ography
[edit] Birth and early life
Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, a Castilian city about 15 miles from Madrid, probably on September 29 (the feast day of St. Michael) 1547. The actual date of his birth was determined from records in the church register. He was baptized on October 9.[2] Miguel's father Rodrigo was a barber-surgeon, who set bones, performed bloodlettings, and attended "lesser medical needs". [5] His mother was the third daughter of a nobleman, who lost his fortune and had to sell his daughter into matrimony. This led to a very awkward marriage and several affairs on the father's part.[6]
Little is known of Cervantes' early years. He was a brash young man and possessed a very idealistic nature. This is later reflected in his literary work, such as El Trabajo'svilla.[7]
[edit] Military history and captivity
The reasons that forced Cervantes to leave Castilla remain uncertain. Whether 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, is another mystery.[8]".[9] Thus, Cervantes' continuing desire for Italy, as revealed in his later works, was in part a desire for a return to the Renaissance.[10]
By 1570 Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a regiment of the Spanish naval elite corps, the Pope, Spain, Venice, Republic of Genoa, Duchy of Savoy, the Knights of Malta, and others, under the command of John of Austria) that defeated the Ottoman fleet on October 7 in the Gulf of Lepanto near Corinth. in the chest, and one which rendered his left arm useless, resulting in amputation. In.[11] 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 Goletta to the Turks in 1574.[12]
On 6 or 7 September 1575 Cervantes set sail on the galley Sol from Naples to Barcelona, Spain, with letters of commendation to the king from the duke de Sessa and Don Juan himself.[13].[14] After five years spent as a slave in Algiers, and four.[2]
[edit] Literary pursuits
In Toledo, Esquivias, on 12 December 1584, he married the much younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios (Toledo, Esquivias – Madrid, (wherein the plays which he composed. (He wrote many plays, only two of which have survived, and short novels.) romances of chivalry, and to challenge the popularity of a form of literature, which for much more than a century had been a fad with the general public.
Don Quixote certainly reveals much narrative power, considerable humor, a mastery of dialogue, and a forceful style. Of the two parts written by Cervantes, is inferior in humorous effect, but shows more constructive insight, better delineation of character, 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. The picaroon strain, already made familiar in Spain through the Picaresque novels of Lazarillo de Tormes and his successors, appears in one or another of them, especially in the Rinconete y Cortadillo, which is the best of all..
[edit] Death
Cervantes died in Madrid on 23 April 1616.[15] In honour of the date on which both Miguel de Cervantes and William Shakespeare died, UNESCO established April 23 as the International Day of the Book., but the true date of his death is unknown. lost.
[edit] Works
[edit] Novels
Cervantes's novels, listed chronologically, are as follows:
- La Galatea (1585): a pastoral romance in prose and verse, based upon the genre introduced into Spain by Jorge de Montemayor's Diana (1559). Its theme is the fortunes and misfortunes in love of a number of shepherds and shepherdesses, who spend their life singing and playing musical instruments.
- El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (1605): First volume of Don Quixote.
- Novelas Ejemplares (1613): a collection of twelve Hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (1615): Second volume of Don Quixote.
- Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (1617).
- adventures.
[edit] La Galatea
La Galatea, the pastoral romance, which Cervantes wrote in his youth, is an imitation of the Diana of Jorge de Montem.
[edit] Don Quixote
Don Quixote (spelled "Quijote" in modern Spanish) is two separate books that cover the adventures of Don Quixote, also known as the knight or man of La Mancha, a hero who carries his enthusiasm and self-deception to unintentional and comic ends. On one level, Don Quixote works. Cervantes himself however Encyclopedia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World, and the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky called it "the ultimate and most sublime work of human thinking".[citation needed]
[edit] Novelas Ejemplares Ejemplares[17] ("Moral or Instructive Tales"). They are unequal in merit as well as in character. Cervantes doubtless intended that they should be to the Spaniards nearly what the novellas.[citation needed].
[edit] Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda.
[edit] Poetry, although he himself always harbored a hope that he would be recognized for having poetic gifts.
[edit].
[edit] Plays
Comparisons have also diminished the reputation of his plays; but two of them (El Trato de Argel and La Numancia – 1582) made a big impact and were not surpassed until Lope de Vega appeared. short farces (entremeses):).aniard enough[citation needed] to be gratified with dramas which as a poet he could not imitate; and he imagined himself capable of imitating them, because he would have shone in another species of dramatic composition had the public taste accommodated itself to his genius.
[edit] La Numancia
This play is a dramatization of the long and brutal siege of the Celtiberian town Numantia, Hispania, by the Roman forces of Scipio Africanus.
Cervantes invented, along with the subject of his piece, a peculiar style of tragic composition; and, in doing so, he did not pay much regard to the theory of Aristotle..
[edit] Cervantes' historical importance and influence.[18]
Both possibilities are highly unlikely, especially the Shelton one., and an American musical – Man of La Mancha (1965) – by Dale Wasserman, Mitch Leigh, and Joe Darion. Man of La Mancha was.
The Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes, a digital library, hosted by the University of Alicante, the largest digital archive of Spanish-language historical and literary works in the world, is named after Cervantes.
[edit] Ethnic and Religious Heritage
There is ongoing debate over Cervantes' family origins. While it was long assumed that Cervantes was an Old Christian, more modern scholarship has increasingly concurred that he likely descended from a so-called converso background.[19]
Advocates of the New Christian theory, first set forth by Americo Castro, often suggest Cervantes' mother was a converso. The theory is almost exclusively supported by circumstantial evidence, but would explain some mysteries of Cervantes' life.[20] It has been supported by authors such as Anthony Cascardi and Canavaggio. Others, such as Claudio Sánchez-Albornoz (or Francisco Olmos Garcia, who considers it a "tired issue" and only supported by Americo Castro) reject the theory strongly.[21]
[edit] Notes
a. ^ The most reliable and accurate portrait of the writer to date is that provided by Cervantes himself in the Exemplary Novels (translated by Walter K. Kelly):[22]
b. ^ His signature spells Cerbantes with a b; but he is now known after the spelling Cervantes, used by the printers of his works. Saavedra was the surname of a distant relative. He adopted it as his second surname after his return from the Barbary Coast.[23] The earliest documents signed with Cervantes' two names, Cervantes Saavedra, appear several years after his repatriation. He began adding the second surname (Saavedra, a name that did not correspond to his immediate family) to his patronymic in 1586-1587 in official documents related to his marriage to Catalina de Salazar.[24]
c. ^ The only evidence is a statement by Professor Tomas González, that he once saw an old entry of the matriculation of a Miguel de Cervantes.[