# Don Quixote the hero of a novel written in the seventeenth century by Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616, Spanish novelist, dramatist and poet). Don Quixote (don is a Spanish title of honor), loses his wits from reading too many romances and comes to believe that he is a knight destined to revive the golden age of chivalry and as such has many adventures. At one point in the story, his inability to distinguish reality from imagination leads him to attack a windmill thinking it is a giant.