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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
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see also:
CERVANTES
"Don Quixote " Illustrations by G. Dore
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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
born September 29?, 1547, Alcalá de Henares, Spain
died April 22, 1616, Madrid
in full Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra Spanish novelist,
playwright, and poet, the creator of Don Quixote (1605,
1615) and the most important and celebrated figure in
Spanish literature. His novel Don Quixote has been
translated, in full or in part, into more than 60 languages.
Editions continue regularly to be printed, and critical
discussion of the work has proceeded unabated since the 18th
century. At the same time, owing to their widespread
representation in art, drama, and film, the figures of Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza are probably familiar visually to
more people than any other imaginary characters in world
literature. Cervantes was a great experimenter. He tried his
hand in all the major literary genres save the epic. He was
a notable short-story writer, and a few of those in his
collection of Novelas exemplares (1613; Exemplary Stories)
attain a level close to that of Don Quixote, on a miniature
scale.
Cervantes was born some 20 miles from Madrid, probably on
September 29 (the day of San Miguel). He was certainly
baptized on October 9. He was the fourth of seven children
in a family whose origins were of the minor gentry but which
had come down in the world. His father was a barber-surgeonwho
set bones, performed bloodlettings, and attended
lessermedical needs. The family moved from town to town, and
little is known of Cervantes's early education. The
supposition, based on a passage in one of the Exemplary
Stories, that he studied for a time under the Jesuits,
though not unlikely, remains conjectural. Unlike most
Spanish writers of his time, including some of humble
origin, he apparently did not go to a university. What is
certain is that at some stage he became an avid reader of
books. The head of a municipal school in Madrid, a man with
Erasmist intellectual leanings named Juan López de Hoyos,
refers to aMiguel de Cervantes as his “beloved pupil.” This
was in 1569, when the future author was 21, so—if this was
the same Cervantes—he must either have been a pupil-teacher
at the school or have studied earlier under López de Hoyos.
His first published poem, on the death of Philip II's young
queen, Elizabeth of Valois, appeared at this time.
Soldier and slave
That same year he left Spain for Italy. Whether this was
because he was the “student” of the same name wanted by the
law for involvement in a wounding incident is another
mystery; the evidence is contradictory. In any event, in
going to Italy Cervantes was doing what many young Spaniards
of the time did to further their careers in one way or
another. It seems that for a time he served as chamberlainin
the household of Cardinal Giulio Acquaviva in Rome. However,
by 1570 he had enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish infantry
regiment stationed in Naples, then a possession of the
Spanish crown. He was there for about a year before he saw
active service.
Relations with the Ottoman Empire under Selim II were
reaching a crisis, and the Turks occupied Cyprus in 1570. A
confrontation between the Turkish fleet and the naval
forcesof Venice, the papacy, and Spain was inevitable. In
mid-September 1571 Cervantes sailed on board the Marquesa,
part of the large fleet under the command of Don Juan de
Austria that engaged the enemy on October 7 in the Gulf of
Lepanto near Corinth. The fierce battle ended in a crushing
defeat for the Turks that was ultimately to break their
control of the Mediterranean. There are independent accounts
of Cervantes's conduct in the action, and they concur in
testifying to his personal courage. Though stricken with a
fever, he refused to stay below and joined the thick of the
fighting. He received two gunshot wounds in the chest, and a
third rendered his left hand useless for the rest of his
life. He always looked back on his conduct in the battle
with pride. From 1572 to 1575, based mainly in Naples, he
continued his soldier's life; he was at Navarino and saw
action in Tunis and La Goleta. He must also, when
opportunity offered, have been familiarizing himself with
Italian literature. Perhaps with a recommendation for
promotion to the rank of captain, more likely just leaving
the army, he set sail for Spain in September 1575 with
letters of commendation to the king from the duque de Sessa
and Don Juan himself.
On this voyage his ship was attacked and captured by Barbary
corsairs, and Cervantes, together with his brother Rodrigo,
was sold into slavery in Algiers, the centre of the
Christian slave traffic in the Muslim world. The letters he
carried magnified his importance in the eyes of his captors.
This had the effect of raising his ransom price, and thus
prolonging his captivity, while also, it appears, protecting
his person from punishment by death, mutilation, or torture
when his four daring bids to escape were frustrated. His
masters, the renegade Dali Mami and later Hasan Paşa,
treated him with considerable leniency in the
circumstances,whatever the reason. At least two contemporary
records of the life led by Christian captives in Algiers at
this time mention Cervantes. He clearly made a name for
himself for courage and leadership among the captive
community. Atlong last, in September 1580, three years after
Rodrigo had earned his freedom, Miguel's family, with the
aid and intervention of the Trinitarian friars, raised the
500 gold escudos demanded for his release. It was only just
in time, right before Hasan Paşa sailed for Constantinople
(now Istanbul), taking his unsold slaves with him. Not
surprisingly, this, the most adventurous period of
Cervantes's life, supplied subject matter for several of his
literary works, notably the Captive's tale in Don Quixote
and the two Algiersplays, El trato de Argel (“The Traffic of
Algiers”) and Los baños de Argel (“The Bagnios [an obsolete
word for “prisons”] of Algiers”), as well as episodes in a
number of other writings, although never in straight
autobiographical form.
Civil servant and writer
Back in Spain, Cervantes spent most of the rest of his life
ina manner that contrasted entirely with his decade of
action and danger. He would be constantly short of money and
in tedious and exacting employment; it would be 25 years
before he scored a major literary success with Don Quixote.
On his return home he found that prices had risen and the
standard of living for many, particularly those of the
middle class, like his family, had fallen. The euphoria of
Lepanto was a thing of the past. Cervantes's war record did
not now bring the recompense he expected. He applied
unsuccessfully for several administrative posts in Spain's
American empire. The most he succeeded in acquiring was a
brief appointment as royal messenger to Oran, Algeria, in
1581. In vain he followed Philip II and the court to Lisbon
in newly annexed Portugal.
