Cervantes, Miguel de << suhr VAN tees, mih GEHL day >> (1547-1616), ranks as the outstanding writer in Spanish literature. His masterpiece, Don Quixote, is a novel about a middle-aged country landowner who imagines himself a knight in armor and goes into the world to battle injustice. Don Quixote ranks among the great works in literature and has been a major influence on the development of the novel. See Don Quixote.
His early life.
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born in Alcala de Henares, probably on Sept. 29, 1547. Unlike most writers of his time, he apparently did not attend a university. However, he read widely and his writings show the influence of many other works, including literary theory, pastoral novels, and romances of chivalry.
Cervantes joined the Spanish infantry in 1570, and he fought in the naval battle of Lepanto against the Ottoman Turks in 1571. He was wounded in the chest and left hand, thus earning the nickname the Maimed of Lepanto. Cervantes was devoted to military life, and he remained in the army, fighting in northern Africa and other Mediterranean lands.
Cervantes sailed for Spain in 1575. But his ship was captured by pirates and he was taken as a slave to Algiers, where he spent the next five years. Cervantes attempted to escape several times before his family and a religious order ransomed him. Incidents from Cervantes’s captivity became episodes in Don Quixote.
After obtaining his freedom, Cervantes reached Madrid in 1580, seeking employment to repay the cost of his ransom. He hoped to continue his military career. Instead, he obtained a job as a messenger. Shortly after that, Cervantes married and began to write verse and prose. He was finally appointed a grain collector. In his job, Cervantes met many kinds of people as he traveled the highways of southwest Spain. He gained an understanding of human nature that enabled him to ponder in Don Quixote and other works the conflict between hope and disillusionment, and dreams and reality.
His literary career.
Cervantes’s first long work was La Galatea (1585), a prose pastoral romance. Cervantes wrote many plays during the next 20 years, but found few producers who would present them. The publication of the first part of Don Quixote in 1605 made him famous. But Cervantes published nothing else for eight years.
Old and lonely, Cervantes became incredibly active during his last three years. Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) appeared in 1613. These stories, some of which had been written years before, rank as Cervantes’s major works after Don Quixote. The stories vary in style and subject matter, ranging from crude naturalism to romanticism. The most popular stories are noted for their realism and satirical flavor.
Critics do not regard Cervantes’s poetry highly. Journey to Parnassus (1614), a long poem, is of interest chiefly for its critical appraisals of Spanish poets. In 1615, he published the second part of Don Quixote and Eight Comedies and Eight Entremeses, a collection of plays. His entremeses (one-act comedies) are among his best works and much superior to his longer, more serious plays.
Cervantes’s last work was Persiles and Sigismunda, a romantic adventure novel published in 1617 after his death. One of the highlights of the book is its eloquent and moving introduction, completed just days before the author’s death. In the introduction, Cervantes foresaw his death and offered his farewell to life. Most scholars believe he died on April 22, 1616, though some believe his death date was April 23.
