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Miguel de Cervantes 1547-1616 - surname in full CERVANTES SAAVEDRA - nickname: Cripple of Lepanto |
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Spanish novelist, playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote, the most famous figure in Spanish literature. Although Cervantes' reputation rests almost entirely on his portrait of the knight of La Mancha, El ingenioso hidalgo, his literary production was considerable. William Shakespeare, Cervantes' great contemporary, had evidently read Don Quixote, but it is most unlike that Cervantes had ever heard of Shakespeare. In spite of his fame, Cervantes remained a poor man. You must know, then, that when our gentleman had nothing to do, (which was almost all the year round,) he passed his time in reading books of knight-errantry, which he did with that application and delight, that at last he in a manner wholly left off his country sports, and even the care of his estate; nay, he grew so strangely besotted with these amusements that he sold many acres of arable land to purchase books of that kind, by which means he collected as many of them as were to be had; but, among them all, none pleased him like the works of the famous Feliciano de Sylva; for the clearness of his prose and those intricate expressions with which it is interlaced, seemed to him so many pearls of eloquence, especially when he came to read the challenges, and the amorous addresses, many of them in this extraordinary style: "The reason of your unreasonable usage of my reason does so enfeeble my reason that I have reason to expostulate with your beauty." (The History of Don Quixote of la Mancha: Vol. I, translated from the Spanish by Motteaux, edited with notes and memoir by John G. Lockhart, J. C. Nimmo and Bain, 1881, pp. 14-15) Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra lived an unsettled life of hardship and adventure. He was born in Alcalá de Henares, a small town near Madrid, into a family of the minor nobility. His mother was Leonor de Cortinas; she gave birth to seven children, Cervantes was the fourth. Rodrigo de Cervantes, his father, was an apothecary-surgeon. It has been argued that the family members were of converso origin, Jews who had converted to Christianity. Jews also appear as characters in several of Cervantes' plays and novelas. Much of his childhood Cervantes spent moving from town to town while his father sought work. After studying in Madrid (1568-69), where his teacher was the humanist Juan López de Hoyos, he went to Rome in the service of Guilio Acquavita, who became a cardinal in 1570. In the same year Cervantes joined a Spanish regiment in Naples. He took part in the sea battle at Lepanto (1571), during which he received a wound that permanently maimed his left hand. Cervantes was extremely proud of his role in the famous victory and of the nickname he earned, el manco de Lepanto (the cripple of Lepanto). After recuperation in Messina, Sicily, he continued his military career. In 1575 he set out with his brother Rodrigo on the galley El
Sol for Spain. The ship was captured by pirates under Arnaute Mami
and the brothers were taken to Algiers as slaves. Rodrigo was ransomed
in 1577. The Moors though that Cervantes was more valuable captive
because he had carried letters written by important persons. Cervantes
spent five years as a slave until his family could raise enough money
to pay his ransom. During this period he tried to escape several times
without success. Cervantes was released in 1580, with the payment of
500 escudos raised by his family and the Trinitarian order. He
returned to Madrid where he held several temporary, ill-paid
administrative post. Cervantes' first play, Los tratos de Argel (1580), was based on his experiences as a Moorish captive. In 1584 he married 18 years younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, the daughter of a well-to-do peasant. The marriage was childless. He had also a daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, from an affair he had with an actress, Ana Franca de Rojas (or Ana de Villafranca). Isabel worked as a servant in the family but her way of life caused him much worries. The other members of the household included his mother and two unmarried sisters. In the late 1580s Cervantes left his wife. During the next 20 years he led a nomadic existence, also working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and a tax collector. He suffered a bankruptcy and was imprisoned at least twice (1597 and 1602) because of fiscal irregularities. It is generally believed that Cervantes was honest, but a victim of a thankless task. For a period he was excummunicated for expropriating grain from Church stores. Between