About this time he had an affair with a young married
woman named Ana de Villafranca (or Ana Franca de Rojas), the
fruit of which was a daughter. Isabel de Saavedra,
Cervantes's only child, was later brought up in her father's
household. Late in 1584 he married Catalina de Salazar y
Palacios, 18 years his junior. She had a small property in
the village of Esquivias in La Mancha. Little is known about
their emotional relationship. There is no reason to suppose
that the marriage did not settle down into an adequate
companionableness, despite Cervantes's enforced long
absences from home. Neither is there any special reason to
suppose that Catalina was an inspiration or a model for
characters in the poetry Cervantes was now writing or in his
first published fiction, La Galatea (1585; Galatea: A
Pastoral Romance), in the newly fashionable genre of the
pastoral romance. The publisher, Blas de Robles, paid him
1,336 reales for it, a good price for a first book. The
dedication of the work to Ascanio Colonna, a friend of
Acquaviva, was a bid for patronage that does not seem to
have been productive. Doubtless helped by a small circle of
literary friends, such as the poet Luis Gálvez de Montalvo,
the book did bring Cervantes's name before a sophisticated
reading public. But the only later editions in Spanish to
appear in the author's lifetime were those of Lisbon, 1590,
and Paris, 1611. La Galatea breaks off in mid-narrative;
judging by his repeatedly expressed hopes of writing a
sequel, Cervantes evidently maintained a lasting fondness
for the work.
Cervantes also turned his hand to the writing of drama at
this time, the early dawn of the Golden Age of the Spanish
theatre. He contracted to write two plays for the theatrical
manager Gaspar de Porras in 1585, one of which, La confusa
(“Confusion”), he later described as the best he ever
wrote.Many years afterward he claimed to have written 20 or
30 plays in this period, which, he noted, were received by
the public without being booed off the stage or having the
actorspelted with vegetables. The number is vague; only two
certainly survive from this time, the historical tragedy of
La Numancia (1580s; Numantia: A Tragedy) and El trato de
Argel (1580s; “The Traffic of Algiers”). He names nine
plays, the titles of a few of which sound like the originals
of plays reworked and published years later in the
collection Ocho comedias, y ocho entremeses nuevos (1615;
“Eight Plays and Eight New Interludes”). Fixed theatre sites
were just becoming established in the major cities of Spain,
and there was an expanding market geared to satisfying the
demandsof a public ever more hungry for entertainment. Lope
de Vega was about to respond to the call, stamping his
personal imprint on the Spanish comedia and rendering all
earlier drama, including that of Cervantes, old-fashioned or
inadequate by comparison. Though destined to be a
disappointed dramatist, Cervantes went on trying to get
managers to accept his stage works. By 1587 it was clear
that he was not going to make a living from literature, and
hewas obliged to turn in a very different direction.
Cervantes became a commissary of provisions for the great
Armada. Requisitioning corn and oil from grudging rural
communities was a thankless task, but it was at least a
steady job, with a certain status. It took him traveling all
overAndalusia, an experience he was to put to good use in
his writing. He was responsible for finances of labyrinthine
complexity, and the failure to balance his books landed him
in prolonged and repeated trouble with his superiors. There
also was constant argument with municipal and church
authorities, the latter of which more than once
excommunicated him. The surviving documentation of the
accountancy and negotiations involved is considerable.
After the disastrous defeat of the Armada in 1588, Cervantes
gravitated to Sevilla (Seville), the commercial capital of
Spain and one of the largest cities in Europe. In 1590 he
applied to the Council of the Indies for any one of four
major crown posts vacant in Central and South America. His
petition was curtly rejected. Wrangles over his accounts and
arrears of salary dragged on. He seems to have kept some
contact with the literary world; there is a record of his
buying certain books, and he must have managed to find time
for reading. In 1592 he signed a contract to supply six
plays to a theatrical manager, one Rodrigo Osorio. Nothing
came of this. His commissary work continued, and the
litigation came to a head; in September 1592 he was
imprisoned for a few days in Castro del Río.
In 1594 Cervantes was in Madrid seeking a new post. He
received an appointment that took him back to Andalusia to
collect overdue taxes. Although it was in effect a
promotion, the job was no more rewarding than the previous
one and was similarly fraught with financial difficulties
and confrontations. Cervantes was not by temperament a
businessman. Probably by mutual agreement the appointment
was terminated in 1596. The previous year he had won first
prize (three silver spoons) in a poetry competition in
Zaragoza. Back in Sevilla, he likely started seriously
writing stories at about this time, not to mention a
wickedly satirical sonnet on the conduct of the duque de
Medina Sidonia, to be followed by one obliquely
disrespectful of the recently deceased king himself. Again
he met with financial troubles. In the summer of 1597
discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed
him in the Crown Jail of Sevilla. He was confined until the
endof April 1598 and perhaps conceived there the idea of Don
Quixote, as a remark in the first prologue suggests:
And so, what was to be expected of a sterile and
uncultivated wit such as that which I possess if not an
offspring that was dried up, shriveled, and eccentric: a
story filled with thoughts that never occurred to anyone
else, of a sort that might be engendered in a prison where
every annoyance has its home and every mournful sound its
habitation?
Information about Cervantes's life over the next four or
five years is sparse. He had left Sevilla, and, perhaps for
a while in Esquivias and Madrid, later for certain in
Valladolid (where the royal court established itself from
1601 to 1606), he must have been writing the first part of
Don Quixote. Early versions of two of his stories, "Rinconete
y Cortadillo" (“Rinconete and Cortadillo”) and "El celoso
extremeño" (“The Jealous Extremaduran”), found their way
into a miscellaneous compilation, unpublished, made by one
Francisco Porras de la Cámara.
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CERVANTES
"Don Quixote " Illustrations by G. Dore
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Publication of Don Quixote
In July or August 1604 Cervantes sold the rights of El
ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (“The Ingenious
Hidalgo Don Quixote of La Mancha,” known as Don Quixote,
Part I) to the publisher-bookseller Francisco de Robles for
an unknown sum. License to publish was granted in September
and the book came out in January 1605. There is some
evidence of its content's being known or known about before
publication—to, among others, Lope de Vega, the vicissitudes
of whose relations with Cervantes were then at a low point.
The compositors at Juan de la Cuesta's press in Madrid are
now known to have been responsible for a great many errors
in the text, many of which were long attributed to the
author.
The novel was an immediate success, though not as
sensationally so as Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache ,
Part I, of 1599. By August 1605 there were two Madrid
editions, two published in Lisbon, and one in Valencia.
