Miguel de Cervantes

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"Cervantes" redirects here. For other uses, see Cervantes (disambiguation).
This name uses Spanish naming customs: the first or paternal family name is de
Cervantes and the second or maternal family name is Saavedra.

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Fajardo

Cervantes

(The well-known portrait, supposedly by Juan de Juregui. It has not

been authenticated, and no authenticated visual image exists.)[a][1]

Born Miguel de Cervantes Cortinas

29 September 1547 (assumed)
Alcal de Henares, Habsburg Spain

Died 22 April 1616 (aged 68)

Madrid, Spain

Resting place Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians, Madrid

Occupation Soldier, novelist, poet, playwright, accountant

Language Spanish
 Nationality Spanish

Notable Don Quixote

works
Entremeses
Novelas ejemplares

Spouse Catalina de Salazar y Palacios

Signature

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra[b] (/srvntez/ or /srvntiz/;[2] Spanish: [miel de

erantes saea]; 29 September 1547 (assumed) 22 April 1616)[3] was a Spanish writer
who is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's
pre-eminent novelists. His masterpiece Don Quixote has been translated into more languages
than any other book except the Bible.
His major work, Don Quixote, sometimes considered the first modern novel,[4] is a classic
of Western literature, regarded among the best works of fiction ever written.[5] His influence on
the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de
Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes").[6] He has also been dubbed El prncipe de los
ingenios ("The Prince of Wits").[7]
In 1569, in forced exile from Castile, Cervantes moved to Rome, where he worked as chamber
assistant of a cardinal. Then he enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and
continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Barbary pirates. After five years
of captivity, he was released on payment of a ransom by his parents and the Trinitarians, a
Catholic religious order, and he returned to his family in Madrid.
In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel titled La Galatea. He worked as a purchasing
agent for the Spanish Armada and later as a tax collector for the government. In 1597,
discrepancies in his accounts for three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville.[8]
In 1605, Cervantes was in Valladolid when the immediate success of the first part of his Don
Quixote, published in Madrid, signaled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in
Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. During the last nine years of his life,
Cervantes solidified his reputation as a writer, publishing Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary
Novels) in 1613, Viaje al Parnaso(Journey to Parnassus) in 1614, and Ocho comedias y ocho
entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote in 1615. His last work, Los trabajos de
Persiles y Sigismunda ("The Travails of Persiles and Sigismunda"), was published
posthumously in 1617.

Contents

1Birth and early life

2Military service and captivity
3Later life
4Literary pursuits
 5Death
6Works
o 6.1Don Quixote
o 6.2Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels)
o 6.3Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda
o 6.4Poetry
o 6.5Viaje del Parnaso
o 6.6Plays
o 6.7La Numancia
7Legacy
o 7.1References in other works
7.1.1Ballets
7.1.2Films
7.1.3Literature
7.1.4Music
7.1.4.1Opera
7.1.4.2Operetta
7.1.4.3Ballet
7.1.4.4Incidental music
7.1.4.5Orchestral
7.1.4.6Musicals
7.1.4.7Songs
7.1.4.8Piano
7.1.5Visual art
7.1.6Place
8Ethnic and religious heritage
9Likeness
10See also
11Notes
o 11.1References
12Further reading
13External links

Birth and early life[edit]

Literature of Spain

Medieval literature

Renaissance

Miguel de Cervantes

Baroque

Enlightenment

Romanticism

Realism
 Modernismo

Generation of '98

Novecentismo

Generation of '27

Literature subsequent to the Civil War

The Church of Santa Mara la Mayor where Cervantes was baptized in Alcal de Henares. The square in
front of it is now called Plaza Cervantes.