the years 1596 and 1600 he lived primarily in Seville, and by 1604 he had moved to Valladolid, where Philip III had established his court. In 1606 Cervantes settled permanently in Madrid, where he spent the rest of his life. His economic situation remained difficult. When a nobleman, Gaspar de Ezpeleta, was mortally wounded on the street in front of Cervantes' house, and died there, Cervantes and the women in his household were jailed on suspicion of having had something to do with his death. After one Alonso Fernandez de Avellaneda published a poor sequel to Don Quixote, Cervantes answered to the challenge and produced the second part, which appeared in 1615. It is commonly accepted that he died on April 22, 1616. Three days before he had finished his novel The Exploits of Persiles and Sigismunda, dedicated to the Count of Lemos. Cervantes started his literary career in Andalusia in 1580. Accroding to Cervantes, he wrote 20-30 plays, but only two copies have survived. His first major work was Galatea (1585), a pastoral romance. It received little contemporary notice and Cervantes never wrote the continuation for it, which he repeatedly promised. But he mentions the book in Don Quixote, where the priest says to the barber: "That Cervantes has been for many years a great friend of mine, and to my knowledge he has had more experience in reverses than in verses. His book is not without imagination; it presents us with something but brings nothing to a conclusion. We must wait for the Second Part he has promised: perhaps it will show enough improvement to win the unrestricted praise that is now denied it." (Don Quixote, the Ormsby translation, revised, backgrounds and sources, criticism, edited by Joseph R. Jones and Kenneth Douglas, W. W. Norton, 1981, pp. 53-54) Between 1589 and 1605 Cervantes kept a low profile as a poet; Lope de Vega and Quevedo were the rivaling giants. "No one is so stupid as to admire Miguel de Cervantes," Lope said. (quoted in 'The Enigma of Shakespeare' (1964), Selected Non-fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, edited by Eliot Weinberger, Viking, 1999, p. 470) In the play El trato de Argel, printed in 1784, Cervantes dealt with the life of Christian slaves in Algiers. He announced in the preface to Persiles that he was preparing a new play (Fooled with Open Eyes), a romance (The Famous Bernardo), a collection of novellas (Weeks in the Garden), but none of these works ever appeared. The Persiles was published posthumously. Aside from his plays, his most ambitious work in verse was Viaje del Parnaso (1614), an allegory which consists largely of a rather tedious though good-natured reviews of contemporary poets. Cervantes himself realized that he was deficient in poetic gifts. Later generations have considered him one of the world's worst poets. Novelas Ejemplares (1613, Exemplary Novels), a collection of tales, contained some of his best prose work about love, idealism, gypsy life, madmen, and talking dogs. At the time he wrote the work, the Spanish Moriscos (Muslims) were expelled from Spain. Tradition maintains, that he wrote Don Quixote in
prison at Argamasilla in La Mancha. Cervantes' idea was to give a
picture of real life and manners and to express himself in clear
language, "in a plain, easy manner, in well chosen, significant, and decent terms," as he stated in
the author's preface to Volume I of The History of Don Quixote. (Ibid., p. 10) The intrusion of
everyday speech into a literary context was acclaimed by the reading
public. The author stayed poor until 1605, when the first part of Don
Quixote came out. Although it did not make Cervantes rich, it
brought him international
appreciation as a man of letters. According to a story King Philip III of Spain once saw a man
reading beside the road and laughing so much that the tears were
rolling down his cheeks. The King said: "That man is either crazy or he
is reading Don Quixote." However, Lope de Vega, the most
influential playwright at that time, slaughtered Cervantes as a poet
and novelist in a letter. A sonnet, either written by Vega or his
acolyte, contrasted the Apollo (Vega), with the Quixote, which would circle the
world, "arse to arse", as toilet paper. Don Quixote (part I; 1605; part II 1615) - Often
called the first modern novel, originally conceived as a comic satire
against the chivalric romances. The work has been interpreted in many
ways since its appearance. It has been seen as a veiled attack on the
Catholic Church or on the contemporary Spanish politics, or symbolizing
the duality of the Spanish character. Cervantes himself had believed in
uplifting rhetoric, fought for Spain, and when he returned to Madrid
after slavery, he found out that the government ignored his services.
