MIGUEL DE CERVANTES: BIOGRAPHIES AND WORKS - LITERATURE - 2024

Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616) was a famous writer of the Spanish Golden Age who stood out as a novelist, poet, playwright and soldier. His writings were the beginning of the modern novel.

His great work El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha, better known as El Quijote, has been considered a world reference on literary excellence. This excellent piece is even considered the best novel written in the Spanish language.

Miguel de Cervantes and Saavedra. Source: Attributed to Juan Martínez de Jáuregui y Aguilar, via Wikimedia Commons

Cervantes lived through many events and adventures throughout his life. Perhaps those experiences were the push to make his passion for letters its greatest glory. His writings have a composition of fantasy and reality, as well as reflection and meditation on literature.

Regarding the novel that gave him the highest recognition, and that defines his literary style, Don Quixote, it was translated into different languages, and published all over the world. Its editions and publications have been multiple; the immortality of Miguel de Cervantes is due to the perfect alliance of the comic and the tragic of this work.

Biography

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was born on September 29, 1574, in Spain, specifically in the city of Alcalá de Henares. His father was a notable physician named Rodrigo de Cervantes, and his mother was Leonor de Cortinas, about whom little information is available.

Early years and youth

The place of birth of Cervantes is specified by his baptism record. On October 9, 1547, he received the sacrament of baptism in Santa María la Mayor church, located in Alcalá de Henares. Miguel shared the family bosom with six siblings.

In his childhood, the writer went through a stage of wandering and moving. This pilgrimage was due to the fact that his father acquired some debts, and, in fact, he was imprisoned for that, his assets being seized. Later, in 1556, Cervantes's father received an inheritance from his father that allowed him to pay off his debts.

Regarding the academic training of Miguel de Cervantes, it is known that he did not go to university. Nor is it known where he attended the primary stage, if in Valladolid, Córdoba or Seville, important cities during his childhood and adolescence.

However, in the way he narrated a school in his work El Colloquio de los Perros, it is believed that he could have studied in a school of the Society of Jesus, which the Jesuits founded at that time in Córdoba and Seville.

At 19 years of age Miguel moved and settled in the city of Madrid. He attended the Estudio de la Villa institute, where he met the Spanish writer and humanist Juan López de Hoyos, who gave Cervantes the opportunity to publish two of his poems in a book about the last days of the life of Queen Isabel de Valois.

From this time in Madrid, Cervantes began to give his first appreciations for literature and art. He also became a fan of the theater, and attended, among other shows, the performances of what was considered one of the first professional actors in Spain: Lope de Rueda.

Between trips, battles and problems

In 1569 he had to flee from Spain because he was accused of having injured a person. It was then that he settled in Rome and began to be part of the army. It was precisely in the year 1571 that he participated in the well-known battle of Lepanto.

From that naval battle against the Turks he was wounded in the left hand, a fact that caused him to be called the "Manco de Lepanto". After this he spent several years in different Italian cities, in which he took the opportunity to learn about the literature of that country.

Statue of Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra in Alcalá de Henares. Source: By No machine-readable author provided. MartinDahlJensen assumed (based on copyright claims)., via Wikimedia Commons

In 1575 he decided to return to Spain, but the ship in which he was traveling was boarded by Turkish pirates. Cervantes had the bad luck that the thugs took him hostage along with his brother Rodrigo, and then sold them as slaves. He stayed in Algeria for about five years, until a relative was able to pay the ransom.

When he finally returned to Spain, the poverty of his family took him by surprise. After the effort they made to pay their ransom, they were almost ruined. So to help them he did some court work. He was able to recover financially and traveled to Madrid.

It was in Spain when he decided to give free rein to his talent and passion for literature and writing. In 1584 he began to write his first novel La Galatea, which was published a year later in his city of birth, Alcalá de Henares. Only the first part was published, it consisted of six books at first.

Cervantes loves

From the same time in Spain, it is said that the writer had a relationship with the wife of a tavern owner. The woman's name was Ana Villafranca de Rojas. With this woman Cervantes had a daughter named Isabel Rodríguez y Villafranca.

The girl carried her maternal surnames, because Miguel decided to recognize her when she was 16 years old. After this, Isabel de Saavedra and Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra joined their emotional ties. A year after being recognized, the mother died and the father's sister took her in as a daughter.

At that time, the poet made a trip to the city of Toledo, specifically to Esquivias, after the call made by Juana Gaytán to be in charge of publishing El Cancionero by her husband Pedro Laínez. It was in that city where he married Catalina Salazar y Palacios, on December 12, 1584.

History states that Cervantes's wife was young, that just at the time of their marriage, she reached 20 years of age. From this union there were no children, and also the marriage did not obtain positive results. However, the writer was inspired by his wife's relatives for some of his characters.

While still married, Miguel de Cervantes made long trips, especially through Andalusia. This situation further cooled the marriage relationship. Little is known about Catalina, the poet wrote little about him. Not even the fact that he was the first to speak of divorce in the literature deserved any mention of who his wife was.

