez London Kegan Paul, Trench and Co.,1 Paternoster Square 1883 xli That the whole conception is instinct with Quixotic humour need excite no surprise, when we consider that the mind which planned it was engaged at the very time in calling into being that unique character, the Governor of Barataria! I Introduction section “Prefatory” 6 He was one of the few, very few, translators that have shown any apprehension of the unsmiling gravity which is the essence of Quixotic humour; en A[mericus] Featherman Preface Social History of the Races of Mankind. Second Division: Oceano-Melanesians. London Trübner & Co.,Ludgate Hill 1888 xxx–xxxi This very sagacious Quixotic soul also remembers that about a million of years ago the placental mammals of Australia sprang from an undifferentiated prototype, which had been gradually developed into the kangaroo, but having arrived at this extreme point the transmutative energy of the race was exhausted by their long-continued metamorphoses; en Reginald DeKoven (music); Harry B[ache] Smith (libretto) Don Quixote, a Comic Opera, in Three Acts, Founded upon Cervantes’ Novel Chicago, Ill. Slason Thompson & Co.,Printers. 180-182 Monroe Street. 1889 25 Like errants Quixotic, / Our armor, you see, we have on. en Recent Theology The Academy. A Weekly Review of Literature, Science, and Art. XXXIX 977 London 24 January 1891 section “Puritanism in Power. By Clement Wise. (Kegan Paul & Co.)” 87 https://archive.org/details/academyliteratur39londuoft/page/87/mode/1up 3 With more than Quixotic courage and boisterous energy, he not only arrays himself against every belief or institution which wears the aspect of stability or general acceptance, but he continually mistakes the phantasies of his own imagination for actual oppugnable realities. en Mary Pacheco The New Don Quixote 1900 39 Vane, you’re either a Quixotic fool, or a humbug—and I suspect you’re the latter. en The Adventures of Don Sylvio de Rosalva 1904 xv The cynic philosopher is portrayed as a sharp and humorous critic of mundane follies, and, as in the Quixotic romances, artistic effect is given to the view that perhaps it is the world that is mad, and not the philosopher. en w:Edward Harper Parker Confucianism China and Religion New York, N.Y. E[dward] P[ayson] Dutton and Company 1905 67 https://archive.org/details/chinareligion00park/page/67/mode/1up There was the school of simplicity, socialism, and universal love, the head of which was a Quixotic Diogenes called Mêh-tsz or Meccius (fifth century b.c.); en The Problem of Evil—: Three Public Lectures Delivered in the Physics Amphitheatre of the Rice Institute 1928 94 I remember once when lecturing in Sweden I happened to call the Swedish people “Quixotic,” because they had made such wonderful sacrifices in the cause of their country’s art, and after the lecture one man catechized me severely for having used the word “Quixotic” in connection with the Swedish people, for, he said, “Quixotic meant ridiculous.” In interpreting the word in this sense he was following all the little scholars, barbers, and canons, who are mounting guard night and day over our Knight. en w:Manuel Komroff Don Quixote and Sancho: A Play in 13 Scenes 1942 11–12 This vision is the great power of the free Quixotic soul. en w:Rupert Croft-Cooke The Quest for Quixote 1959 121 Torrenueva was what I hoped to find at this time, an isolated Manchegan village with a life of its own, untouched by tourism or Quixotic associations. en Homer D. Crotty Glimpses of Don Quixote & La Mancha 1963 22 The dinner served at the inn had a most Quixotic flavor. Bean soup, Oeufs Maritornes, shoestring potatoes and the hard and tasty cheese of La Mancha. en Thomas Hinde [pen name; Thomas Willes Chitty] Spain: A Personal Anthology 1963 106 It is thanks to the Quixotic spirit of Columbus that America was discovered; and thanks to the Quixotic spirit of Cortés, Pizarro, Quesada, and the rest, that it became European. en The Twentieth Century 1968 46 You don’t have to be an ace guerrilla fighter to see that this Quixotic expedition is going to come to a sticky end. en Arthur Efron Don Quixote and the Dulcineated World 1971 141 Do we not know very well, for example, that the earnest Quixotic stock response that explains our culture’s chronic militarism as a mere function of its devotion to peaceful living is a façade? en w:Miguel de Unamuno Anthony Kerrigan Selected Works of Miguel de Unamuno: The Tragic Sense of Life in Men and Nations 1972 321 and 352 And there exists a Quixotic philosophy and even a Quixotic metaphysics, and also a Quixotic logic and a Quixotic sense of religion. This philosophy, this logic, this ethics, this religious sense is what I have tried to outline, to suggest rather than to develop, in the present work; not to develop rationally, of course, for Quixotic madness does not admit of scientific logic.And shall not we, his fond admirers, also travel alone as we forge a Quixotic Spain from out of our imagination? en