在眾多取材自塞萬提斯《吉訶德》完成之音樂作品中，理查‧史特勞斯（Richard Strauss, 1864-1949 ）的交響詩《吉訶德》（Don Quixote, op. 35, 1898）可稱為最著名的一部。現有之相關研究資料中，多以動機、主題、調性、配器等音樂手法為探討中心，對於作曲家刻意標識的「幻想」「變奏」（Fantastische Variationen ）美學用意，則少有著墨。本文嘗試結合各種一手、二手資料，檢視文學作品本身、音樂取材和表達方式之間的互動關係，以透視「幻想變奏」一詞蘊含之文字與音樂互文之多重意義。

Among the multitude of musical adaptations of Cervantes’s Don Quixote, the symphonic poem which bears the same title by Richard Strauss (1864-1949) enjoys the most popularity and reputation. Though premiered as early as 1898, most of the studies on Strauss’s Don Quixote are limited to analysis on motif, theme, tonality, and instrumentation, while little has been done to examine and explore the aesthetics of “Fantastische Variationen,” a subtitle which the composer himself has carefully chosen for his masterpiece. This article will look into the relationship between the literary text and its musical adaptation in order to probe into the implications generated by the term “Fantastische Variationen” as well as the meanings created by the intertextuality between word and music.