ABSTRACT
Thomas Shelton hurriedly translated Part I of Don Quixote in 1607, which was printed in 1612 as The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha. His truly archaic terms, those out of date even for the early seventeenth-century, are used primarily to flavour Don Quixote's actions and speeches that are especially old-fashioned. He also distinguishes clearly between a high and low register, unlike the many subsequent versions that reflect a horror of violating decorum or otherwise undermining the place that the work — originally parodie and at times even carnivalistic — has been accorded within high culture. His style closely follows the Spanish, to such an extent that it has provoked both praise and censure. A twenty-first-century reader is particularly struck by his practice, in part doubtless motivated by haste, of choosing English words simply because they sound like the Spanish word in question and/or are cognates of it.