It is assumed that Cervantes was born in Alcal de Henares, a Castilian city about 35
kilometres (22 mi) northeast from Madrid, probably on 29 September (the feast day of Saint
Michael the Archangel) 1547. The probable date of his birth was determined from records in
the church register, given the tradition of naming a child after the feast day of his birth. He was
baptized in Alcal de Henares on 9 October 1547[9] at the parish church of Santa Mara la
Mayor. The register of baptisms records the following:
On Sunday, the ninth day of the month of October, the year of our Lord one thousand five
hundred forty and seven, Miguel, son of Rodrigo Cervantes and his wife Leonor, was baptised;
his godfathers were Juan Pardo; he was baptised by the Reverend Bachelor Bartolom
Serrano, Priest of Our Lady. Witnesses, Baltasar Vzquez, Sexton, and I, who baptised him
and signed this in my name. Bachelor Serrano.[10]
Miguel at birth was not surnamed Cervantes Saavedra. He adopted the "Saavedra" name as
an adult. By Spanish naming conventions, his second surname was that of his mother,
Cortinas. His father, Rodrigo, was a barber-surgeon of Galician extraction[11] from Crdoba,
who set bones, performed bloodlettings, and attended to "lesser medical needs";[12] at that time,
it was common for barbers to do surgery as well. His paternal grandfather, Juan de Cervantes,
was an influential lawyer who held several administrative positions. His uncle was mayor of
Cabra for many years. His mother, Leonor de Cortinas, was a native of Arganda del Rey and
the third daughter of a nobleman, who lost his fortune and had to sell his daughter into
matrimony in 1543. This led to a very awkward marriage and several affairs by
Rodrigo.[13] Leonor died on 19 October 1593.
Little is known of Cervantes' early years. It seems he spent much of his childhood moving from
town to town with his family, eventually enrolling in The Imperial School, a Jesuit educational
establishment for boys in Madrid.[14][15] During this time, he met a young barmaid named
Josefina Catalina de Parez. The couple fell madly in love and plotted to run away together. Her
father discovered their plans and forbade Josefina from ever seeing Cervantes again, perhaps
because of the young man's poor prospects of ever rising from povertyMiguel's own father
was embargoed for debt. The court records of the proceedings show a very poor household.
While some of his biographers argue that he studied at the University of Salamanca, there is
no solid evidence for supposing that he did so.[c] There has been speculation also that
Cervantes studied with the Jesuits in Crdoba or Seville.[16]
His siblings were Andrs (1543), Andrea (1544), Luisa (1546), Rodrigo (1550), Magdalena
(1554) and Juanknown solely because he is mentioned in his father's will.

Military service and captivity[edit]

The Battle of Lepanto by Paolo Veronese (c. 1572, oil on canvas, 169 x 137 cm, Gallerie
dell'Accademia, Venice)

Statue of Miguel de Cervantes at the harbour of Naupactus (Lepanto)

The reasons that forced Cervantes to leave Spain remain uncertain. Possible reasons include
that he was a "student" of the same name, a "sword-wielding fugitive from justice", or fleeing
from a royal warrant of arrest, for having wounded a certain Antonio de Sigura in a duel.[17] Like
many young Spanish men who wanted to further their careers, Cervantes left for Italy. In
Rome, he focused his attention on Renaissance art, architecture, and poetry knowledge
of Italian literature is discernible in his work. He found "a powerful impetus to revive the
contemporary world in light of its accomplishments".[18][19] Thus, Cervantes' stay in Italy, as
revealed in his later works, might be in part a desire for a return to an earlier period of the
Renaissance.[20]
By 1570, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a regiment of the Spanish Navy
Marines, Infantera de Marina, stationed in Naples, then a possession of the Spanish crown.
He was there for about a year before he saw active service. In September 1571, Cervantes
sailed on board the Marquesa, part of the galley fleet of the Holy League (a coalition of Pope
Pius V, Spain, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Knights
Hospitaller based in Malta, and others, under the command of Philip II of Spain's illegitimate
half brother, John of Austria) that defeated the Ottoman fleet on October 7 in the Battle of
Lepanto, in the Gulf of Patras. Though taken down with fever, Cervantes refused to stay below
and asked to be allowed to take part in the battle, saying he would rather die for his God and
his king than keep under cover. He fought on board a vessel and received three gunshot
wounds two in the chest and one which rendered his left arm useless. In Journey to
Parnassus he was to say that he "had lost the movement of the left hand for the glory of the
right" (referring to the success of the first part of Don Quixote). Cervantes looked back on his
conduct in the battle with pride: he believed he had taken part in an event that shaped the
course of European history.
After the Battle of Lepanto, Cervantes remained in hospital in Messina, Italy, for about six
months, before his wounds healed enough to allow his joining the colors again.[21] From 1572 to
1575, based mainly in Naples, he continued his soldier's life: he participated in expeditions
to Corfu and Navarino, and saw the fall of Tunis and La Goulette to the Turks in 1574.[22]:220
On 6 or 7 September 1575, Cervantes set sail on the galley Sol from Naples to Barcelona, with
letters of commendation to the king from the Duke of Sessa.[23] On the morning of 26
September, as the Sol approached the Catalan coast, it was attacked by Ottoman pirates and
he was taken to Algiers, which had become one of the main and most cosmopolitan cities of
the Ottoman Empire, and was kept there in captivity between the years of 1575 and
1580.[24] After five years as a slave in Algiers, and four unsuccessful escape attempts, he was
ransomed by his parents and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid. Not
surprisingly, this traumatic period of Cervantes' life supplied subject matter for several of his
literary works, notably the Captive's tale in Don Quixote and the two plays set in Algiers El
trato de Argel (Life in Algiers) and Los baos de Argel(The Dungeons of Algiers) as well as
episodes in a number of other writings, although never in straight autobiographical form.[9]

