Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (Spanish pronunciation: [miˈɣel ðe θerˈβantes saˈβeðɾa] in modern Spanish; September 29, 1547 – April 23, 1616) was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel by many, is a classic of Western literature and is regularly regarded among the best novels ever written. His work is considered among the most important in all of literature. His influence on the Spanish language has been so great, that Spanish is often called la lengua de Cervantes (The language of Cervantes). He has been dubbed el Príncipe de los Ingenios – the Prince of Wits.
Plot summary
Alonso Quixano, a retired country gentleman in his fifties, lives in an unnamed section of La Mancha with his niece and a housekeeper. He has become obsessed with books of chivalry, and believes their every word to be true, despite the fact that many of the events in them are clearly impossible. Quixano eventually appears to other people to have lost his mind from little sleep and food and because of so much reading.
First quest
He decides to go out as a knight-errant in search of adventure. He dons an old suit of armor, renames himself “Don Quixote de la Mancha,” and names his skinny horse “Rocinante.” He designates a neighboring farm girl, Aldonza Lorenzo, as his ladylove, renaming her Dulcinea del Toboso, while she knows nothing about this. Eventually, he “acquires” his iconic “helmet”:
He sets out in the early morning and ends up at an inn, which he believes to be a castle. He asks the innkeeper, who he thinks to be the lord of the castle, to dub him a knight. He spends the night holding vigil over his armor, where he becomes involved in a fight with muleteers who try to remove his armor from the horse trough so that they can water their mules. The innkeeper then “dubs” him a knight,and sends him on his way. Don Quixote battles with traders from Toledo, who “insult” the imaginary Dulcinea, and he also frees a young boy who is tied to a tree by his master because the boy had the audacity to ask his master for the wages the boy had earned but had not yet been paid. Don Quixote is returned to his home by a neighboring peasant, Pedro Crespo.
Second quest
Bronze statue of Sancho Panza listening to Don Quixote
Back at home, Don Quixote plots an escape. Meanwhile, his niece, the housekeeper, the parish curate, and the local barber secretly burn most of the books of chivalry, and seal up his library pretending that a magician has carried it off. Don Quixote approaches another neighbour, Sancho Panza, and asks him to be his squire, promising him governorship of an island. The rather dull-witted Sancho agrees, and the pair sneak off in the early dawn. It is here that their series of famous adventures begin, starting with Don Quixote’s attack on windmills that he believes to be ferocious giants.
Although the first half of the novel is almost completely farcical, the second half is serious and philosophical about the theme of deception. Don Quixote’s imaginings are made the butt of outrageously cruel practical jokes. Even Sancho is unintentionally forced to deceive him at one point; trapped into finding Dulcinea, Sancho brings back three peasant girls and tells Quixote that they are Dulcinea and her ladies-in-waiting. When Don Quixote only sees three peasant girls, Sancho pretends that Quixote suffers from a cruel spell which does not permit him to see the truth. Sancho eventually gets his imaginary island governorship and unexpectedly proves to be wise and practical; though this, too, ends in disaster.
Conclusion
The cruel practical jokes eventually lead Don Quixote to a great melancholy. The novel ends with Don Quixote regaining his full sanity, and renouncing all chivalry. But, the melancholy remains, and grows worse. Sancho tries to restore his quixotic faith, but his attempt to resurrect Alonso’s quixotic alter-ego fails, and Alonso Quixano dies: sane and broken.
Cervantes, born at Alcalá de Henares, was the fourth of seven children of Rodrigo de Cervantes, a surgeon born at Alcalá de Henares in a family whose origins may have been of the minor gentry, and wife, married in 1543, Leonor de Cortinas, who died on October 19, 1593. The family moved from town to town, and little is known of Cervantes’s early years. In 1569, Cervantes moved to Italy, where he entered as valet into the service of Giulio Acquaviva, a wealthy priest who was elevated to cardinal the next year. By then Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Algerian pirates. He was ransomed by his captors and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid.
In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel, La Galatea. Because of financial problems, Cervantes worked as a purveyor for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector. In 1597 discrepancies in his accounts of three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville. In 1605 he was in Valladolid, just when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quijote, published in Madrid, signaled his return to the literary world. In 1607, he settled in Madrid, where he lived and worked until his death. During the last nine years of his life, Cervantes solidified his reputation as a writer; he published the Exemplary Novels (Novelas ejemplares) in 1613, the Journey to Parnassus in 1614, and in 1615, the Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote. Carlos Fuentes noted that, “Cervantes leaves open the pages of a book where the reader knows himself to be written.”
Scribbling 