Hamlet and Don Quixote

The article “Hamlet and Don Quixote” was conceived by Turgenev long before it was written. Judgments about Hamlet had already appeared in his letter to Pauline Viardot of December 13 (25), 1847. The decisive moment in the development of the idea was apparently Turgenev’s reflections on the revolutionary events of 1848, which he followed closely in Paris. A hint of this can be seen in the words in the article connected with the characterization of Don Quixote: “We ourselves, in our own lifetime, in our travels, have seen people dying for so little-existent Dulcinea…”