Later life[edit]

"The pen is the language of the soul; as the concepts that in it are generated, such will be its writings."
Miguel de Cervantes at the Biblioteca Nacional de Espaa (National Library of Spain).

Cervantes led a middle-class life after his return to Spain. Like almost all authors of his day, he
was unable to support himself through his writings. Two periods of his life that are very well
documented are his years of work in Andaluca as a purchasing agent for the Spanish navy
(i.e., the King). This led to his imprisonment for a few months in Seville after a banker where he
had deposited Crown funds went bankrupt. (Since Cervantes says that Don Quixote was
"engendered" in a prison, that is presumably a reference to this episode.) He also worked as a
tax collector, travelling from town to town collecting back taxes due the crown. He applied
unsuccessfully for "one of four vacant positions in the New World", one of them as an
accountant for the port of Cartagena. At the time he was living in Valladolid, then briefly the
capital (16011606), and finishing Don Quixote Part One, he was presumably working in the
banking industry, or a related occupation where his accounting skills could be put to use. He
was turned down for a position as secretary to Pedro Fernndez de Castro y Andrade, the
Count of Lemos, although he did receive some type of pension from him, which permitted him
to write full-time during his final years (about 1610 to 1616). His last known written words the
dedication to Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda were written, he tells us, after having
received Extreme Unction. He died in 1616 of type II diabetes.[25] His burial place in Madrid was
reportedly rediscovered in March 2015, but his unpublished manuscripts were mostly lost.

Literary pursuits[edit]
Main article: Don Quixote

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Miguel de Cervantes's famous work, Don Quijote illustrated by Dor

Another Don Quijote Illustration by Gustave Dor, this one is of the famous windmill scene
In Esquivias, Toledo, on 12 December 1584, he married the much younger Catalina de Salazar
y Palacios (born Esquivias d. 31 October 1626),[9]daughter of Fernando de Salazar y
Vozmediano and Catalina de Palacios. Her uncle Alonso de Quesada y Salazar is said to have
inspired the character of Don Quixote.[citation needed] Over the next 20 years, Cervantes led a
nomadic existence, working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and as a tax
collector. He suffered bankruptcy and was imprisoned at least twice (1597 and 1602) for
irregularities in his accounts.[9]Between 1596 and 1600, he lived primarily in Seville. In 1606,
Cervantes settled in Madrid, where he remained for the rest of his life.[26]
In 1585 Cervantes published his first major work, La Galatea,[9] 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.[citation needed] La Galatea received little contemporary notice; and Cervantes never wrote
the continuation for it, which he repeatedly promised to do. Cervantes next turned his attention
to drama, hoping to derive an income from that source, but his plays failed.[27] Aside from his
plays, his most ambitious work in verse was Viage del Parnaso (1614) an allegory which
consisted largely of a rather tedious though good-natured review of contemporary poets.
Cervantes himself realized that he was deficient in poetic talent.[9]
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 while in jail.[27] 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 January
1605, when the first part of Don Quixote appeared.[9]
The popularity of Don Quixote led to the publication of an unauthorized continuation of it by an
unknown writer,[27] who masqueraded under the name of Alonso Fernndez de
Avellaneda.[9] Cervantes produced his own continuation, or Second Part, of Don
Quixote,[27] which made its appearance in 1615.[9] He had promised the publication of a second
part in 1613 in the foreword to the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels), a year before the
publication of Avellaneda's book. Don Quixote has been regarded chiefly as a novel of
purpose.[27] It is stated again and again that he wrote it in order to satirize the chivalric
romance and to challenge the popularity of a form of literature that had been a favourite of the
general public for more than a century.[28]