This month, we are saying “Happy Birthday” to the incomparable Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, the author of Don Quixote.
Don Quixote is recognized as the first modern novel, and it was voted the Greatest Book of all Time by the Nobel Institute in 2002 based on a poll of 100 top authors and literary critics.
Cervante’s birthdate is believed to have been September 29, 1547. He died on April 22, 1616.
Though no authenticated images or physical descriptions exist, a portrait by Juan de Jáuregui is widely accepted as a portrait of the famous Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes. It’s the image we have used for this article.
Much of Cervantes’ early life hasn’t been able to be verified including the spelling of his name. On his first manuscript, he spelled his name Cerbantes. His publisher changed the spelling to Cervantes. Even his use of Saavedra (the last name of a distant relative of the woman he married) Instead of his mother’s surname, Cortinas seems curious.
Cervantes’ father, Rodrigo, was an impoverished barber/surgeon from a family that might have had claims to Spanish nobility. His paternal grandfather was an influential lawyer. His mother was Lenor de Cortinas, an educated woman, Lenor was able to support her children while Rodrigo was in debtor’s prison. Some scholars believe the Cervantes family were “New Christian” converts of Jewish lineage and their bouts with poverty might have stemmed from not being not members of the “Old Christian” caste. But, there is little evidence to support this theory.
According to the records that exist of Miguel’s childhood, the Cervantes family moved often because Rodrigo struggled to find and keep steady employment. Rodrigo was also left out of his father’s will.
During the 1800s, literary historians discovered a Madrid arrest warrant for Miguel de Cervantes for taking part in a duel. It coincides with the time he was believed to have left Madrid. Cervantes made his way to Rome. During the Ottoman-Venetian War, Cervantes went to Naples where he enlisted hoping to have his arrest warrant vacated for services to the Holy League, a coalition formed between the major Catholic powers of Southern Europe to defend the Venetian Republic. A family friend helped him secure a commission in the Tercio of Sicily, a regiment of the Spanish Army formed to protect Spanish possessions in Italy from enemy attack. One of Cervante’s younger brothers (Rodrigo, Jr.) joined him in Italy and also enlisted.
Cervantes participated in the Battle of Lepanto, a landmark sea battle considered by many historians to be the most significant naval conflict since the Roman Battle of Actium in 32 B.C. because it stopped an immediate threat of a Muslim incursion into Europe.
During the battle, Cervantes’ bravery is well documented. He was wounded twice in the chest and once in his left arm. He spent six months in an Italian hospital recovering. The injury to his left arm was so severe that Cervantes lost the use of his left hand and arm. He was allowed to return to active duty after his recovery despite the severity of his injuries. Though the physical cost was high, his military service remained a great source of pride to Cervantes throughout the remainder of his life.
After Miguel and Rodrigo ended their military service, the ship they were returning to Spain on was attacked and captured by Ottoman corsairs (also known as Barbary pirates or privateers). The brothers and their fellow captives were taken to Algiers to be sold as slaves or ransomed. The Cervantes brothers were held for ransom. The family could only afford to pay the ransom for Rodrigo, so Miguel remained a prisoner. After four escape attempts during the next five years, Cervantes was released during a truce in 1580 between Spain and the Ottomans in a deal brokered by the Trinitarians, a religious charity that specialized in ransoming Christian captives.
After Cervantes returned to Madrid, the Spanish economy was in tatters thanks to many years of war. He struggled to find employment after a brief stint as an intelligence agent in North Africa. He worked as a purchasing agent and a tax collector in Seville.
Cervantes fathered a daughter (Isabel) out of wedlock during an affair with a married woman (Ana Franca). He later married Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, the daughter of a widow who owned property, but had substantial debts. After the marriage in 1586, he began using Saavedra after his surname. After Ana Franca died in 1598, Cervantes arranged for his sister Magdelena to care for Isabel.
Cervantes claimed to have written over 20 plays in his lifetime including El trato de Argel, the story of his time in captivity. During Cervantes’ time even the most well known Spanish plays didn’t do well financially and weren’t widely performed, but his talents secured a patron for his works, The Count of Lemos.
In 1585, he published La Galatea, a pastoral romance, which was only mildly successful. Cervantes planned to write a sequel, but never did. Instead, he worked on perfecting a new style of novel that challenged traditional chivalric romances which had been popular in literature for over 100 years. The result was Don Quixote which became an immediate success after it’s publication in January of 1605. It had been twenty years since the publication of his last work, but for the first time, Cervantes enjoyed a modicum of financial security from his writing.
The adventures of Don Quixote and his loyal servant Sancho Panza became popular with children and adults. They were funny and written the way people speak without all the formal flowery language of traditional chivalric romances. His readers clamored for more. Before Cervantes delivered on his promise, an unauthorized sequel published under the name Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda surfaced in 1614. Many speculate this copycat novel was a ploy to keep his publishers and the reading public interested until he completed Part Two in 1615.
Part Two is a bit more serious. Cervantes is more philosophical, and the sophisticated and complex qualities of his characters are more pronounced.
Between 1613 and 1616, the year of his death, Cervantes also worked on other lesser known projects. The last of which was published posthumously.
Cervantes probably died from diabetes. Following his wishes, he was buried in the Convent of the Barfoot Trinitarians in Central Madrid. In 1673 his remains along with his wife’s remains and the remains of several others had to be moved in order to make much needed repairs to the convent. The remains were misplaced and remained missing until 2015 when a forensic pathologist leading a search for the missing remains found several coffins containing bone fragments and a board with the initials M.C.. Examination of some of the bone fragments found enough similarities to the injuries Cervantes sustained at Lepanto to confirm they were Cervantes’ remains. Cervantes, his wife, and the others were formally reburied during a public ceremony if 2015.
Cervantes’ works were rediscovered by English writers in the mid-eighteenth century. Since that time, his work has been elevated to the level of the works of William Shakespeare, Homer, Dante Alighieri, Daniel Defoe, Charles Dickens, Honoré de Balzac, and James Joyce.
Happy Birthday Miguel de Cervantes!
Selected Works by Miguel de Cervantes:
La Galatea (1585)
El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha (1605): First volume of Don Quixote.
Novelas ejemplares (1613): a collection of 12 short stories
Segunda Parte del Ingenioso Cavallero - Don Quixote de la Mancha (1615): Second volume of Don Quixote.
Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (1617).
Sonnets/Poems:
Al Túmulo del Rey Felipe en Sevilla
Canto de Calíope and Epístola a Mateo Vázquez.
Viaje del Parnaso, or Journey to Parnassus
Plays:
Trato de Argel
La Numancia
El gallardo español
Los baños de Argel
La gran sultana, Doña Catalina de Oviedo
La casa de los celos
El laberinto de amor
La entretenida
El rufián dichoso
Pedro de Urdemalas
Short Farces:
El juez de los divorcios
El rufián viudo llamado Trampagos
La elección de los Alcaldes de Daganzo
La guarda cuidadosa (The Vigilant Sentinel)
El vizcaíno fingido
El retablo de las maravillas
La cueva de Salamanca
El viejo celoso (The Jealous Old Man).