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M
iguel de Cervantes
Saavedra
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Chronology
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Likeness of Miguel of Cervantes Saavedra
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The one you see here, of aquiline face, chestnut-colored hair; clear, smooth forehead, cheerful
eyes and curved, though well-formed, nose; silver beard which not even twenty years ago was
still golden, a big moustache, a little mouth, teeth neither little nor big, because he has only six,
in bad shape and even more badly positioned, since not one of them fits any of the others; his
body between two extremes, neither large nor small, a bright complexion, rather light than dark;
a little stoop-shouldered and not very fleet of foot: this is the face of the author of La Galatea and
of Don Quijote de la Mancha, the face of the one who wrote Viaje del parnaso, in the style of
César Caporal Perusino, and other works that are out there somewhere, maybe even without their
owner's name. He is commonly known as Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. |
Likeness of Miguel of Cervantes Saavedra
Biography
Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547 and died in Madrid in 1616. His father
Rodrigo de Cervantes was a doctor of few means. Nothing is known of his mother Leonor de
Cortinas. It appears that Cervantes studied with the Jesuits in Córdoba or Seville and perhaps in
Salamanca. It is fairly certain that he was a pupil of López de Hoyos in Madrid. In 1569 he went
to Italy as part of Cardenal Acquaviva's retinue and after signing up as a soldier in 1570 fought
in the battle of Lepanto aboard the galley Marquesa. For the rest of his life he would boast of
the several wounds that he received in his hands and in his forehead. Subsequently, he fought in
the Corfú, Navarino, and Tunis campaigns. On his way back to Spain in 1575, the galley El Sol
was attacked by Turkish ships and Cervantes was taken captive to Algeria. During his five years
of captivity he wrote the Epístola a Mateo Vázquez. Juan Gil obtained Cervantes's freedom in
1580 in exchange for 500 ducats. Once back in Spain, he became a tax collector for the
Invincible Armada. He had one daughter, Isabel, from his liaison with Ana de Villafranca. He
married Catalina de Salazar y Palacios in 1584. He was twice imprisoned for embezzlement and
for not paying his debts. He went to jail in 1603 when the corpse of Gaspar de Ezpaleta was
found on his doorstep, but he was released for lack of evidence. From 1613 one of his books will
appear every year until the last one, Persiles, with its dedication in which he takes leave of his
readers signed three days before his death, on April 23, 1616.
Back to the beginning.
Cervantes the poet
Cervantes is not considered a good poet. It is hard to evaluate his poetry, labeled mediocre
because it is compared to his prose. Some of his poems are found in La Galatea. He also wrote
Dos canciones a la armada invencible. His best work, however, is found in the sonnets,
particularly Al túmulo del rey Felipe en Sevilla. Among his most important poems, Canto de
Calíope, Epístola a Mateo Vázquez, and the Viaje del Parnaso stand out.
Back to the beginning.
Cervantes the playwright
Comparisons have also diminished the reputation of his plays, but two of them, Los tratos de
Argel and La Numancia, made a big impact and were not surpassed until Lope appeared.
Cervantes's later production consists of 16 dramatic works, among which eight full-length plays:
El gallardo español, Los baños de Argel, La gran sultana doña Catalina de Oviedo, La casa de
los celos, El laberinto del amor, the cloak and dagger play La entretenida, El rufián dichoso and
Pedro de Urdemalas, a sensitive play about a pícaro who joins a group of gypsies for love of a
girl. He also wrote eight short farces (entremeses) : El juez de los divorcios, El rufián viudo
llamado Trampagos, La elección de los alcaldes de Daganzo, La guarda cuidadosa, El vizcaíno
fingido, El retablo de las maravillas, La cueva de Salamanca, and El viejo celoso. These plays
and entremeses made up Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses nuevos, nunca representados, which
appeared in 1615. Cervantes's entremeses, whose dates and order of composition are not known,
must not have been performed in their time. Faithful to the spirit of Lope de Rueda, Cervantes
endowed them with novelistic elements such as simplified plot, the type of description normally
associated with the novel, and character development. The dialogue is sensitive and agile.
Back to the beginning.
Cervantes the novelist
Cervantes's novels, listed chronologically, are La Galatea (1585); El ingenioso hidalgo don
Quijote de la Mancha I (1605); Novelas ejemplares (1613); Segunda parte del ingenioso
caballero don Quijote de la Mancha (1615), and Los trabajos de Persiles y Segismunda, historia
septentrional (1617). Los trabajos is the best evidence not only of the survival of Greek
novelistic themes but also of the survival of forms and ideas of the Spanish novel of the second
Renaissance. This work was published after the author's death.
Back to the beginning.
The Quijote
In 1605 Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra published the first part of his novel El ingenioso
hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha. Dedicated to the Duke of Béjar, it was published in Juan de
la Cuesta's printing shop under the supervision of Francisco de Robles. An unprecedented
success, six editions came out in the first year and it was translated into English in 1612 and into
French in 1614. Given to reading books of chivalry, the protagonist Alonso Quijano, influenced
by the exploits of his heroes, loses his mind and decides to become a knight, go out in search of
adventure and impose justice according to the code of the knights errant. Cervantes's work, a
keen critique of the literature of his time, presented the clash between reality and the ideals which
Don Quijote sought to revive, and at the same time originated the theme of the clairvoyance of
insanity. In 1614 Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda (possibly a pen name) published a Segundo
tomo del Ingenioso hidalgo don Quijote de la Mancha in Tarragona while Cervantes was
working on his own part two, which appeared in 1615. Cervantes's book was read as a parody of
novels of chivalry until the Romantics revealed its true importance as a novel. Part one
interpolates peripheral episodes into the main plot. This structural aspect was criticized in
Cervantes's time and continues to be so in the present. This criticism had a big effect on the
second part, where these stories no longer appear. Starting with the Retablo de maese Pedro,
Cervantes demonstrates a mastery of theatrical illusion which, absent from part one, becomes
another narrative function in part two.
The Quijote is an Aristotelian meditation on the nature of literature and the role of the writer in
society. Cervantes makes a distinction between poetic truth and historical truth and attempts,
through the use of parody, to set their boundaries. He shows how not distinguishing between the
two leads to the moral degradation of his hero and, consequently, of his public.
Back to the beginning.
Works used by permission of the
Centro de Estudios
Cervantinos
Copyright Universidad de Alcala.
For problems or questions about this Web page, contact
e-urbina@tamu.edu
Last update: 5/13/97.
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