This articleneeds additional citations forverification. Please helpimprove this article byadding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. Find sources: "Dulcinea del Toboso" – news ·newspapers ·books ·scholar ·JSTOR(June 2008) (Learn how and when to remove this message)

Dulcinea del Toboso
Don Quixote character
Dulcinea (1957), sculpture byF. Coullaut-Valera, inMadrid (Spain).
Created by	Miguel de Cervantes
In-universe information
Gender	Female
Family	Lorenzo Gonzalo (father) Aldonza Nogales (mother)
Religion	Roman Catholic
Nationality	Spanish

Dulcinea del Toboso is a fictional character who isunseen inMiguel de Cervantes's novelDon Quixote. Don Quixote believes he must have a lady, under his personal view that chivalry requires it.^{[1]: 117 [2]}As he does not have one, he invents her, making her the very model of female perfection: "[h]er name is Dulcinea, her countryEl Toboso, a village ofLa Mancha, her rank must be at least that of a princess, since she is my queen and lady, and her beauty superhuman, since all the impossible and fanciful attributes of beauty which the poets apply to their ladies are verified in her; for herhairs are gold, her foreheadElysian fields, her eyebrows rainbows, her eyes suns, her cheeks roses, her lips coral, her teeth pearls, her neck alabaster, her bosom marble, her hands ivory, her fairness snow, and what modesty conceals from sight such, I think and imagine, as rational reflection can only extol, not compare" (Part I, Chapter 13, translation ofJohn Ormsby).

Don Quixote is portrayed as both admirable ("and doth she not of a truth accompany and adorn this greatness with a thousand million charms of mind!" "that, winnowed by her hands, beyond a doubt the bread it made was of the whitest.") and ridiculous throughout the novel. Sancho knows this, and is enthusiastic for Dulcinea in as much as "if your worship goes looking for dainties in the bottom of the sea".^[1]

Dulcinea is based on the Spanish worddulce (sweet), and suggests an overly elegant "sweetness". To this day, a reference to someone as one's "Dulcinea" implies idealistic devotion and love for her.^[3]

An unidentified writer using the pseudonymAlonso Fernández de Avellaneda in 1614 published a Part II ofDon Quijote.

Although support for Avellaneda's view of Dulcinea is found in Part I ofDon Quixote, he has little interest in the glorious, imaginary Dulcinea. Scholars commonly say that because of this and many similar misreadings by Avellaneda, which Cervantes found offensive, he was motivated to complete his own unfinished Part II, which was published the following year. ("...especially my lady the princess Dulcinea, who staggers one's senses." "...who went skipping and capering like goats over the pleasant fields there...")

TheJules Massenet operaDon Quichotte depicts Dulcinée as a major character, the local queen who sends the knight on a quest to retrieve her jewels.^{[citation needed]}

• A prostitute named Aldonza is the female lead and identified as "Dulcinea" inMan of La Mancha, an adaptation of the Quixote story, and its subsequentmovie adaptation.
• The French composerMaurice Ravel composedDon Quichotte à Dulcinée (1932–33), a cycle of three songs for baritone voice and accompaniment.
• Dulcinea is the female lead in the TV seriesThe Adventures of Puss in Boots.
• Dulcinea appears in the Japanese seriesZukkoke Knight – Don De La Mancha. Her real name is Fedora (in the English dub). She is the daughter of the bandit king Poormouth. Her role is to help her bankrupt father by stealing, but she fails almost every time. She fools Don Quixote into helping her. She is voiced byMami Koyama.^{[citation needed]}
• "Dulcinea" is the title of the first episode of theSyfy television showThe Expanse.^[4]
• Dulcinea Septimus is the name of the heir to the Seventh House inThe Locked Tomb series of novels, and her relationship to Palamedes Sextus follows the format of a beautiful lady out of reach.
• In Canto VII of the South Korean video gameLimbus Company, Dulcinea is one of the "kindreds" of the video game's interpretation ofAlonso Quijano. Dulcinea is also the leader of the parade of "La Mancha land" and serves as the second boss of the act who resides in the third area of the Canto.
• Alternative rock bandToad the Wet Sprocket explore themes of unseen motivation on their 1994 album "Dulcinea (album)", drawing comparisons to the character.
• "Dulcinea" is the title of a song bypost-metal bandIsis on their 2006 albumIn the Absence of Truth.

• List of Don Quixote characters

• Mancing, Howard (March 2005). "Dulcinea Del Toboso: On the Occasion of Her Four-Hundredth Birthday".Hispania.88 (1):53–63.doi:10.2307/20063075.JSTOR 20063075.

• Don Quixote characters
• Unseen characters
• Fictional Spanish people
• Literary characters introduced in 1605
• Female characters in literature
• Fictional farmers

• Articles needing additional references from June 2008
• All articles needing additional references
• Articles with short description
• Short description is different from Wikidata
• All articles with unsourced statements
• Articles with unsourced statements from March 2016
• Articles with unsourced statements from November 2015