Mug Shot — «Spain - Don Quixote»

Country: Spain Edition: 2008 Icon Edition Belongs to: 774 users (66 trading, 144 seeking)

Spain, officially the Kingdom of Spain is a sovereign state and a member of the European Union located in southwestern Europe on the Iberian Peninsula. Its mainland is bordered to the south and east by the Mediterranean Sea except for a small land boundary with the British Overseas Territory of Gibraltar, to which Spain lays claim; to the north and north east by France, Andorra, and the Bay of Biscay; and to the northwest and west by the Atlantic Ocean and Portugal. Spanish territory also includes the Balearic Islands in the Mediterranean, the Canary Islands in the Atlantic Ocean off the African coast, and two autonomous cities in North Africa, Ceuta and Melilla, that border Morocco plus Alborán island, the Chafarinas islands, Alhucemas island and Perejil. Furthermore, the town of Llívia is a Spanish exclave situated inside French territory. With an area of 505,992 square kilometres, it is the fourth largest country in Europe. Because of its location, the territory of Spain was subject to many external influences since prehistoric times and through to its dawn as a country. Spain emerged as a unified country in the 15th century, following the marriage of the Catholic Monarchs and the completion of the reconquest, or Reconquista, of the Iberian peninsula in 1492. Conversely, it has been an important source of influence to other regions, chiefly during the modern era, when it became a global empire that has left a legacy of over 500 million Spanish speakers today, making it the world's second most spoken first language. Spain is a democracy organised in the form of a parliamentary government under a constitutional monarchy. It is a developed country with the twelfth largest economy in the world by nominal GDP, and very high living standards, including the tenth-highest quality of life index rating in the world, as of 2005. It is a member of the United Nations, NATO, OECD, and WTO.

Don Quixote fully titled The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha is a novel written by Miguel de Cervantes. The novel follows the adventures of Alonso Quijano, a hidalgo who reads so many chivalric novels, that he decides to set out to revive chivalry under the name of Don Quixote. He recruits a simple farmer, Sancho Panza, as his squire, who frequently deals with Don Quixote's rhetorical orations on antiquated knighthood with a unique, earthy wit. He is met by the world as it is, initiating themes like intertextuality, realism, metatheatre and literary representation. Published in two volumes a decade apart, in 1605 and 1615, Don Quixote is considered the most influential work of literature from the Spanish Golden Age and the entire Spanish literary canon. As a founding work of modern Western literature, and one of the earliest canonical novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the greatest works of fiction ever published. In a 2002 list compiled by 100 professional writers, Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary work ever written".

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