The Spanish Don Quixote and the Slovene Abadon

Abstract

The Slovene writer Janez Mencinger (1838–1912) once noticed that his novel Abadon (1893) is a kind of scientific Don Quixote. This article draws on the thematic similarity between the two novels (the role of books, and that of feverish illness, which signifies a catharsis). There are two vital composite parts to the conflict and denouement in both works. Much more important is the interpretation of quixotism. Cervantes writes negatively about the dwarfishness of the picaresque world, while Menciger, in the same sense, talks about the significance of 19^th century civilization. The notional starting-point for both novels lies in critical distance; however, they both draw attention to the fact that, in both picaresque times and modem bourgeois civilization, humans lost their feeling for life and its quality. Abadon, therefore, partakes of the reception of Don Quixote in world literature, in which it represents a very lucid and interesting interpretation of quixotism in Slovenia.