There followed those of Brussels, 1607; Madrid, 1608; Milan,
1610; and Brussels, 1611. Part II, Segunda parte del
ingenioso cavallero Don Quixote de la Mancha (“Second Part
of the Ingenious Knight Don Quixote of La Mancha”), came out
in 1615. Thomas Shelton's English translation of the first
part appeared in 1612. The name of Cervantes was soon to be
as well known in England, France, and Italy as in Spain.
The sale of the publishing rights, however, meant that
Cervantes made no more financial profit on Part I of his
novel. He had to do the best he could with patronage. The
dedication to the young duque de Béjar had been a mistake.
He had better fortune with two much more influential
persons: the conde de Lemos, to whom he would dedicate Part
II and no less than three other works, and Don Bernardo de
Sandoval y Rojas, archbishop of Toledo. This eased his
financial circumstances somewhat. However, it is apparent
that he would have liked a securer place in the pantheon of
the nation's writers than he ever achieved during his
lifetime—he wanted a reputation comparable to that enjoyed
by Lope de Vega or the poet Luis de Góngora, for example.
His sense of his own marginal position may be deduced from
his Viage del Parnaso (1614; Voyage to Parnassus), two or
three of the later prefaces, and a few external sources.
Nevertheless, relative success, still-unsatisfied ambition,
and a tireless urge to experiment with the forms of fiction
ensured that, at age 57, with less than a dozen years left
to him, Cervantes was just entering the most productive
period of his career.
No graciousness descended on Cervantes's domestic life.A
stabbing incident in the street outside the house in
Valladolid, in June 1605, led ridiculously to the whole
household's arrest. When they later followed the court to
Madrid, he continued to be plagued by litigation over money
and now, too, by domestic difficulties. The family lodged in
various streets over the next few years before finally
settling in the Calle de León. Like a number of other
writers of the day, Cervantes nursed hopes of a secretarial
appointment with the conde de Lemos when, in 1610, the conde
was made viceroy of Naples. Once more Cervantes was
disappointed. He had joined a fashionable religious order,
the Slaves of the Most Blessed Sacrament, in 1609, and four
years later he became a Franciscan tertiary, which was a
more serious commitment. Students of Cervantes know, too, of
some increased involvement in the literary life of the
capital in the form of his attendance at the Academia
Selvaje, a kind of writers' salon, in 1612.
The next year, the 12 Exemplary Stories were published. The
prologue contains the only known verbal portrait of the
author:
of aquiline countenance, with dark brown hair, smooth
clear brow, merry eyes and hooked but well-proportioned
nose; his beard is silver though it was gold not 20 years
ago; large moustache, small mouth with teeth neither big nor
little, since he has only six of them and they are in bad
condition and worse positioned, for they do not correspond
to each other; the body between two extremes, neither tall
nor short; a bright complexion, more pale than dark,
somewhat heavy in the shoulder and not very light of foot.
Cervantes's claim in this prologue to be the first to write
original novellas (short stories in the Italian manner) in
Castilian is substantially justified. Their precise dates of
composition are in most cases uncertain. There is some
variety in the collection, within the two general categories
of romance-based stories and realistic ones. El coloquio de
los perros (“Colloquy of the Dogs,” Eng. trans. in Three
Exemplary Novels [1952]), a quasi-picaresque novella, with
its frame tale El casamiento engañoso (“The Deceitful
Marriage”), is probably Cervantes's most profound and
original creation next to Don Quixote. In the 17th century
theromantic stories were the more popular; James Mabbe chose
precisely these for the selective English version of 1640.
Nineteenth- and 20th-century taste preferred the realistic
ones, but by the turn of the 21st century the others were
receiving again something like their critical due.
In 1614 Cervantes published Viage del Parnaso, a long
allegorical poem in mock-mythological and satirical vein,
with a postscript in prose. It was devoted to celebrating a
host of contemporary poets and satirizing a few others. The
author there admitted that writing poetry did not come
easilyto him. But he held poetry in the highest esteem as a
pure artthat should never be debased. Having lost all hope
of seeing any more of his plays staged, he had eight of them
published in 1615, together with eight short comic
interludes, in Ocho comedias, y ocho entremeses nuevos. The
plays show no shortage of inventiveness and originality but
lack real control of the medium. The interludes, however,are
reckoned among the very best of their kind.
It is not certain when Cervantes began writing Part II of
DonQuixote, but he had probably not gotten much more than
halfway through by late July 1614. About September a
spurious Part II was published in Tarragona by someone
calling himself Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda, an
unidentified Aragonese who was an admirer of Lope de Vega.
The book is not without merit, if crude in comparison with
its model. In its prologue the author gratuitously insulted
Cervantes, who not surprisingly took offense and responded,
though with relative restraint if compared with the
vituperation of some literary rivalries of the age. He also
worked some criticism of Fernández de Avellaneda and his
“pseudo” Quixote and Sancho into his own fiction from
chapter 59 onward.
Don Quixote, Part II, emerged from the same press as its
predecessor late in 1615. It was quickly reprinted in
Brussels and Valencia, 1616, and Lisbon, 1617. Parts I and
II first appeared in one edition in Barcelona, 1617. There
was a French translation of Part II by 1618 and an English
one by 1620. The second part capitalizes on the potential of
the first, developing and diversifying without sacrificing
familiarity. Most people agree that it is richer and more
profound.
In his last years Cervantes mentioned several works that
apparently did not get as far as the printing press, if
indeed he ever actually started writing them. There was
Bernardo (the name of a legendary Spanish epic hero), the
Semanas del jardín (“Weeks in the Garden”; a collection of
tales, perhaps like Boccaccio's Decameron), and the
continuationto his Galatea. The one that was published,
posthumously in 1617, was his last romance, Los trabaios de
Persiles y Sigismunda, historia setentrional (“The Labours
of Persiles and Sigismunda: A Northern Story”). In it
Cervantes sought to renovate the heroic romance of adventure
and love in the manner of the Aethiopica of Heliodorus. It
was an intellectually prestigious genre destined to be very
successful in 17th-century France. Intended both to edify
andto entertain, the Persiles is an ambitious work that
exploits the mythic and symbolic potential of romance. It
was very successful when it appeared; there were eight
Spanish editions in two years and French and English
translations in 1618 and 1619, respectively.
