Miguel de Cervantes - biography, career, poetry
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Miguel de Cervantes |
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Don Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (September 29, 1547 – April 23, 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, painter and playwright. Cervantes is one of the most important and influential people in literature and the leading figure associated with the Siglo de Oro, the cultural flourishing of sixteenth century Spain. Cervantes’ novel Don Quixote is considered a founding classic of Western literature and regularly figures among the best novels ever written. His work is considered among the most important in all of literature. He has been dubbed el Príncipe de los Ingenios (the Prince of Wits).
Cervantes, born in Alcalá de Henares, was the fourth of seven children, of a doctor in a family whose origins may have been of the minor gentry. The family moved from town to town, and little is known of Cervantes’s early years. In his early life he went on to work under a cardinal in the Catholic Church. By 1570 he had been enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by barbary pirates on his return home. He was ransomed by his captors and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid.
In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel, La Galatea. Because of financial problems, Cervantes worked as a purveyor for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector. In 1597 discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville. In 1605 he was in Valladolid, just 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; he published the Exemplary Novels (Novelas ejemplares) in 1613, the Journey to Parnassus (Viaje del Parnaso) in 1614, and in 1615, the Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote. Carlos Fuentes noted that, "Cervantes leaves open the pages of a book where the reader knows himself to be written. "
Miguel de Cervantes was born in La Manca, village near a Castilian city about 20 miles from Madrid, probably on September 29 (the feast day of St. Michael) 1547. He was baptized on October 9. Miguel’s paternal great-grandfather was Ruy Díaz de Cervantes, a prosperous draper who was born most probably in the 1430s. He married a Catalina de Cabrera about whom nothing at all is known. Their son, Miguel’s grandfather Juan, studied law at the University of Salamanca. For most of his life he served as a minor magistrate, ending his career as a specialist in fiscal law for the Spanish Inquisition and was a well-to-do man. He married Leonor Fernández de Torreblanca, who was apparently his cousin and a daughter of a Cordoban physician. Miguel’s father, Ruy (Rodrigo), was a barber-surgeon who set bones, performed bloodlettings, and attended "lesser medical needs". He presented himself as a nobleman and liked to act as a gentleman, which was not easy because of his low income. Little is known of Cervantes’ early years and education, but it seems that he spent much of his childhood moving from town to town with his family. It seems that, much like Dickens’ father, Miguel’s 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. There has been speculation also that Cervantes studied with the Jesuits in Córdoba or Sevilla.
In 1584, he married the much younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios. During the next 20 years he led a nomadic existence, working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada, and as a tax collector. He suffered a bankruptcy, and was imprisoned at least twice (1597 and 1602) for irregularities in his accounts. Between the years 1596 and 1600, he lived primarily in Seville. In 1606, Cervantes settled permanently in Madrid, Spain; where he remained for 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. La Galatea received little contemporary notice, 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 consisted largely of a rather tedious though good-natured review 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 de Alba, 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 masqueraded under the name of Alonso Fernández de 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 centers particularly in Don Quixote, and this work has been regarded chiefly as a novel of purpose. It is stated again and again that he wrote it in order to satirize the 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 forcible style. Of the two parts written by Cervantes, the first is the more popular with the general public - containing the famous episodes of the tilting at windmills, the attack on the flock of sheep, the vigil in the courtyard of the inn, and the episode with the barber and the shaving basin. 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 Don Quixote. The picaroon strain, already made familiar in Spain by the 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. 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 died in Madrid on April 23, 1616; coincidentally William Shakespeare also died on that date, but not on the same day; Britain was still using the Julian calendar, whereas Spain had already adopted the Gregorian calendar.[12] In honour of this coincidence UNESCO established April 23 as the International Day of the Book.[13] It is worth mentioning that the Encyclopedia Hispanica claims the date widely quoted as Cervantes’ date of death, namely April 23, is the date on his tombstone which in accordance of the traditions at the time would be his date of burial rather than date of death. If this is true, according to Hispanica, then it means that Cervantes probably died on April 22 and was buried on April 23. Of his burial-place nothing is known except that he was buried, in accordance with his will, in the neighbouring convent of Trinitarian nuns, of which it is supposed his daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, was a member, and that a few years afterwards the nuns removed to another convent, carrying their dead with them. But whether the remains of Cervantes were included in the removal or not no one knows, and the clue to their resting-place is now lost beyond all hope.
Poetry
Some of his poems are found in La Galatea. He also wrote Dos canciones a la armada invencible. His best work, however, is found in the sonnets, particularly Al túmulo del rey Felipe en Sevilla. Among his most important poems, Canto de Calíope, Epístola a Mateo Vázquez, and the Viaje del Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus), (1614) stand out. The latter is his most ambitious work in verse, an allegory which consists largely of reviews of contemporary poets.
Compared to his ability as a novelist, Cervantes is often considered a mediocre poet, although he himself always harbored a hope that he would be recognized for having poetic gifts.
About the author:
http://www.wikipedia.org
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