Don Quixote Trivia
0Loading crowd target
0Loading crowd target
7correct to beat the crowd
50 free Don Quixote trivia questions with answers — literature quiz, new questions added Aug 2026.
Don Quixote trivia for anyone who has tilted at a windmill, hummed 'The Impossible Dream', or actually made it through all 900-odd pages. The quiz starts inside the book: the hidalgo who read too many chivalric romances, the innkeeper who dubbed him a knight, the barber's basin he took for a magic helmet, the squire promised an island, the peasant girl renamed Dulcinea, the duke and duchess who read Part One and staged pranks for their own amusement, and the Knight of the White Moon who finally sent him home. Then it widens out to the man and the afterlife. Cervantes lost the use of a hand at Lepanto, spent five years as a captive in Algiers, sold his rights for a pittance and died a pauper - and still wrote what a 2002 poll of writers called the greatest work of fiction ever. There are questions on the pirated sequel that goaded him into Part Two, the first English translation, the Motteux pudding proverb, and on Petipa's ballet, Strauss's tone poem, Massenet's opera, Picasso's sketch, Orson Welles's unfinished film, Terry Gilliam's cursed one, and Man of La Mancha. Questions run from easy to expert, and every answer was checked against a reference page and carries its source. See also our Spanish literature and classic novels quizzes.
30 of 50 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01What animal does Sancho Panza ride as he follows Don Quixote on his adventures?
A donkey
A donkey. A thief makes off with it while Sancho sleeps, and the squire wakes to weep for the beast he calls his children's plaything and his wife's joy.
Q 02Don Quixote's real name, before madness sets in, is what?
Alonso Quixano
Alonso Quixano. The narrator pretends not to be sure, offering Quixada, Quesada and Quexana on the first page, and the true name comes out only on the knight's deathbed.
Q 03Don Quixote sets out to copy the heroes of his favourite reading; which fictional knight is his chief model?
Amadís of Gaul
Amadís of Gaul. In the mountains he even copies his hero's lovesick penance, stripping to his shirt and turning somersaults while Sancho looks away.
Q 04What is the name of Don Quixote's horse?
Rocinante
Rocinante. The name is a joke: rocín means a worn-out nag and ante means before, so he was a mere hack before and is now the foremost hack in the world.
Q 05Who does Don Quixote choose as his lady love, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso?
A pork-salting farm girl
A pork-salting farm girl. Aldonza Lorenzo never appears in the story and never learns that she is his lady: Dulcinea exists only in the knight's head.
Q 06Who dubs Don Quixote a knight in the first sally?
An innkeeper
An innkeeper. To be rid of his troublesome guest he plays lord of the castle, mumbling the ceremony out of the ledger in which he records his straw and barley.
Q 07What does Don Quixote promise Sancho Panza to recruit him as his squire?
A governorship
A governorship. Sancho dreams of an island to rule and, thanks to a duke's practical joke, finally gets a make-believe one, where he surprises everyone by judging wisely.
Q 08What does Don Quixote believe the windmills are?
Giants
Giants. He charges, a sail smashes his lance and flings horse and rider across the field, and English gained 'tilting at windmills' for fighting enemies that are not there.
Q 09What does Sancho's surname, Panza, mean in Spanish?
Belly
Belly. The word is a cousin of the English 'paunch', and it suits a squire who thinks of his supper first while his gaunt master dreams of glory.
Q 10By which name is Sancho Panza's wife known in Part Two of Don Quixote?
Teresa Cascajo
Teresa Cascajo. Cervantes could not keep her name straight: in Part One Sancho calls her Juana Gutiérrez and then, a few lines later, Mari Gutiérrez.
Q 11What everyday object does Don Quixote take for the legendary helmet of Mambrino?
A barber's basin
A barber's basin. Its owner had put it on his head to keep the rain off his new hat, and from far away the polished metal glittered like a golden helmet.
Q 12What happens to Sancho after Don Quixote leaves an inn without paying?
He is tossed in a blanket
He is tossed in a blanket. Don Quixote hears his cries from outside the wall but is too battered even to get off his horse, so all he can do is shout curses at the tossers.
Q 13Cervantes claims the story is translated from which fictional Moorish historian's Arabic text?
Cide Hamete Benengeli
Q 21In Don Quixote's library purge, which romance does the priest call 'the best book in the world'?