In the dedication, written three days before he died,
Cervantes, “with a foot already in the stirrup,” movingly
bade farewell to the world. Clear-headed to the end, he
seems to have achieved a final serenity of spirit. He died
in 1616, almost certainly on April 22, not on the 23rd as
had been traditionally thought. The burial certificate
indicates that the latter was the day he was buried, in the
convent of the Discalced Trinitarians in the Calle de
Cantarranas (now the Calle de Lope de Vega). The exact spot
is not marked. Nowill is known to have survived.
Edward C. Riley
Don Quixote and critical traditions
Cervantes's masterpiece Don Quixote has been variously
interpreted as a parody of chivalric romances, an epic of
heroic idealism, a commentary on the author's alienation,
and a critique of Spanish imperialism. While the Romantic
tradition downplayed the novel's hilarity by transforming
Don Quixote into a tragic hero, readers who view it as a
parody accept at face value Cervantes's intention to
denounce the popular yet outdated romances of his time. Don
Quixote certainly pokes fun at the adventures of
literaryknights-errant, but its plot also addresses the
historical realities of 17th-century Spain. Although no
proof has been found, it is likely that Cervantes was a
converso (of Jewish descent), given his father's ties to the
medical profession, the family's peripatetic existence, and
the government's denial of his two requests for posts in the
Indies. However, the author's nuanced irony, his humanistic
outlook, and his comic genius contrast notably with the
melancholy, didactic tone attributed to many other Spanish
converso writers.
Cervantes's strikingly modern narrative instead gives voice
to a dazzling assortment of characters with diverse beliefs
and perspectives. His inclusion of many differing opinions
constitutes a provision called heteroglossia (“multiple
voices”) by the Russian literary critic Mikhail Bakhtin, who
deemed it essential to the development of the modern novel.
Don Quixote's comic edge illustrates another of Bakhtin's
concepts, carnivalization, which favoursthe playfully
positive aspects of the body over an ascetic rejection of
the carnal. Sancho Panza's rotund shape—his name means “holy
belly”—offsets Don Quixote's elongated, emaciated frame, and
together they recall the medieval folkloric figures of an
expansive, materialist Carnival and a lean, self-denying
Lent. Yet, far from depicting illusion and reality as equal
opposites, their relationship undergoes constant change: if
Don Quixote assumes the lead in Part I, Sancho overtakes his
master and secures his own independence in Part II.
The differences between Part I and Part II demonstrate
Cervantes's awareness of the power of the printed word. Don
Quixote's history began with his obsessive reading of
chivalric romances; in Part II, he realizes that his
adventures are eagerly read and discussed by others. The
knight's visit in Part II to a Barcelona printing shop,
where he finds a spurious Part II in press and denounces it
as injurious to the innocent reader and to his own rightful
authorship (since he stands to lose royalties from its
sales), underscores the cultural and economic impact of
books of fiction. Despite his own books' popularity,
Cervantes earned little from their sales. Nonetheless, his
innovative reworkings of literary forms—from the pastoral
novel La Galatea and exemplary short stories to the
acclaimed novel Don Quixote and his one serious attempt at
romance, the posthumously published Persiles y Sigismunda—show
just how well Cervantes understood not only the 17th-century
marketplace but the social effect of literature.
Importance and influence
Cervantes's influence resonates in the popular term
“quixotic” and the immediately recognizable forms of his two
major protagonists, whose adventures reappear continually
across the cultural landscape in theatre, film, opera,
ballet, and even comic books. No study of the novel can
ignore the author or his most famous work: the Hungarian
theorist Gyorgy Lukács considers Don Quixote “the first
great novel of world literature,” while the Mexican author
Carlos Fuentes calls Cervantes the “founding father” of
Latin American literature. The novel form, according to some
late 20th-century critics, has no one originbut began to
exist in different countries at different times and for
different reasons. Nonetheless, Cervantes's novel, with its
innovations to Spanish literature, is outstanding in its
creation of a new worldview. It is not coincidental that the
writers most influenced by Cervantes—Daniel Defoe, Laurence
Sterne, Tobias Smollett, to name only British
novelists—initiated radical changes in their own literary
traditions.
By illuminating the many differences in and surrounding his
world, Cervantes placed in doubt the previous ways of
portraying that world, whether those were literary or
historical. Indeed, one of Don Quixote's main tenets is that
fiction and historical truth are frequently
indistinguishable, as both are dependent on the reader's
perception. Cervantes's approach is frequently dubbed
“dualistic” since he often opted to express diverse modes of
thought through the pairing of opposites, as with Don
Quixote and Sancho Panza, the talking dogs of “Colloquy of
the Dogs,” or the image of the baciyelmo (“basinhelmet,” as
the narrator describes the bright object worn on a distant
rider's head). Representing the opposites of reality and
illusion, baciyelmois Sancho's brass basin but Don Quixote's
gold helmet.
The split depicted within Cervantes's characters—Don
Quixote's “reasoned unreason” for example—has sometimes been
attributed to the author's intended contrast of reality and
illusion (as well as of other opposites). The question of
whether the self-proclaimed knight stands for an idealism
never fully attainable or for a laughably meaningless
madness continues to shadow interpretations of Don Quixote,
as it has since its introduction by the German Romantics.
Opposition between idealism and realism as a leading theme
in Cervantes's fiction, includingthe Exemplary Stories and
his plays, remained influential as late as the mid-20th
century.
Yet Cervantes was characteristically ambiguous on these
issues, and this ambiguity inspired criticism of the later
20th century to reconsider previous judgments on his
literary prominence. Translated almost immediately into
English, French, and Italian, Don Quixote was viewed
primarily as a comic work or a satire of Spanish customs.
Ironically, it was the German Romantics, selectively reading
Don Quixote as atragic hero, who granted his author world
standing. In contrast, 19th-century Spanish academics
dismissed Cervantes's accomplishments, even though his style
and language set the standard for modern Castilian. Not
until the 20th century did the acclaim of foreign critics
and Spanish expatriates finally rehabilitate Cervantes in
his own country.
