Hamlet, Iago, and Cervantes: An introduction and a final word on Don Quixote

Finished Miguel de Cervantes's "Don Quixote" - and then read Harold Bloom's intro to the Edith Grossman translation of the novel (I always read intro's last - it's the only way to understand them, and I read them not to direct me while I'm reading the novel but to engage my thoughts once I've finished - I want an adversary, not a guide) - Bloom is as steeped in world literature as any critic alive (or dead, for that matter), and his intro to DQ is very "literary," in that he focuses on 1. the multiple layers of illusion and reality throughout the novel, noting rightly that every character in volume 2 either was a character in volume 1 or knows of the characters from having read volume 1; 2. the relationship between Cervantes and his near-exact contemporary, Shakespeare. Specifically, he compares DQ with Hamlet - sort of a parlor game, if you ask me: yes, they are two of the most profound characters in the history of world literature, and yes both suffer, or seem, from madness and delusions, and yes, both are outcasts from society - but the differences are vast. Hamlet has a true problem that he needs to solve, or resolve - at which he fails. DQ has no clear mission at all other than to fulfill his mad fantasy. He's more like Iago - both motiveless, one toward evil (malignancy) and the other toward good (beneficence). Bloom correctly notes the extreme violence and cruelty, especially in volume two, but completely misses or overlooks the class content to this cruelty - Cervantes is more of a social critic than he lets on. He wisely notes, however, that the Spanish empire was in decline during Cervantes's lifetime - part of the cultural climate of DQ (not only the rise of the renaissance but the death of the empire) and he shrewdly speculates on autobiographical elements in the novel: Cervantes's sense that he gave his life in service to the King and was not recognized, either as a warrior or (in his lifetime) as a writer. Lots to think about in Bloom's intro - though it's better read as an afterword, in my opinion.