Thomas Jefferson loved books, philosophy, history, law, fine arts, invention, architecture, math, agriculture, religion, biography – non-fiction. An exception was Cervantes’ 1605 defense of idealism, “play within a play,” Don Quixote. Why?
So much did Jefferson love Don Quixote, a passionate story of fearlessly pursuing impossible dreams, even with losses, that he had his daughter read it in Spanish.
In the story, a jailed Cervantes – earlier actually jailed – defends being “an idealist and bad poet” to fellow prisoners, during the time of the Spanish Inquisition. In a knight’s costume, he acts out idealism as madness, tilts at windmills, and takes on the world.
In Jefferson’s day, 250 years ago, that surely summoned notions of taking on Great Britain – an unrivaled empire, a Quixote-like gambit. After seven years of hard-bitten war, the Americans prevailed, stunning Europe, The Constitution was ratified in 1787.
But that work by Cervantes – that anything-is-possible Don Quixote attitude – animated Jefferson all his life. If a first reading likely occurred before the Declaration, the life impact had him thinking big, Monticello to the Presidency.
Jefferson was self-evidently drawn to Don Quixote’s larger message, learn much, imagine a better world, dream big, and fearlessly fight for your dreams.
In all likelihood, it lifted Jefferson as much as any work of non-fiction in his darker times, family deaths, and the British attempted a comeback in 1812, as governor, secretary of state, president, and elder statesman.
In April of 1791, his daughter Mary assures her father she had “finished Don Quixote …” In 1799, then vice president, Jefferson battles slavery and foreign adversaries and helped design the Federal City, Washington DC. His plate full, he writes Edmund Randolph, “Who would have conceived in 1789 that within ten years we should have to combat such windmills.”
Later, Jefferson confides to a friend that changing another person’s mind can be nearly impossible, adding their “error does me no injury … and shall I become a Don Quixote to bring all men by force of argument to one opinion?”
Jefferson was a man of heart, not just mind. He imagined impossible dreams, worked tirelessly, and watched them materialize. He dared conceive and helped achieve a nation centered on freedom, equality, and a moral compass. Later, he often wrote, amazed at events of his life and where idealism can lead, Don Quixote’s attitude.
So, what does Jefferson’s love of Don Quixote tell us? How might it inform our attitude in this storm-tossed age, idealism in retreat, violence, socialism, nihilism, and other anti-American “isms” on the rise? We might recall that no idealist put more on the line, believed more in freedom, or got more for daring than Jefferson.
To Jefferson, ideals are real. Freedom is real. Fighting for it, even against long odds, is worth every breath. That spirit, not surprisingly, showed up 200 years after his Declaration, 350 years after Cervantes wrote Don Quixote in lyrics penned for a Broadway rendition called “Man of La Mancha,” words written by Joe Darion.
The play’s iconic song, “Dream the Impossible Dream,” continues to resonate. In some ways, we understand Cervantes, his character Don Quixote, and Jefferson’s belief in impossible dreams, just by hearing the haunting lyrics sung.
Reflecting sentiments back to the Magna Carta, up through the past century, the words capture a quintessentially American attitude toward adversity, defense of freedom personal and national at all costs, price, and promise of victory.
Just reading the lyrics, like rereading Cervantes, may not lift you as song and play do, but if you drink deeply of them, they may lift you all the same. They are shorthand for what Cervantes, Jefferson, and other idealists wrote about, and lived.
In times of swirling doubt, fear, sadness, and cynicism, when everything seems muddled… those times are often epic when big things happen since we remember why we are here, how to “dream impossible dreams,” fight for freedom, and dismiss our fear. Looking around, one wonders, an eye on Cervantes: Are we here?
Robert Charles is a former Assistant Secretary of State under Colin Powell, former Reagan and Bush 41 White House staffer, attorney, and naval intelligence officer (USNR). He wrote “Narcotics and Terrorism” (2003), “Eagles and Evergreens” (2018), and is National Spokesman for AMAC.