When Freudian psychology became popular, it engendered
critical interest in the psychological force of Cervantes's
fiction. European criticism was predisposed early on toward
psychoanalytical approaches, which stressed the Spanish
author's duality and ambiguity. From the 1970s, French and
American criticism viewed Cervantes as a fragmented
character not unlike his protagonists. Both the author and
hischaracters have been perceived as psychoanalytical cases,
with Don Quixote's madness attributed to his “middle-age
crisis” and Cervantes's treatment of several characters to
his “subconscious sympathies.” As these critics worked to
reveal unexpressed desires, they also analyzed the roles
played by women. Feminist and gender studies have
increasingly looked to Cervantes for his perceptive approach
to portraying the women of 17th-century Spain. Unlike the
majority of his contemporaries, Cervantes expressed great
empathy toward women. Although he stops short of a
“feminist” position, numerous female characters such as
Marcela and Dorotea in Don Quixote and Isabela Castrucho in
Persiles y Sigismunda speak forcefully in defense of women's
rights.
Similarly, criticism in the late 20th century began to focus
onCervantes's preoccupations with contemporary economic and
historical events. The 1609 expulsion of the Moriscos
(converted Moors), the correct governance of Spain's
overseas colonies, and the exploitation of African slaves
are often considered as covertly polemical topics for Don
Quixote's alert readers. The Exemplary Stories and plays
have been plumbed for their engagement with political and
economic factors. Documented in Don Quixote and Persiles y
Sigismunda, Cervantes's knowledge of and interest in theNew
World are central to his perception of a different world,
one equally as cross-cultural and multilingual as that of
the 21st century.
Anne Cruz
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Don
Quixote
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
1547-1616
Don Quixote stands at the head of a long line of fictions of
which fictionally itself is the principal substance. Don Quixote
has read himself into madness by reading too many books of
chivalry,and so sets out to emulate the knights of old, first by
getting himself some armour (out of pasteboard) and a steed (a
broken down nag), and then by getting himself knighted. He goes
to an inn, which he thinks a castle, meets prostitutes whom he
thinks high-born ladies,addresses them and the innkeeper, who is
a thief, in language so literary that they cannot understand it,
and then seeks to get himself knighted by standing vigil all
night over his armour. Apart from the burlesque parody of
romances of chivalry, the ludicrous transformation of the sacred
rituals and spaces of knighthood into their ad hoc material
equivalents parallels a similar desacralizing going on Europe at
the time.
In all this it is the knowing reader rather than the characters
or the action that is the implied subject of address. Indeed,
Cervantes here invents the novel form itself, by inventing the
reader.
Reading begins with the Prologue's address to (he "idle" reader,
and by implication extends throughout the first book, as
Quixote's friends attempt to cure his madness by burning his
books to slop him reading. In the process we meet readers, and
occasions for reading, of all kinds. In 1615, Cervantes
published a second book in which Don Quixote becomes not the
character reading but the character read as many of the people
he meets h.we read Book I and know all about him and his
non-reading sidekick Sancho Panza. Indeed this combination of
the always already read and the force of perpetual reinvention
is what continues to <lf(iw the reader in.
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see also:
CERVANTES
"Don Quixote " Illustrations by G. Dore
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DON QUIXOTE DE LA MANCHA
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Type of work: Novel
Author: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616)
Type of plot: Picaresque romance
Time of plot: Late sixteenth century Locale: Spain
First published: El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha,
Part 1, 1605; part 2, 1615 (English translation. 1612-1620)
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CERVANTES
"Don Quixote " Illustrations by G. Dore
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One of the best-loved novels of all time, Don Quixote was intended
to be a satire on the exaggerated chivalric romances of Cervantes' time.
However, the author soars above this purpose in his wealth of fancy and
in his irrepressible high spirit as he pokes fun at social and literary
conventions of his day. The novel offers a good cross-section of Spanish
life, thought, and feeling at the end of the chivalric age as it parades
a variegated assortment of minor characters— shepherds, innkeepers,
students, priests, and nobles—through its pages. Contrasting
characterizations of Don Quixote, the visionary idealist, and Sancho
Panza, the practical realist, symbolize the duality of the Spanish
character in this essentially humane novel.
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Principal Characters
Don Quixote (don kl-ho'ta), possibly a gentle but impoverished man named
Alonso Quixano (or perhaps Quixana) of Argamasilla, in the Spanish
province of La Mancha. Driven mad by reading many romances of chivalry,
he determines to deck himself out in rusty armor and a cardboard helmet
and to become a knight-errant. Under the name of "Don Quixote" he will
roam the world, righting wrongs. His squire calls him "The Knight of the
Sorrowful Countenance." He has moments of lucidity, especially at the
end of the novel when a victorious enemy forces him to give up his
questing. He returns home, repents of his folly, and dies.
Sancho Panza (san'cho pan'fha), a paunchy rustic at first described as
"long-legged." He is persuaded by promises of governorship of an island
to become squire and attendant of the knight. He is the best drawn of
the 669 characters in this 461,000 word novel. He does get his island,
but he abdicates upon news of the approach of a hostile army.
Rocinante (rro-the-nan'ta), the nag that carries Don Quixote on his
journeying. His companion is Dapple, the donkey of Sancho Panza.
Aldonza Lorenzo (al-don'tha 16-ran'tho), a sweaty peasant girl of
Toboso, whom Don Quixote idealizes under the name of Dulcinea del
Toboso; he chooses her to be his Queen of Love and Beauty, the
inspiration of his knightly questing.
Antonia Quixana (an-to'nya keha'na), Don Quixote's niece, who by the
terms of his dying will can marry only a man who is not given to reading
books of chivalry.
Teresa Cascajo (ta-ra'sa kas-ka'ho), also called Juana Gutierrez (hwa'na
gootya'rrath), the wife of Sancho Panza.
An Innkeeper, the fat master of a roadside inn which Don Quixote
mistakes for a fortress. He dubs Don Quixote a knight.
Andres (an-dras'), an unpaid servant, temporarily saved form a beating
in Don Quixote's first attempt at righting wrongs.
Pedro Perez (pa'dro pa'rafh), the curate who burns the knight's library
of chivalric romances in an attempt to cure him of his madness.
Master Nicolas (пё-ко-las'), the village barber, who assists in burning
the books. Dressed in woman's clothes, he impersonates Dulcinea in an
effort to persuade Don Quixote to leave the Sierra Morena.
