A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W Y Z
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Life and Works: Cervantes lived an unsettled life of hardship and adventure. He was was the son of a surgeon who presented himself as a nobleman, although Cervantes's mother seems to have been a descendant of Jewish converts to Christianity. Little is known of his early years, but it seems that Cervantes spent much of is 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. Once in Italy he doubtless began straightway to familiarize himself with Italian literature, a knowledge of which is so readily discernible in his own productions. In 1570 he became a soldier and fought bravely on board a vessel in the great battle of Lepanto in 1571, and was shot through the left hand in such a way that he never after had the entire use of it. When his wound was healed he engaged in another campaign, one directed against the Moslem in Northern Africa, and then after living a while longer in Italy he finally determined to return home in 1575. The ship was captured by the Turks and the brothers were taken to Algiers as slaves. There he spent five years, undergoing great sufferings, some of which seem to be reflected in the episode of the "Captive" in Don Quixote, and in scenes of the play, El trato de Argel, and after four unsuccessful escape attempts, he was ransomed by the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid in 1580. In 1584 he married 22 years younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios. 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 irregularities in his accounts, one due rather to some subordinate than to himself. Between the years 1596 and 1600 he lived primarily in Seville. In 1606 Cervantes settled permanently in Madrid, where he remained the rest of his life. In 1585 Cervantes published his first major work, La Galatea, a pastoral romance, at the same time that some of his plays, now lost except for El trato de Argel (where he dealt with the life of Christian slaves in Algiers) and El cerco de Numancia, were playing on the stages of Madrid. It received little contemporary notice for La Galatea and Cervantes never wrote the continuation for it, which he repeatedly promised. Cervantes next turned his attention to the drama, hoping to derive an income from that source, but the plays which he composed failed to achieve their purpose. 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. If a remark which Cervantes himself makes in the prologue of Don Quixote is to be taken literally, the idea of the work, though hardly the writing of its "First Part", as some have maintained, occurred to him 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. 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 appeared. Although it did not make Cervantes rich, it brought him international appreciation as a man of letters. Cervantes also wrote many plays, only two of which have survived, short novels, and the vogue obtained by Cervantes's story led to the publication of a continuation of it by an unknown who masquerades under the name of Fernandez Avellaneda. In self-defence Cervantes produced his own continuation, or "Second Part", of Don Quixote, which made its appearance in 1615. For the world at large interest in Cervantes centres particularly in Don Quixote, and this has been regarded chiefly as a novel of purpose. It is stated again and again that he wrote it in order to ridicule the romances of chivalry and to destroy the popularity of a form of literature which for much more than a century had engrossed the attention of a large proportion of those who could read among his countrymen and which had been communicated by them to the ignorant. Don Quixote certainly reveals much narrative power, considerable humour, a mastery of dialogue, and a forcible style. Of the two parts written by Cervantes, the first has ever remained the favourite. The second part is inferior to it in humorous effect; but, nevertheless, the second part shows more constructive insight, better delineation of character, an improved style, and more realism and probability in its action. In 1613 he published a collection of tales, the Exemplary Novels, some of which had been written earlier. On the whole, the Exemplary Novels are worthy of the fame of Cervantes; they bear the same stamp of genius as the Don Quixote. The picaroon strain, already made familiar in Spain by the Lazarillo de Tormes and its successors, appears in one or another of them especially in the Rinconete y Cortadillo, which is the best of all. He also published the Viaje del Parnaso in 1614, and in 1615, the Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes. At the same time, Cervantes continued working on Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, a novel of adventurous travel completed just before his death, and which appeared posthumously in January 1617. 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. He died in Madrid on April 23, 1616. Selected works:
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