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Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a great Spanish novelist, dramatist, and poet who lived in a period that spanned the climax and decline of Spain's golden age. He was known as the Father of The Novel and as the outstanding writer in Spanish literature. His most famous masterpiece, Don Quixote, was ranked as one of the greatest novels of all time. During his life Cervantes was a wounded veteran of a ferocious naval battle, and a captive of a eastern potentate. The incidents of his captivity later became episodes in Don Quixote. His writings showed the influence of literary theory, pastoral novels, and romances of chivalry. 1 Cervantes was born on September 29? , 1547 in the university town of Alcala de Hearts.
His family lived at 2 Calle de la Imagen, a street in a quarter of the city heavily settled by Maravos and Moriscos. Cervantes was the fourth son in a family of seven children. He was the son of a surgeon and a daughter of the small landowners in nearby Agenda, but a surgeon in 16 th century Spain was closer to a barber or a butcher than a doctor. For this reason poverty dogged the Cervantes family throughout Miguel's youth and also because none of the wealth or property acquired by his fathers family was shared with Miguel's family, who was looked upon as an incompetent provider. 2 When he was twenty, Cervantes was in the retinue of the Cardinal NunciAcquaviva and spent his service in Rome. 3 Without the means for much formal education, he joined the army with his brother, Rodrigo, in 1568. He fought in the battle of Lepanto where the Spanish established superiority of sea power against the Turks.
Cervantes was sick below deck during the battle and he insisted on joining the battle in a most exposed position. He fought bravely, receiving two shots in his chest and a wound which rendered his left hand useless the rest of his life which earned him the nickname the Miami of Lepanto. Cervantes was lucky, however, and after six months he was will enough to be discharged. 4 In September 1575, Miguel and his brother Rodrigo, having secured permission from their commanders boarded the Sol and in the company of three other galleys set out from Naples to return to Spain. A storm separated the Sol from the other ships and on the night of September 26 Cervantes ship was attacked and overwhelmed by Barbary pirates.
The pirates returned to Algiers, where Cervantes was separated from his brother and was taken as a slave, He spent the next five years on Algiers and attempted to escape several times. His first escape was in 1576 which Cervantes bribed a Moor to act as guide and with eight others quietly went down to the edge of the city one night, and began the trek to to Oran. This first attempt to escape failed because the guide deserted them. 5 In August Cervantes brother was ransomed. Cervantes tried to escape again but he also failed this time because he was betrayed. In 1578, Cervantes tried to escape the third time but failed again. His fourth attempt to escape also failed in 1579 because he was betrayed again.
In 1580, Cervantes was finally ransomed by his family and a religious order. 6 After obtaining his freedom, Cervantes reached Madrid in 1580, seeking employment to repay the cost of his ransom. He hoped to continue his military career, but he obtained a job as a messenger instead. 7 Cervantes later joined a circle of writers, poets, and playwrights where he began to write verse and prose. 8 During this period, Cervantes had an affair with Ana Franca de Rojas, a Portuguese girl, and had a daugther, Isabel de Saavedra, who was left behind with him after she deserted him. Shortly after that, Cervantes married Catalina de Salazar. 9 In 1583, Cervantes published his first long work, La Galatea. Cervantes wrote many plays during the next 20 years, but he found few producers who would present them. 10 In 1605, his masterpiece, Don Quixote, was published and it became an immediate best seller throughout the world, second in sales only to the Bible.
The ful Spanish title is El Ingenioso Hidalgo Don Quijote de La Mancha. 11 Don Quixote is about an aged and a poor gentleman, Alonso Quixada, from La Mancha, influenced by reading romances of chivalry he travels through Andalucia in imitation of the knight-errant and venture forth to do good deeds by fighting giants, rescue wench, and judge the approval of his so-called lady, Dulcinea del Toboso. On his journey to seek chivalrous adventures in which he can gain honor and fame, he is accompanied by his fat and talkative squire, Sancho Panel. In the end Quixote is tricked by his friends and a scholar disguised as a knight. He returns home and wakens as an ordinary country gentleman named Alfonso Quijano de Bueno, who soon dies a peaceful and contented death in bed. 12 Most modern critics agreed that Don Quixote has another purpose besides humor, but a study of reality, or an examination of the value of idealism.
Many disagreed about the purpose of Don Quixote, but many thought it was a great novel. 13 One who thought this was Macauley, who said that Don Quixote is the best novel in the world, beyond comparison. This belief was and certainly will be shared by lovers of literary excellence everywhere. Cervantes purpose was to ridicule the books of chivalry, which enjoyed popularity even in his day, but he soared beyond this purpose in his wealth of fancy. 14 For my absolute faith in the details of their histories and my knowledge of their deeds and their characters enable me by sound philosophy to deduce their features, their complexions and their statures, says Don Quixote, declared his expertise in knight errantry and also demonstrates both the literal and the symbolic levels of the novel. The novel provides a cross-section of Spanish life, thought, and feeling at the end of the chivalric age. 15 Cervantes became a minor celebrity and occasionally recognized in public after he wrote Don Quixote, but he publish nothing else for the next eight years.
In 1613, Cervantes Exemplary Stories appeared. It was ranked as Cervantes major works after Don Quixote. In 1614, he published a long, peculiar poem entitled Voyage to Parnassus. In 1615, he published the second part of Don Quixote and Eight Comedies and Eight Entremeses, a collection of play. Cervantes last work was Persiles and Sigismunda. He died four days before Persiles and Sigismunda was completed.
Cervantes died on Saturday, April 23, 1616 at the age of 69. 16 Throughout Cervantes life, he led a life of hardship and disappointment. He was tempered by a small measure of recognition from his contemporaries. At the end of his career, Cervantes was still dogged by poverty and he would never know or profit from the worldwide acclaim Don Quixote would receive. Even though he lived a life of hardships, in the end he still had good humor and faith which he said before he died. Good-by, thanks; good-by, compliments; good-by, merry friends.
I am dying, and my wish is that I may see you all soon again, happy in the life to come.
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Research essay sample on Romances Of Chivalry Don Quixote
