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History and Evolution:
By William E. Steinman:
Part 71, Cervantes:
August 2, 2004:
Now we can move to literature with the Spaniard Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616). A man of many talents, Cervantes was a novelist, playwright, and poet. He is the author of the famous novel Don Quixote. Who has not heard of the Man of la Mancha?
We know very little of Cervantes' youth except that his family moved around quite a bit. His first published writing was a poem he wrote when he was about 21 years old. It was a poem about the demise of Elisabeth of Valois, the Queen of Phillip II. After that he went to Italy and acted as chamberlain for Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva in Rome.
Around 1570 he became an enlisted man in the Spanish infantry. That was in Naples which was, at that time, in the possession of Spain. He participated heroically in the naval battle that broke the Turks power in the Mediterranean. He got shot up pretty bad for his troubles taking two balls in his chest and one in his left arm. He survived of course, but his left arm was ruined and useless for the rest of his life.
This guy was something of an adventurer and remained in the military after he recovered. He saw more action in Tunis and La Goleta, but he never got shot up again. His luck did run less than good though. In 1575, while sailing for Spain, he was captured by those nasty Barbary pirates. Then he was taken to Algiers and sold into slavery along with his brother. At the time, he had some letters of commendation to the king from the duque de Sessa and Don Juan. Those, it seems, were adequate cause to increase the ransom demand for him.
Cervantes was nothing if not gutsy. While a captive, he made a name for himself by making several tries to escape. When he was recaptured, his letters became his protectors. It seems he was too valuable to kill. It was not until 1580, that his family was able to raise the price of his ransom. For Cervantes it was all just grist for the mill. These adventures became the raw source material for some of his later works of fiction. Among them was, of course, Don Quixote. There were also two plays based on these adventures called The Traffic of Algiers and The Bagnios.
After his release, his fortune went into decline. He returned to Spain and a tough life of little money and much work. His family, middle class to begin with, had fallen on hard times. Being a war hero did not cut much ice in the court of Phillip II, so Cervantes struggled for many years. He did write his first fiction, La Galatea (A Pastoral Romance) and got paid for it. Still he struggled as an author and playwright.
In 1587, he finally gave it up and took a position as commissary of provisions for the great Armada of Phillip II. This great Armada also called the Spanish Armada, or Invincible Armada was supposed to lead an invasion of England. In the end, it did not work out well for the Spaniards at all. The English naval forces gave them an old fashioned thrashing in 1588 and the Spaniards lost most of their fleet.
That was the end of Cervantes' career as a commissary. It was not work he liked or was good at anyway. In fact, he handled the negotiations so poorly that the church authorities excommunicated him. After that he went to Seville. The civil authorities kept after him however and he finally ended up in the slammer in 1592 in Castro del Río. That was only for a few days.
Again in 1594 he tried another stint with the government as a tax collector in Andrausia. This guy was not a quitter, but he was just not good at being a bureaucrat. After mucking around at it for a couple of years his resignation was accepted. After some discrepancies in his accounting methods showed up, he went back to the slammer, this time in the Crown Jail of Seville. It is generally believed it was in this jail where he first conceive of his remarkable character Don Quixote. He was release in 1598 and kind of fell from sight for about five years. It seems he traveled about and continued to write. What he did for sustenance is not known.
In was not until 1605 that his watershed work The Ingenious Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha Was published. This is the book we now know as Don Quixote. It is the delightful story of a country gentleman and confused idealist who has read too many chivalric romances. He and his more earthy squire, Sancho Panza, embark upon a series of adventures involving characters from every level of society.
The novel was an immediate success, but did not lead to easy street for Cervantes. He had sold the rights to his novel to the publisher and gained nothing more from its popularity. He did, however, acquire fame in Europe and England. He continued to write and produced several other works, but nothing that outlived the famous Don Quixote. He also continued to struggle with financial problems his entire life. He became a bit more famous in 1615 when he produced a sequel called Second Part of the Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of La Mancha. Many pundits consider this to be the best of his work. It was so good that it became something of a model for the English and European novel.
After an enormously productive career he died in 1616, apparently at peace with himself. He was buried in the convent of the Discalced Trinitarians in the Calle de Cantarranas, but this is another of those cases where no one seems to know the exact spot.
It seems that Cervantes lead a tumultuous and adventurous life.
That life style is to some extent reflected in his best character,
Don Quixote. We find this of most great writers. Upon examination,
they are writing about themselves, giving us, as it were, a glimpse
into their own soul. That his novel lived so long and still offers
us the picture of the noble spirit living the impossible dream,
is a mark of his genius. Genus knows no time limits.
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