The Durham University Journal 1980 234 Uncritical reading and inappropriate intellectual endeavor were frequently satirized in the form of a naive or Quixotic lady. en Walter Smyrniw Turgenev’s Early Works: From Character Sketches to a Novel 1980 119 Some of the categorizations about the Quixotic and Hamletic character traits which Turgenev cites in his essay are already apparent in his "Hamlet of the Shchigrovsky District." en w:Robert Dessaix Turgenev, the Quest for Faith 1980 63 Insarov's and Elena's idealism is not unnaturally coloured with Quixotic elements which the realists of the sixties themselves would have disowned. en American Contributions to the Ninth International Congress of Slavists 1983 116 Once Bazarov has awakened to an awareness of his individuality, he begins to question his worth as a unique person, to contemplate his insignificance in the face of eternity, and to doubt the meaning of his actions—that is, he begins the transformation from a Quixotic to a Hamlet-type that has been described in critical literature. en David Allan Lowe Turgenev’s Fathers and Sons 1983 61 Freeborn writes that Bazarov is Turgenev’s attempt at a Quixotic character and that Bazarov’s death shows Turgenev’s inability to reconcile Hamlet and Don Quixote. en Essays in Literature 1985 59 In Tristram’s attempts to impose his imaginative will upon the intractable realities of subject matter, time, language, and the reader’s mind, we have a paradigm for the Quixotic endeavors of any writer. And if writing is an inherently Quixotic process, so is reading. en Studia Ucrainica 1986 59 There has been a continuous succession of Quixotic figures ready to “redress all manner of grievances” in all walks of Ukrainian national life to the present day, including political and military leaders en w:The Motion Picture Guide 1986 688 His mission gone, Chaliapin forfeits his existence as well, singing his grief as he expires during the lengthy, expressionistic bookburning scene, the beauty of the flames and the slowly transfigured volumes signifying the death of chivalry, the passing of the Quixotic age. en John Rodden The Politics of Literary Reputation: The Making and Claiming of ‘St. George’ Orwell 1989 122 Here we encounter a portrait of The Rebel as Quixotic idealist. Before his death, Orwell’s acquaintances had often remarked on his ascetic temper, eccentric habits, deep nostalgia, and raw-boned, even cadaverous frame. en Anthony J. Close Miguel de Cervantes: Don Quixote Landmarks of World Literature w:Cambridge University Press 1990 118 0 521 31345 7 The notable influence of Don Quixote on the American novel is perhaps explained by the fact that certain well-known American myths are easily adaptable to a Quixotic mould. en Dissertation Abstracts International 1993 548 Tat’iana in many ways is a Quixote figure, but her Quixotic faith ultimately causes her to accept the conventions of marriage and society, and not reject them as does Don Quixote. en w:Eric Overmyer Don Quixote de la Jolla 1993 DON QUIXOTE DE LA JOLLA is, then, a headlong, hectic, hilarious rush, a frantic comic phantasmagoria on Quixotic themes, that needs no scholar annotations; it is great good fun. en Paul Ilie The Age of Minerva 1995 189 Taken together, the Quixotic utterances expose the mind’s nonrational activity. en w:Harold Bloom Where Shall Wisdom Be Found? 2004 98 We cannot know the object of Don Quixote’s quest unless we ourselves are Quixotic (note the capital Q). en Edward H. Friedman “El pobre servicio de mano”: Lazarillo de Tormes, Don Quixote, and the Design of the Novel John P. Gabriele 1605-2005, Don Quixote Across the Centuries 2005 29 In an essay published decades ago, Carlos Blanco Aguinaga posits what he determines to be a radical contrast in point of view, and, in a major comparative study of narrative, Walter Reed addresses “the Quixotic versus the picaresque,” and the list goes on. en Anthony J. Close A Companion to Don Quixote 2008 241 Whereas the eighteenth-century novels of evidently Quixotic derivation came mainly from England, France and Germany, and moreover, were predominantly comic, the range in the nineteenth century extends to Russia, North America, Spain and beyond, and acquires a much more grandiose, sombre and occasionally tragic character. en The Western Humanities Review 2009 23 If Quixote (Quixotic reading or the enthralled imagination) is one name for the force of myth, the Quixote deploys that dynamic in order to critique and collapse it. en Eliezer Oyola The Death of Don Quixote: The Last Technological Extension: Culture, Identity, Coexistence and the Literary Imagination 2011 11 Are Pax Romana, Pax Hispanica, and Pax Americana aspects of the same Quixotic venture and the “impossible dream?” Usage notes This form is especially used when referring to Don Quixote—some works use both the lower- and upper-case forms with different meanings. When referring to the work Don Quixote itself, sometimes italicized.