Dulcinea is the idealized lady of Don Quixote’s devotion, though she scarcely appears as an active character in Cervantes’ novel. In ordinary life she is associated with Aldonza Lorenzo, but the knight transforms her through language into a noble princess worthy of heroic service. This distance between woman and imagined ideal makes Dulcinea a revealing figure of poetic invention. She represents the beloved as projection, muse, absent presence, and sustaining fiction.

Dulcinea is the imagined lady whom Don Quixote worships, although she is based on an ordinary village woman named Aldonza Lorenzo. She functions more as an ideal created by imagination than as an active character. In literary discussion, “Dulcinea” can refer to an unattainable beloved or a person transformed by idealization. The name also highlights the contrast between romantic fantasy and everyday reality.