Reading TO DON QUIXOTE the first time around, I was not sure what to take from it. I had never read the novel about Don Quixote and didn't really know the story line. After reading the Cliff Notes about the Novel, I re-read the poem and thought many different things. Could Massingham be comparing himself to the Don? Could Massingham be comparing the depressions that the Don experienced with those that people around him were experiencing? Maybe Massingham experienced those depressions himself? So I decided to Google his name, and didn't find very much. What I did find was that his main subject was of rural English life from pre history to the 20th Century. I did not see anything written about him having a wife or children. I also read that he was unable to finish school because he was ill.
Massingham wrote this poem six months after World War I ended. He starts off the poem with the word "YOU." Obviously, he's addressing the Don throughout the entire poem, but it's possible that there is another audience that he is addressing. I think that there are different "you's" that he is addressing throughout the poem. Firstly, I bellieve that he is talking to the soilders that just came back from fighting in the war. Secondly, there is a change in tone after the first semi-colon and I think that Massingham begins to address you - the reader. And lastly, after the second semi-colon Massingham addresses the Don. In the first line, Massingham speaks to the soilders and says that they have traveled the world and now they are back home. "What is dull, wonted, formal, stale/ Magnificent Has Been." Massingham is trying to say that now that they are back from the war they don't think that their travels and what they saw is magnificent anymore. Now it's not the rest of the world that's magnificent, it's their home town that they are happy to see. Then Massingham begins to speak about the war to the public. I believe that Massingham is taking a more nonchalant approach when addressing the general public. It's as if he's letting the reader know, "hey, by the way this is what's goes on during a war on the battle front." I believe that the last two lines Massingham addresses "the late Don." I believe that Massingham thinks that Don Quixote went to heaven after he passed. It's possible that Massingham thought the Don went through a lot in his life - physically and emotionally - and now he will be at rest in heaven.
