Dulcinea

Dulcinea del Toboso is a fictional literary character that is in the novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes Don Quixote to the imaginary lover. The first name is Dulcinea from the Spanish " dulce " ( German: sweet) derived. Based on Cervantes' novel Dulcinea or Dulzinea was in the German language to the often ironically used synonym for friend or lover.

Dulcinea in the novel Don Quixote

After Don Quixote has proclaimed himself a knight, he is in search of a noble lady, in which he can fall in love, "for the knight-errant without love was a tree without leaves and fruit, a body without a soul. " He chooses the farmer's daughter Aldonza Lorenzo mistress without them ever knowing of his love, and she dresses with the invented title Dulcinea del Toboso, "He was looking for them for a name that is not too much abstäche from his own and the one princess and high mistress hinwiese and aimed, and so he named it finally Dulcinea del Toboso, because she was a native of El Toboso. "

While Aldonza in truth is known for her work during the curing of pork and Sancho Panza describes it with " hair on the teeth " and equally strong arms as penetrating voice, Don Quixote idealizes his noblewoman by "all the impossible and only bold imagination dreamed stimuli with which the poets have gifted their loved ones. Her hair is gold, her forehead a paradise garden, her brows arched rainbow, her cheeks roses, her lips coral, pearls her teeth [ ... ] " Dulcinea is for him " the highest essence of all beauty, summit and perfection of all wisdom and modesty, armory graceful sweetness, the storehouse of all modesty, a model of all that, there are salutary, customs Pure and Hillbilly on earth! "

In the course of the novel Don Quixote commits his actions again and again in the name of his mistress Dulcinea without the real Aldonza Lorenzo ever learns from them. Dulcinea is a Platonic love and an unattainable dream image, the real women he encounters on his adventures, can not suffice for Don Quixote.

Reliable and literary models

Cervantes was referring to in his character Dulcinea repeated on parody of Dante Alighieri idealized young love Beatrice, who exerted a formative influence on Dante's work and occurs approximately in the Divine Comedy. Here Don Quixote's Dulcinea's naming refers to as " mistress of his thoughts " on Dante's phrase " donna della mia elements ". As a real model Dulcinea applies Doña Ana Zarco, who lived about Cervantes ' lifetime the house that can be visited in El Toboso as " Casa de Dulcinea " and today houses a museum.

Input in language use

Dulcinea is now used in the Spanish both as a colloquial synonym for a beloved wife as well as rare as an expression of hope or idealistic public imagination. In the German language the term Dulzinea found from student circles since the beginning of the 18th century entrance and is colloquially as ironic term for girlfriend or sweetheart. The German proverbs dictionary by Karl Friedrich Wilhelm hiking from 1867 defined:

"His Dulcinea. Dulcinea of Tolosa was called the mistress of the knight-errant Don Quixote in the novel by the Spanish poet Cervantes, and then today still maintains the mistress of a man his Dulcinea to be called. "

After the figure of Dulcinea del Toboso, the asteroid (571) Dulcinea and the poetry magazine Dulzinea were named.