Cardenio (kar-da'nyo), who meets Don Quixote in the Sierra Morena and
tells his sad story.
Dorotea (do-ro-ta'a), another ill-starred wanderer with a melancholic
tale. She pretends to be a damsel in distress in order to persuade the
knight to go home.
Gines de Pasamonte (henas' da pa-samon'ta), a criminal condemned to the
galleys. Don Quixote rescues him and a dozen more from the chain gang,
only to be stoned by them.
Two Friars, acting as escort for a noble lady in a coach. The knight
believes they are abducting her and attacks the Biscayan squire and the
retinue. They beat up Sancho Panza.
Roque Guinart (ro'ka ge-nart'), a man driven to banditry by bad luck. He
captures Don Quixote and Sancho. Refusing to be persuaded by them to
turn knight-errant, he sends his prisoners to a neighboring bandit and
recommends them as entertaining persons.
Master Pedro (pa'dro), the owner of a divining ape and a puppet show
whose characters the knight mistakes for real people. He tries to rescue
the leading lady.
A Barber, whose shaving basin Don Quixote mistakes for Mambrino's golden
helmet.
A Carter, taking caged lions from the Governor of Oran to King Philip.
In outfacing one of them, Don Quixote achieves his only successful
adventure in the novel.
A Duke and his Duchess, who invite Don Quixote and Sancho Panza to their
palace and play jokes on them, such as a supposed ride through space on
a magic wooden horse, Clavijero. They make Sancho governor of an island,
a village owned by the Duke.
Samson Carrasco (sam'son ka-rras'ko), a neighbor who disguises himself
as the Knight of the Mirrors and the Knight of the White Moon. He
eventually overcomes Don Quixote and sentences him to abandon
knight-errantry and return home. There Don Quixote dies after denouncing
knight-errantry as nonsense, never realizing that he himself has been a
true knight and a gallant gentleman.
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CERVANTES
"Don Quixote " Illustrations by G. Dore
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The Story
A retired and impoverished gentleman named Alonzo Quixano lived in the
Spanish province of La Mancha. He had read so many romances of chivalry
that his mind became stuffed with fantastic accounts of tournaments,
knightly quests, damsels in distress, and strange enchantments, and he
decided one day to imitate the heroes of the books he read and to revive
the ancient custom of knight-errantry. Changing his name to Don Quixote
de la Mancha, he had himself dubbed a knight by a rascally publican
whose miserable inn he mistook for a turreted castle.
For armor he donned an old suit of mail which had belonged to his
great-grandfather. Then upon a bony old nag he called Rosinante, he set
out upon his first adventure. Not far from his village he fell into the
company of some traveling merchants who thought the old man mad and beat
him severely when he challenged them to a passage at arms.
Back home recovering from his cuts and bruises, he was closely watched
by his good neighbor, Pedro Perez, the village priest, and Master
Nicholas, the barber. Hoping to cure him of his fancies, the curate and
the barber burned his library of chivalric romances. Don Quixote,
however, believed that his books had been carried off by a wizard.
Undaunted by his misfortunes, he determined to set out on the road again
with an uncouth rustic named Sancho Panza as his squire. As the mistress
to whom he would dedicate his deeds of valor, he chose a buxom peasant
wench famous for her skill in salting pork. He called her Dulcinea del
Toboso.
The knight and his squire had to sneak out of the village under cover of
darkness, but in their own minds they presented a brave appearance: the
lean old man on his bony horse and his squat, black-browed servant on a
small ass, Dapple. The don carried his sword and lance, Sancho Panza a
canvas wallet and a leather bottle. Sancho went with the don because in
his shallow-brained way he hoped to become governor of an isle.
The don's first encounter was with a score of windmills on the plains of
Montiel. Mistaking them for monstrous giants, he couched his lance, set
spurs to Rosinante's thin flanks, and charged full tilt against them.
One of the whirling vanes lifted him from his saddle and threw him into
the air. When Sancho Panza ran to pick him up, he explained that
sorcerers had changed the giants into windmills.
Shortly afterward he encountered two monks riding in company with a lady
in a coach escorted by men on horseback. Don Quixote imagined that the
lady was a captive princess. Haughtily demanding her release, he
unhorsed one of the friars in an attempted rescue. Sancho was beaten by
the lady's lackeys. Don Quixote bested her Biscayan squire in a sword
fight, sparing the man's life on the condition that he go to Toboso and
yield himself to the peerless Dulcinea. Sancho, having little taste for
violence, wanted to get on to his isle as quickly as possible.
At an inn, Quixote became involved in an assignation between a carrier
and a servant girl. He was trounced by the carrier. The don, insulted by
the innkeeper's demand for payment, rode away without paying. To his
terror, Sancho was tossed in a blanket as payment for his master's debt.
The pair came upon dust clouds stirred up by two large flocks of sheep.
Don Quixote, sure that they were two medieval armies closing in combat,
intervened, only to be pummeled with rocks by the indignant shepherds,
whose sheep he had scattered.
At night the don thought a funeral procession was a parade of monsters.
He attacked and routed the mourners and was called the Knight of the
Sorry Aspect by Sancho. The two came upon a roaring noise in the night.
Quixote, believing it to be made by giants, wanted to attack
immediately, but Sancho judiciously hobbled Rosinante so he could not
move. The next day, they discovered that the noise came from the
pounding of a mill.
Quixote attacked an itinerant barber and seized the poor barber's bowl,
which he declared to be the famous golden helmet of Mambrino, and his
packsaddle, which he believed to be a richly jeweled caparison.
Next, the pair came upon a chain gang being taken to the galleys. The
don interviewed various prisoners and decided to succor the afflicted.
He freed them, only to be insulted by their remarks concerning his lady,
the fair Dulcinea. Sancho, afraid of what would ensue from their
releasing of the galley slaves, led Quixote into the mountains for
safety. There they came upon a hermit, a nobleman, who told them a long
story of unrequited love. Quixote and the hermit fought over the virtues
of their inamoratas. Deciding to do penance and to fast for the love of
Dulcinea, Quixote gave a letter to Sancho to deliver to the maiden. When
Sancho returned to the village, Don Quixote's friends learned from
Sancho the old man's whereabouts. They returned with Sancho to the
mountains, hoping they could trick Don Quixote into returning with them.