Tirant lo Blanch
Tirant lo Blanch. The priest admires it because its knights eat, sleep, die in their beds and make their wills, things no other romance bothers to mention.
Q 22Cervantes left Don Quixote's village unnamed so that all La Mancha's towns could claim him, as seven Greek cities claimed whom?
Homer
Homer. The joke runs the length of the book: its first sentence refuses to recall the village's name, and only the last page explains why.
Q 23How was 'Quixote' originally pronounced in the Old Castilian of Cervantes's day?
With a 'sh' sound
Cide Hamete Benengeli. The narrator says he found the manuscript among old papers on sale in a Toledo market and paid a translator in raisins and wheat.
Q 14Which group of prisoners does Don Quixote free, later earning him an arrest warrant?
Galley slaves
Galley slaves. The freed men repay him at once: when he orders them to go and present themselves to Dulcinea, they pelt him with stones and run off.
Q 15How is Don Quixote finally brought home at the end of Part One?
In a cage he thinks is enchanted
In a cage he thinks is enchanted. The knight is puzzled, because the heroes in his books were whisked away on clouds or chariots of fire, never on a plodding ox-cart.
Q 16What is unusual about many characters Don Quixote meets in Part Two?
They have read the first book
They have read the first book. A duke and duchess who know his printed adventures welcome him as a celebrity and stage elaborate hoaxes to watch him live up to them.
Q 17In Part Two, Sancho is told Dulcinea can be freed from enchantment only if he does what?
Gives himself 3,300 lashes
Gives himself 3,300 lashes. He stalls for most of Part Two and gets down to it only once his master agrees to pay him a quarter real for every stroke.
Q 18Who defeats Don Quixote on the beach at Barcelona and sends him home for a year?
The Knight of the White Moon
The Knight of the White Moon. Behind the visor is Samson Carrasco, a student from the knight's own village, who staged the duel as a trick to get him home and cured.
Q 19What condition does the dying Don Quixote put in his will regarding his niece?
No marrying a reader of chivalry books
No marrying a reader of chivalry books. If she does, she forfeits everything he has left her, and his executors are to give it all away to good causes.
Q 20In 1614, a fake sequel appeared under which pen name, goading Cervantes into finishing Part Two?
Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda
Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda. Cervantes answered inside his own Part Two: told that the fake knight rode to Saragossa, Don Quixote refuses to set foot there and makes for Barcelona instead.
With a 'sh' sound. French borrowed the name before Spanish shifted that sound to its throaty 'j', which is why the French still say and write Don Quichotte.
Q 24Which English proverb, often credited to Don Quixote, was really added by the translator Motteux around 1700?
The proof of the pudding
The proof of the pudding. English already had the proverb by 1605; where Motteux used it, Sancho's Spanish says 'you will see when the eggs are fried'.
Q 25Who published the first translation of Don Quixote into any language, in 1612?
Thomas Shelton
Thomas Shelton. By his own account he dashed it off in forty days for a friend who wanted to know what the book was about, then left it unpublished for years.
Q 26Whose 2003 English translation of Don Quixote did Carlos Fuentes call a 'major literary achievement'?
Edith Grossman
Edith Grossman. She insisted that her name go on the cover beside the author's, joking that publishers liked to pretend a magic wand did the translating.
Q 27Sleepwalking at an inn, Don Quixote slashes what, believing he is killing a princess's enemy?
Wineskins
Wineskins. The red wine that floods the room convinces him and Sancho that it is his enemy's blood, and the furious landlord adds the damage to their bill.
Q 28In 2002, a hundred leading authors from 54 countries voted Don Quixote what?
The greatest work of fiction ever written
The greatest work of fiction ever written. The other 99 books on the authors' list were left unranked: only this one was singled out, with half as many votes again as any rival.
Q 29At which 1571 naval battle was Cervantes wounded, losing the use of his left hand?
Lepanto
Lepanto. Although sick with fever he refused to stay below deck, and he took two gunshots in the chest and a third that crippled his left hand for life.
Q 30Cervantes spent five years as a captive after being seized in 1575 by whom?
Barbary pirates
Barbary pirates. Letters of praise he was carrying from Don John of Austria convinced his captors that he was a great prize, so they raised his ransom and his captivity dragged on.