Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote: Life, Work, and Analysis
Miguel de Cervantes (1547-1616)
Life:
Born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547. He spent time in Italy and participated in the Battle of Lepanto, where he was wounded. Returning to Spain, his ship was captured, and he spent five years in captivity in Algiers. Back in Spain, he worked as a tax collector in Andalusia, a job that led to stays in jail. His last years were spent in Valladolid and Madrid.
Work:
Theater:
- Comedies and farces: “The Baths of Algiers,” “The Altar of Wonders.”
- “La Numancia”: A tragedy about the siege of the city.
Novels:
- Pastoral: “La Galatea.” Follows the tradition of the genre.
- Byzantine adventure: “The Persiles.”
- Short Fiction: Exemplary Novels, including “The Gypsy Girl.”
Poetry:
- Included in his prose books (“La Galatea”).
- Renaissance tradition and popular forms.
- Journey to Parnassus: A critical poetic view of the time.
Don Quixote
Plot:
The adventures of a poor old gentleman who goes mad from reading books of chivalry and tries to live everything he reads, reviving chivalry and becoming a knight himself. He adopts the basic structure of chivalry books: a chain of adventures that befall the nobleman and his squire.
Parts:
Part 1:
First and second exits: He is knighted. Second exit: adventures with Sancho. Interspersed stories.
Part 2:
Third exit: Zaragoza, visit to Dulcinea, Barcelona, defeat of Don Quixote, return home, where he falls ill and dies.
Differences Between Part 1 and Part 2:
Part 1: Tales outside the central argument; adventure prevails, richer and more imaginative vitality. He transforms objective reality.
Part 2: Fewer stories interspersed and more related to the central argument, more relaxed action, greater importance of dialogue.
Characters:
Don Quixote
Madness due to romances is his main feature. Features:
- Believes in the historical reality of what is said in books.
- Decides to become a knight-errant and restore the ideals of chivalry.
- Transforms physical reality according to his world.
His figure is drawn with some complexity and ambivalence:
- Madness and sanity alternate.
- Appears characterized with qualities and defects of a real person.
- A constant feature is his gentle disposition and pleasant treatment of others.
Sancho Panza
A rustic, materialistic man, constantly misusing language and proverbs.
He achieves a certain complexity and ambivalence: silly/smart.
- On the one hand, he shows stupidity and ignorance.
- At the same time, he shows some savvy, practical common sense, and natural wit.
- Disbelief at the fantasies of Don Quixote, but at other times, he indulges them.
- At first, he accompanies Don Quixote due to ambition, but then does it for fun and to enhance their literary glory.
Narrator: How to Create a Sense of Verisimilitude:
- Invention of a narrator (Hamete Benengeli).
- References to Cervantes as a literary author and friend of the priest.
- Don Quixote, known to readers from Part 1.
- Don Quixote, a reader of the apocryphal Quixote by Avellaneda.
- Uncertainties in the names of the characters.
Intention of the Work:
- Criticizing the romances, both for their implausibility and fantasy, as well as their ornate and artificial style.
- Adopting a parodic structure. Performed in a burlesque imitation of the characters and situations from the books of chivalry.