more on Sancho

Dostoevsky says Quixote comes to yearn for realism. Are not the Knight and his squire more worldly than this suggests? For example the adventure of the braying where Q abandons S in face of overwhelming odds; 'I have retreated not fled' says Q; S is unimpressed: Dostoevsky's reading is that faced with the collapse of one fantasy then Quixote (and everyone) invents a further to save the first. The two travellers have a discussion about the adventure and have no problems with realism and fantasy; pragmatism occurs. Maybe this is a turning point for S. Dostoevsky makes too literalist a reading. See blog 6 and how to answer 'what song the sirens sang'.

what song the sirens sang?

...asked Sir Thomas Browne; interesting question! Poe agreed and quoted it at the beginning of the Rue Morgue story. But what sort of answer did Sir Thomas expect? He asks another about the dead in Hades: Agamemnon can predict Ulysses' future but has nothing to say about his own son. It is a mistake to see this as contradictory; Browne's interest is not empirical (eg did Atlantis exist and where?).
Kafka brings up the issue of the sirens and his conclusion gives a clue as to the sort of answer that is required; K's approach is more akin to a parable; while Browne is not writing a parable he is asking questions (occasionally) that fit into a parable. K's answer is that the sirens are silent and Benjamin's explanation of why this is so would have interested Sir Thomas Browne.