Edward Friedman

Quixotic Haiku: Poems and Notes Edward Friedman

Miguel de Cervantes's Don Quixote, published in two parts in 1605 and 1615, is a fictional masterpiece that helped to guide the development of the novel. Its energy is built on a joint emphasis on the story of the self-made knight errant and the story of the composition of the text itself. Humor, irony, and ingenuity mark every stage of the knight's progress. QUIXOTIC HAIKU borrows the haiku, a Japanese verse form known for its brevity, to capture the spirit of Don Quixote in 130 poems, presented with notes that comment on Don Quixote's (and Cervantes's) trajectory. Edward Friedman is Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Professor of Spanish and Professor of Comparative Literature at Vanderbilt University, where he also serves as director of the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities. He is the author of critical studies and creative works that include Crossing the Line: A Quixotic Adventure in Two Acts and The Labyrinth of Love, an adaptation of Cervantes's play El laberinto de amor.