The priest devised a scheme whereby a young peasant woman would pose as
a distressed princess. Don Quixote, all but dead from hunger and
exposure, was easily deceived, and the party started homeward.
They came to the inn where Sancho had been tossed in the blanket. The
priest explained the don's vagaries to the alarmed innkeeper, who
admitted that he, too. was addicted to the reading of romances of
chivalry. At the inn, Don Quixote fought in his sleep with ogres and ran
his sword through two of the innkeeper's precious wineskins. The
itinerant barber stopped by and demanded the return of his basin and
packsaddle. After the party had sport at the expense of the befuddled
barber, restitution was made. An officer appeared with a warrant for the
arrest of the don and Sancho for releasing the galley slaves. The priest
explained his friend's mental condition, and the officer departed.
Seeing no other means of getting Don Quixote quietly home, his friends
disguised themselves and placed the don in a cage mounted on an oxcart.
He was later released under oath not to attempt to escape. A canon
joined the party and sought to bring Quixote to his senses by logical
argument against books of knight-errantry. The don refuted the canon
with a charming and brilliant argument and went on to narrate a typical
romance of derring-do. Before the group reached home, they came upon a
goatherd who told them a story, but because of a misunderstanding the
goatherd beat Quixote.
Sometime later the priest and the barber visited the convalescing Don
Quixote to give him news of Spain and of the world. When they told him
there was danger of an attack on Spain by the Turks, the don suggested
that the king assemble all of Spain's knights-errant to repulse the
enemy. At this time, Sancho entered despite efforts to bar him. He
brought word that a book telling of their adventures had appeared. The
sight of Sancho inspired the don to sally forth again. His excuse was a
great tournament to be held at Saragossa.
Failing to dissuade Don Quixote from going forth again, his friends were
reassured when a village student promised he would waylay the flighty
old gentleman.
Don Quixote's first destination was the home of Dulcinea in nearby El
Toboso. While the don waited in a forest, Sancho saw three peasant girls
riding out of the village. He rode to his master and told him that
Dulcinea with two handmaidens approached. Frightened by the don's
fantastic speech, the girls fled. Don Quixote, swore that Dulcinea had
been enchanted.
Benighted in a forest, the knight and his squire were awakened by the
arrival of another knight and squire. The other knight boasted that he
had defeated in combat all Spanish knights. The don, believed the knight
to be mistaken, challenged him. They fought by daylight and,
miraculously, Don Quixote unhorsed the Knight of the Wood, who was
Samson Carrasco, the village student, in disguise. His squire was an old
acquaintance of Sancho. The don declared the resemblances were the work
of magicians and continued on his way. Upset by his failure, Carrasco
swore vengeance on Don Quixote.
Sancho filled Quixote's helmet with curds which he procured from
shepherds. When the don suddenly clapped on his helmet at the approach
of another adventure, he thought his brains were melting. This new
adventure took the form of a wagon bearing two caged lions. Quixote,
ever intrepid, commanded the keeper to open one cage— he would engage a
lion in combat. Unhappily, the keeper obeyed. Quixote stood ready, but
the lion yawned and refused to come out.
The don and Sancho joined a wedding party and subsequently attended a
wedding festival at which the rejected lover tricked the bride into
marrying him instead of the rich man she had chosen.
Next, the pair were taken to the Caves of Montesinos, where Quixote was
lowered underground. He was brought up an hour later asleep, and, upon
awakening, he told a story of having spent three days in a land of
palaces and magic forests where he had seen his enchanted Dulcinea.
At an inn, Quixote met a puppeteer who had a divining ape. By trickery,
the rascal identified the don and Sancho with the help of the ape. He
presented a melodramatic puppet show which Don Quixote, carried away by
the make-believe story, demolished with his sword. The don paid for the
damage done and struck out for the nearby River Ebro. He and Sancho took
a boat and were carried by the current toward some churning mill wheels,
which the don thought were a beleaguered city awaiting deliverance. They
were rescued by millers after the boat had been wrecked and the pair
thoroughly soaked.
Later, in a forest, the pair met a huntress who claimed knowledge of the
famous knight and his squire. They went with the lady to her castle and
were welcomed by a duke and his duchess who had read of their previous
adventures and who were ready to have great fun at the pair's expense.
The hosts arranged an elaborate night ceremony to disenchant Dulcinea,
who was represented by a disguised page. To his great discomfort, Sancho
was told that he would receive five hundred lashes as his part of the
disenchantment. Part of the jest was a ride through space on a magic
wooden horse. Blindfolded, the pair mounted their steed, and servants
blew air in their faces from bellows and thrust torches near their
faces.
Sancho departed to govern his isle, a village in the domains of the duke
and duchess, while the female part of the household turned to the
project of compromising Quixote in his worship of Dulcinea. Sancho
governed for a week. He made good laws and delivered wise judgments, but
at the end of a week, he yearned for the freedom of the road. Together
he and his master proceeded toward Saragossa. Don Quixote changed their
destination to Barcelona, however, when he heard that a citizen of that
city had written a spurious account of his adventures.
In Barcelona, they marveled at the city, the ships, and the sea. Don
Quixote and Sancho were the guests of Moreno, who took them to inspect
the royal galleys. The galley which they visited suddenly put out to sea
in pursuit of pirates, and a fight followed. Sancho was terrified. There
came to Barcelona a Knight of the White Moon, who challenged Don Quixote
to combat. After the old man had been overcome, the strange knight, in
reality the student Carrasco, sentenced him to return home. Don Quixote
went back, determined next to follow a pastoral shepherd life. At home,
the tired old man quickly declined. Before he died, he renounced as
nonsense all to do with knight-errantry, not realizing that in his
high-minded, noble-hearted nature he himself had been a great chivalrous
gentleman.
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CERVANTES
"Don Quixote " Illustrations by G. Dore
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Critical Evaluation
It has been said that Don Quixote de la Mancha is "the best novel in the
world, beyond comparison." This belief was, is, and certainly will be
shared by lovers of literary excellence everywhere. Miguel de Cerantes'
avowed purpose was to ridicule the books of chivalry which enjoyed
popularity even in his day, but he soared beyond this satirical purpose
in his wealth of fancy and in his irrepressible high spirits as he pokes
fun at social and literary conventions of his day. The novel provides a
cross-section of Spanish life, thought, and feeling at the end of the
chivalric age.