Some works of Cervantes outside the literary

Cervantes did not dedicate himself exclusively to literature. He did many jobs, especially related to the monarchy. In the year 1587 he traveled to Andalusia in the position of commissioner of provisions of the Invincible Armada or Company of England. This army had the objective of invading the aforementioned European city and removing Isabel I from the throne.

The position of commissioner brought Cervantes some problems with the church. On occasions, by royal orders, the Manco de Lepanto had to seize some products from individuals and the church itself. This made the religious leadership excommunicate and withdraw the sacraments from the writer.

In 1594 he accepted the post of tax collector in arrears. The work consisted of going house to house to collect the money, and since the ultimate goal was to allocate it for the wars in which Spain was immersed, this also brought more inconvenience as a consequence.

The bank where he deposited the money collected went bankrupt, and Cervantes was accused of enriching himself with public money. For that reason he was imprisoned. He spent the last quarter of the year 1594 confined in the Royal Prison of Seville. It is in that prison where his famous work Don Quixote de la Mancha was born.

Literary steps

It was in the year 1592 that Miguel de Cervantes began his path to the theater. It respected the time, action and place of the Treaty of Aristotle, as well as the Renaissance and classicist contributions. He tried as much as possible not to mix tragedy with comedy in his theatrical writings.

It is important to comment that, as a playwright, Cervantes stood out by writing the well-known “entremés”, a comic play in a single act that can be presented in verse or prose. Many of his personal experiences were reflected in this type of literary genre.

It was in Valladolid, in 1604, when the first part of Don Quixote was printed. The publication was made with the authorization of the Chronicler of the Indies Antonio de Herrera y Tordesillas. It was with that edition that literary realism emerged and the novel as a genre was born.

Eleven years later the second part of the novel came out: The Ingenious Knight Don Quixote de la Mancha. With the two editions of Don Quixote, Cervantes earned a place in world literature. During the publication of his famous work, he wrote the short stories Novelas Ejemplares.

From then on the literary work of Cervantes did not stop, even after his death his work is still valid. It was characterized by being original and lively. He wrote in both verse and prose, and the presence of dialogue was always a constant. Reality and fantasy made his works complex.

Death

Diabetes took the life of Miguel de Cervantes on April 22, 1616. He died in Madrid at the age of 68, in the well-known Casa de Cervantes. The writer had asked that his body be buried in the convent of the Iglesia de las Trinitarias Descalzas, located in the Las Letras neighborhood.

Plays

Cervantes wrote novels, plays, and poetry. In the three genres he stood out and with each one of them he set the tone. To this day his works remain a mandatory reference in the world of performing arts. His most outstanding works in the aforementioned branches are described below.

-Novels

The galatea

It is a novel written in the year 1585. It is considered the first written by the author. It is a work that deals with love, more specifically, the one that Elicio and Elastro feel for Galatea. The protagonist is a shepherdess who is characterized by being intelligent, honest and kind.

The plot of the story is about the independence that the beloved wants to maintain over her life, so she dedicates herself to making the two shepherds in love suffer. The novel was divided into six books. Only a first part of the work was published.

The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quijote of La Mancha

It was written in 1605, and is considered the most outstanding work in world literature. For the year 1615 he published a second part entitled El Ingenioso Caballero Don Quixote de la Mancha. It is considered the first modern novel.

The ingenious hildalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha. Source: By Juan de la Cuesta (printer); Miguel de Cervantes (author), via Wikimedia Commons

The intention of Cervantes was to make a mockery of the chivalric novels that existed. So he wrote about a hidalgo from La Mancha who had gone crazy for reading the content of these writings. Don Quixote decided to disguise himself as a knight and live some adventures with his horse Rocinante.

In the play, Don Quixote lives in an unreal world, where nothing is what it appears, for example: the mills are giant people. Within his "madness", he invents his loved one Dulcinea del Toboso. On the way he makes friends with Sancho Panza. Adventures together are both funny and unhappy.

Structure of Don Quixote

From the structural and style point of view the novel is divided into two volumes, of 52 and 74 chapters. Most of the novel is narrated in the third person, and as a characteristic of Cervantes's works, dialogue predominates. On the other hand, each character that appears gives the novel another narrative and style aspect.

In addition to being a mockery or satire of the chivalric novels of the time, Don Quixote includes some central themes. These include madness, which can be interpreted as not so real, which allows the protagonist to live at will another of the themes of the play, free will.

The real and the unreal are also within the plot. Both aspects enter into battle, since Cervantes himself narrates that he finds the story translated in the city of Toledo. Already within the work, most of the elements are mixed with each other regarding their meanings and essence itself.

Fragment of Don Quixote

“Freedom, Sancho, is one of the most precious gifts that the heavens gave to men; the treasures that the earth holds and the sea conceals cannot be equaled with it; for freedom as well as for honor one can and must venture life, and, on the contrary, captivity is the greatest evil that can come to men ”.

Exemplary novels

They were written between 1590 and 1612. They were a series of short stories that were unified in a single edition. Most of the content is moral, aesthetic and social. It also deals with some love affairs, with the idealization of the human essence.

