Cervantes’ Literary Legacy: Don Quixote and the Picaresque Novel
Miguel de Cervantes: Life and Literary Legacy
Cervantes’ Biography
The biography of Miguel de Cervantes is divided into two stages: the illusion of a heroic youth and the disillusionment of maturity, full of problems. Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547. In 1569, he moved to Italy, and two years later, he fought in the Battle of Lepanto against the Turks, where an arquebus shot rendered his left hand useless. Upon returning to Spain, he was captured in Algiers and remained captive for five years.
Rescued by Trinitarian friars, he settled in Madrid, where, to make a living, he wrote plays. He became a tax collector, but due to accounting irregularities, he was jailed. He died on April 23, 1616.
The Picaresque Novel
Characteristics of the Picaresque Genre
- The work is a fictional autobiography told in the first person.
- The story is based on a succession of episodic memories from the perspective of a narrator who offers his vision of the world.
- The action is a touring narrative: the rogue goes from master to master and from place to place.
- The events are subordinated to a predetermined end.
- It follows a chronological evolution from childhood to maturity.
- There are temporal confluences, interspersed with the narrator’s views as an adult and as a child.
Characteristics of the Rogue
- Anti-heroic attitude.
- Presents family origins with irony.
- Works as a servant of many masters, allowing the narrator to criticize various strata of society.
- Acts motivated by hunger.
- Suffers with resignation, looking to move up the social ladder.
- Quickly goes from innocence to evil and has a warped code of honor.
- Has resilience and is not materialistic.
Cervantes’ Works
The Pastoral and Byzantine Novel
Cervantes’s first novel, The Galatea, is a pastoral novel of an idealistic character, which develops the theme of love between shepherds in the ideal setting of the locus amoenus. Also in this vein is the idealistic Byzantine novel, The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda.
Exemplary Novels
The short novels under the title of Exemplary Novels express their connection to the medieval exempla, as each contains a moral lesson, adhering to the classical ideal of teaching while delighting.
Don Quixote
Between 1605 and 1615, Avellaneda published a continuation of Don Quixote, and Cervantes sought to convince the reader that the real Don Quixote is the one written in his books. After reading many books, Alonso Quijano’s brain “dries out.” The process of the development of the character seems to have been complex: originally conceived as a short story, it would have been similar to any of the Exemplary Novels.
Originality and Narrative Approach in Don Quixote
- Symbolizes the theme of madness.
- Uses typical romantic motifs of the time.
- Maintains the theme of courtly love.
Don Quixote also presents contradictions with previous genres:
- The protagonist is an old, noble, and poor character, in contrast to the strong, noble, and heroic knights of chivalric romances.
- Books of chivalry offered a remote, mythical world, while Cervantes uses immediate reality.
- The work identifies heroism with madness.
- The creator uses the transformation of reality as a narrative element.