地味なセルバンテス - Living, Loving, Thinking, Again

James Badcock “Is it fair for Shakespeare to overshadow Cervantes?” http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-36055236

ウィリアム･シェイクスピアとミゲル・デ・セルバンテスは何れも今から400年前の1616年４月23日に息を引き取った*1。シェイクスピア没後400年のキャンペーンやイヴェントは英国だけなく、グローバルに盛り上がっている*2。４月に入って命日が近づくと、英国の新聞ではシェイクスピア関係の記事が目立つようになっている。それに較べると、セルバンテスの方はかなり地味というか、殆ど盛り上がっていない。その盛り下がりぶりは、西班牙においてセルバンテスは勿論有名であり、（国民的文豪として）尊敬されているにも拘わらず実はあまり読まれていないという複雑な事情と関係しているらしいのだ；

But Spanish novelist and commentator Andres Trapiello*3, argues that the difference in the commemorations has a lot to do with the authors themselves, and how the public relates to them.
"Sure, the state could have done more to promote the Cervantes event, but the fact is that Shakespeare is a much more popular writer," he says.
"His works last two or three hours in the theatre and have been made into God knows how many films. Cervantes wrote a number of works but above all Don Quixote, a 1,100-page work which you need to read with thousands of footnotes."
Trapiello describes the difficulty of reading the early 17th Century classic - often described as Europe's first modern novel - as a kind of albatross hanging around the neck of contemporary Spaniards, many of whom have come to associate the name of Cervantes with a negative cultural experience.
"Everyone says they appreciate the importance of Don Quixote but there is this national frustration that they cannot read it. People get a complex about it," he says.
"Every couple of years they sit down and say I am going to do it this time, but they get as far as the windmill story on about page 50 and give up."
This story sees Don Quixote, a minor nobleman who imagines himself a knight errant, mistake windmills for hulking giants and charge them on his pathetic horse, Rocinante - it's the origin of the English phrase "tilting at windmills".
A survey in 2015 revealed that only two out of 10 Spanish adults claimed to have read Don Quixote in full, and of these only half recognised the main character's real name, Alonso Quijano.
The fact that Trapiello's translation of the book into modern Spanish sold 30,000 copies in its first year in print may indicate how much Spaniards long to get to grips with the book, and how difficult they find the original.

西班牙人にとっての『ドン･キホーテ』*4は日本人にとっての『源氏物語』*5に近いということだろうか。また、遺した作品の数の問題だろうか。セルバンテスの場合『ドン・キホーテ』という大作にほぼ集中してしまうのに対して、シェイクスピアの場合は（本１冊の厚さとしてははるかにぺらい）沢山の戯曲に分散する。

ドン・キホーテ〈前篇 1〉 (ちくま文庫)

作者: セルバンテス,会田由
出版社/メーカー: 筑摩書房
発売日: 1987/06
メディア: 文庫
購入: 1人クリック: 2回
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ドン・キホーテ　前篇（２） (ちくま文庫)

作者: ミゲル・デ・セルバンテス
出版社/メーカー: 筑摩書房
発売日: 2013/09/20
メディア: Kindle版
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ドン・キホーテ　後篇（１） (ちくま文庫)

作者: ミゲル・デ・セルバンテス
出版社/メーカー: 筑摩書房
発売日: 2013/09/27
メディア: Kindle版
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ドン・キホーテ　後篇（２） (ちくま文庫)

作者: ミゲル・デ・セルバンテス
出版社/メーカー: 筑摩書房
発売日: 2013/09/27
メディア: Kindle版
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また、

Trapiello, the Cervantes devotee, also declares himself to be an enormous fan of Shakespeare, citing the poetic richness of the English bard's verse.
"Hamlet is my favourite play, but even in some of the weaker works, there are always amazing passages. For example, I don't rate Romeo and Juliet especially highly, but the leave-taking scene between the two lovers is of extraordinary quality," he says.
Ultimately, Trapiello feels that Shakespeare's obvious dramatic qualities give his work a modern edge, which lends it more easily to film adaptations.
"Quixote, on the other hand, is a series of small anecdotes. It does not translate at all into the language of cinema," he says. "All films about Quixote have tried to be funny and they have all failed."