"For my absolute faith in the details of their histories and my
knowledge of their features, their complexions and their deeds and their
characters enable me by sound philosophy to deduce their features, their
complexions, and their statures," says Don Quixote, declaring his
expertise in knight-errantry. This declaration affords a key to
understanding Cervantes' Don Quixote de la Mancha, for it demonstrates
both the literal and the symbolic levels of the novel—and the
distinction between those levels is crucial to grasping the full import
of the story. The literal level is superficial; it reveals the obvious.
The symbolic level, however, probes much deeper; it reveals the
significance. In fact, the symbolic level deals, as all good literature
must, with values. Thus, Don Quixote's declaration must be considered on
both levels, and when set in context, it will lend insight into the
novel as a whole.
On the literal level, Don Quixote is eminently qualified by his
extensive reading to assert familiarity with the history, the deeds, and
the character of virtually every knight whose existence was recorded.
Indeed, his penchant for reading books of chivalry is established on the
first page of the first chapter of the book. Even his niece and his
housekeeper refer frequently to his reading habits. Moreover, the
inventory of the don's library, made just before the books were burned,
reveals the extent of his collection, and earlier mention of his
omnivorous reading leads to the assumption that he had read all of them.
Further evidence of Don Quixote's erudition is his ready knowledge of
the rules of knight-errantry and his recalling the legend of Mambrino's
helmet in connection with his oath of knighthood as well as elsewhere in
the novel. Later, after an encounter with Yanguesan herdsmen, there is
evidence, in a very lucid and pragmatic statement for a presumably
insane old man, of Don Quixote's having read Machiavelli, followed by
the don's citation of the misfortunes which befell his hero, Amadis of
Gaul.
Other adventures provide internal evidence of Quixote's knowledge about
the history of chivalry. A thrashing by muleteers jogs the don's memory
to analogies between his plight and similar outrages visited upon the
Marquis of Mantua, Baldwin, Abindarraez, and Don Roderigo de Narvaez.
After his lance is broken by a windmill, Don Quixote remembers the
makeshift tree-limb weapon used by Diego Perez de Vargas when the
latter's weapon was broken in battle. At another time, he explains and
defends the code of knight-errantry to fellow travelers, citing
Arthurian legend, the ever-present Amadis of Gaul, the
stricter-than-monastic rules of knight-errantry, and the noble families
of Italy and Spain who contributed to the tradition. In fact, incredible
as it may seem, just before the don attacks the herd of sheep, he
attributes to each sheep a title and an estate culled from his reservoir
of reading—or from his overactive imagination. In addition, to
rationalize his own designation as the Knight of the Sorry Aspect, he
recalls the sobriquets of other knights-errant. In an attempt to
inculcate Sancho Panza with the proper respect for his master. Don
Quixote even relates biographical incidents from the lives of the
squires of Amadis of Gaul and Sir Galaor. Significantly, almost
craftily, he mentions that Gandalin. Amadis' squire, was also Count of
the Firm Isle—a blatant inducement for Sancho to remain in the don's
service. Yet, all in all, on the literal level, Don Quixote's mastery of
chivalric lore seems to serve only as a rationalization for his ill
luck.
On the symbolic level, more questions are raised than are answered.
Quixote claims to have reached a "sound philosophy." But, is reliance on
reading alone—as he has done—a valid basis for "sound philosophy," or
has the don become so absorbed in his books that he is unable to
formulate or express the applicability of his reading? Can literature
serve as a basis for understanding reality, as Don Quixote avers? In
lieu of a clear-cut answer, Cervantes offers a paradox. Early in the
text, Don Quixote learns from Sancho that the Squire has never read any1
histories because he is illiterate; but later, trying to divert the
don's attention with a story, Sancho under questioning, admits that
although he had not seen the person in question, "the man who told me
this story said it was so true and authentic ... I could swear on my
oath that I had seen it all." The issues of verisimilitude and
credibility are not really resolved in this novel. Consequently, these
issues generate further questions about distinctions between reality and
fantasy. Sancho represents empirical, commonsensical reality; the don
stands for whimsy and unfettered imagination. Whose view of the world is
more accurate? Cervantes is ambiguous, at best, about the answer. The
question persists, however, as Luigi Pirandello's Henry IV (1922)
vividly testifies. Readers are left to ponder this paradox which Emily
Dickinson has so succinctly described: "Much madness is divinest sense."
Another issue raised on the symbolic level involves the possible
immorality of reading "too many" books. Books, in this sense, are a
symbol of education, and this facet of Don Quixote de la Mancha may be a
veiled protest against the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. The literal
lesson emphasizes the corruptive power of books (and, therefore,
education); however, the symbolic implication—given Cervantes'
sympathetic treatment of Don Quixote—is that books and education are
liberating influences on the human psyche. Thus, the symbolic purport of
Don Quixote de la Mancha may be a parody of the Church's monopoly of
literacy in the Middle Ages, with the uninhibited don a reproach to the
insensitive, book-burning priest.
To be sure, Don Quixote becomes a tragic figure toward the end of the
novel, but not for the failure of his philosophy; rather, it is
society's failure to accommodate a deviation from the norm. Herein lies
another symbolic level of the novel: society's intolerance of deviance.
For Cervantes certainly did not make the don contemptible nor did he
treat him with contempt. Such treatment would have been repellent after
the tender tolerance of the first part of the story. Despite the
satirical thrust of the novel on the symbolic level, the don himself is
a sympathetic character throughout the story. Although he strives to
push time back, his efforts are depicted as noble. The sympathy he
evokes is that popular sympathy for the underdog who defies all odds and
is broken in the attempt in contrast to the protagonist who has
everything in his favor and succumbs to a surfeit of success.
Cervantes' novel is a complex web of tangled skeins, subject to many
more interpretations than those suggested here. Suffice it to say that
Don Quixote de la Mancha is unequivocally judged the finest Spanish
novel ever written and one of the greatest works in world literature.
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CERVANTES
"Don Quixote " Illustrations by G. Dore
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