The English author Ford Madox Ford stated that Cervantes did with his book to the world a disservice: "The
gentle ideal of chivalry is the one mediaeval trait which, had it
survived as an influence, might have saved our unfortunate
civilization." (The March of Literature: From Confucious' Day to Our Own, Dalkey Archive Press, 1998, p. 680) Another major theme is the notion of quest, in this case
not the Holy Grail, but reality. By traveling and casting aside his illusions, one by one, Don Quixote is able to
overcome his madness.
Neither wholly tragedy nor wholly comedy Don Quixote
gives a panoramic view of the 17th-century Spanish society. Central
characters are the elderly, idealistic knight, who sets out on his old
horse Rosinante to seek adventure, and the materialistic squire Sancho
Panza, who accompanies his master from failure to another. Their
relationship, although they argue most fiercely, is ultimately founded
upon mutual respect. In the debates they gradually take on some of each
other's attributes. Before
the good Knight of La Mancha dubs himself Don Quixote,
his name is Quijida or Quesada. His is a country gentleman, around
fifty. During his travels, dressed in a old, black suit of armor, Don
Quixote's overexcited imagination blinds him to reality: he thinks
windmills to be giants, flocks of sheep to be armies, and galley-slaves
to be oppressed gentlemen. Sancho is named governor of the isle of
Barataria, a mock title, and Don Quixote is bested in a duel with the
Knight of the White Moon, in reality a student of his acquaintance in
disguise. Don Quixote is passionately devoted to his own imaginative
creation, the beautiful Dulcinea. "Oh my lady Dulcinea del Toboso,
perfetion of all beauty, summit and crown of discreation, treasure
house of grace, depository of virtue, and, finally, ideal of all that
is good, honorable, and delectable in this world!" (The History of Don Quixote de la Mancha, translated by John Ormsby, Willaim Benton, 1952, p. 168) The hero returns to La Mancha at then end of part I. After a
spurious sequel to Quixote by
'Avellaneda' came out in 1614, Cervantes was forced to write his own
continuation. The real author behind the pseudonym has never been
unravelled. Only at his deathbed Don Quixote confesses the folly of his
past adventures. He forgives even Avellaneda. Most likely Vega had
conspired with the another author. It has been alleged that Cervantes died of diabetes, an untreatable disease at that time. His exact
burial place remained a mystery for centuries, no stone or cross was set to mark the grave. Catalina died in 1626. In 2015, the
presumed remains of Cervantes, dug up by researchers from the crypt of the Barefoot
Trinitarians, were reburied with special honors. Cervantes's influence is seen among others in the works of Sir
Walter Scott, Charles Dickens, Gustave Flaubert, Herman Melville,
Fyodor Dostoyevsky, also in the works of James Joyce and Jorge Luis
Borges, who wrote a short story ('Pierre Menard, Author
of the Quixote', in El Jardín de senderos que se bifurcan, 1941) about an author,
who undertook to compose Don Quixote – not another Quixote, but
the Quixote.
To be Cervantes, he decides to learn Spanish, turn to Catholicism,
fight against the Moor or Turk, forget the hisstory of Europe from
1602. And he writes the novel, word for word.
"Cervantes's text and Menard's are verbally identical, but the second
is almost infinitely richer. (More ambiguous, his detractors will say,
but ambiguity is richness.)" (Collected Fictions by Jorge Luis Borges, translated by Andrew Hurley, Penguin Books, 1998, p. 94) Orson Welles never finished his adaptation of Don Quixote, with Mischa Auer (d. 1967) as the don and Akim Tamiroff (d. 1972) as Sancho Pancha; he began shooting the film in the mid-1950s in Mexico. When Welles died in 1985, rumors spread that there was a finished version, a cut or even a work print in Los Angeles. (Rosebud: The Story of Orson Welles by David Thomson, Little, Brown and Company, 1996, pp. 363-363) Dale Wasserman used for his 1965 Broadway musical Man of La Mancha (music by Mitch Leigh and lyrics by Joe Darion) a quotation from Miguel de Unamuno ("Only he who attempts the absurd is capable of achieving the impossible") as the guiding principle behind the show. One song from the production, 'The Impossible Dream,' gained a huge popularity.
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