Miguel de Cervantes 1547 1616 Cervantes Born in

Miguel de Cervantes 1547 -1616

Cervantes • Born in Alcala de Henares, near Madrid • Enlisted in Spanish fleet, fought valiantly, was captured by pirates on the way home and held as a slave for high ransom (remember this for Hamlet). After 5 years, bout by viceroy of Algiers out of admiration. • Wrote 20 -30 plays and a pastoral romance

Cervantes • Worked for the navy in supply service but was imprisoned for “irregularities in his administration. ” • Later served as tax collector for Granada but dismissed from gov’t in 1597 • 1604 published Don Quixote Part I, and it was so popular that someone wrote a false sequel, so Cervantes then wrote his own, Part II, published in 1615.

Don Quixote • Satire of chivalric romance, the pulp fiction of his time • Uses parody and caricature, but in a unique way, with a main character who lives in Cervantes’s present but is infatuated with medieval romance and chivalry – he lives in the real world but lives by the standards of fantasy. Visions of Don Quixote by Octavio Ocampo http: //gallery 4 collectors. com/visionsofquix ote. htm

Don Quixote • With Don Quixote, Cervantes creates the modern novel. • Manages to show positive as well as negative aspects of chivalry and romance • Ridiculous situations counterbalanced by serious moral messages Monument to Don Quixote and Dulcinea in El Toboso, Castile-La Mancha, Spain http: //en. wikipedia. org/wiki/Don_Quixote