Some of the novels that this work contains are:

• La Gitanilla, which is perhaps one of the longest, is also considered autobiographical because it refers to an affair the author had with a distant relative.
• The Liberal Lover, which tells the story of a kidnapping of a young man from Sicily.
• Also included are La Española Inglesa, El Licenciado Vidriera, La Fuerza de la Sangre, El Celoso Extremadura and La Ilustre Fregona. For their part, The Two Maidens, The Lady Cornelia, The Deceptive Marriage and the Colloquium of the Dogs are also added to these copies.

-Poetry

Regarding his poetic work, Miguel de Cervantes questioned his ability to write poetry. Many of his poems included them within his novels and plays. However, there are a large number of writings that have been lost. In his novel La Galatea he included some of them.

As a poet he did not neglect his peculiar characteristic of being comical and mocking. Although he also wrote seriously in this type of work, such is the case of the Exequias of Queen Isabel de Valois and A La Muerte by Fernando de Herrera. It is also worth mentioning the one entitled: To Pedro Padilla.

Outside of the verses within his novels, one of the best known and most extensive that Cervantes Saavedra made was Viaje del Parnaso. He wrote it in 1614, the author recounted there his trip to the mountain of Greek mythology on a ship led by Mercury. It is a poem of unreal character.

Fragment:

"The sanest poet governs

by its empty and gifted whim, full of traces and eternal ignorance.

absorbed in his chimeras, and admired

of his own actions, does not seek

Reach rich as an honorable state ”.

This fragment of the poem in question is related to the positive and negative criticisms that Cervantes makes within the work of some Spanish poets and writers, whom he includes as characters within the poetic work. The good guys defend him, the bad guys want to hurt him.

-Theater

From an early age Miguel de Cervantes showed his taste for theater. Over the years he dedicated himself to writing plays. His works were characterized by having a moralistic message. In them he used to include allegorical characters and concentrated on delving into what time, action and space refer to.

The same writer at some point claimed to have written approximately thirty comedies. However, its scholars assure that they retain 17 titles and 11 texts. Cervantes was a specialist in writing "entremés", that is, short-term works. The humor and depth of his works set him apart from others.

Among his most renowned plays are:

The Siege of Numancia

This theatrical piece was written by Cervantes in 1585. It was inspired by the military confrontations that took place between the 2nd and 3rd centuries BC. It is a tragedy that deals with the misfortune of the Numantines under the threats of the Roman general Scipio.

In this work the writer highlighted hope and freedom as the main themes. In addition, he stressed the importance of the will and honor of every man. It has long been considered one of the best works of the historic Spanish Golden Age.

The Algiers Treaty

He wrote it in 1582. In this work Cervantes portrayed his experience as a hostage in the city of Algiers. In the play, he made a comedy out of the events. Fully complied with the units of action, time and place. It is also known as Los Tratos de Algiers or Los Baños de Algiers.

The plot of the play goes as follows: Aurelio and Silvia are in captivity, and the Moors Zara and Izuf fall in love with them. During the development of the story there is a mixture between love, patriotism and religion. The events end with the release of the two hostages through forgiveness.

The Great Sultana

At first it was published under the name of the famous Comedy entitled La gran sultana doña Catalina de Oviedo. It is located in the city of Constantinople. It tells the story of a lady of Spanish origin who falls madly in love with a sultan.

Other plays that also made this Spanish author famous were: The Conquest of Jerusalem, La Casa de los Celos and Selva de Ardenia, La Entetenida, El Rufián Dichoso and Pedro de Urdemalas.

Literary legacy

After having described the life and work of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, it can be said that he left the greatest wealth to Spanish grammar and literature. His works have made a difference in style and content, as well as offering a verb full of depth and at the same time beauty and attraction.

Today the memory of this writer is honored in many ways. Some prizes bearing his name have been created worldwide, such as the Miguel de Cervantes Prize, which is the most important in Spanish literature. There is also the Cervantes Trophy that is held in his hometown, to reward football.

In addition, there are many institutions that keep his legacy alive. Among which are the Instituto Cervantes, to promote and teach Spanish; the European University Miguel de Cervantes, the Liceo de Cervantes in Colombia, the Miguel de Cervantes University in Chile, among many others.

On the other hand, celebrations are also the order of the day. In the case of Spain, they celebrate the Cervantes Week. Depending on the locality it can be in April, in others in September or October. In the case of Mexico, specifically in Guanajuato, they hold the Cervantino Festival.

References

1. Harlan, C. (2018). Brief Summary of Don Quixote de la Mancha. Spain: About Español. Recovered from: aboutespanol.com
2. Miguel de Cervantes. (2018). Spain: Wikipedia. Recovered from: wikipedia.org
3. Case, Á. (2017): Cervantes, El Verdadero Humanista. (N / a). History and Life. Recovered from:vanaguardia.com
4. Miguel de Cervantes. (S. f). (Spain): Miguel de Cervantes virtual library. Recovered from: cervantesvirtual.com
5. Biography of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra. (2018). (N / a): The Summary. Recovered from: elresumen.com