76- Identity: the
building blocks of
2. Literature
and philosophy
3. Art and
architecture
4. Performing
arts
5. Cinema
and fashion
6. Media and
communications
7. Food and drink 8. Living culture:
the details of
Golden boy of the Golden Age:Don Quixote
El Ingenioso hidalgo Don Quixote de la Mancha(to give it
its full title) was published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615.
The work has long been considered the first great novel of
Western culture and is, without doubt, the most famous
work of Spanish literature. It relays the adventures of a
gentleman farmer fantasist, convinced that he’s a heroicknight. Having read one too many chivalric novels, includingAmadís de Gaula
(see above), the eponymoushidalgosets forth with his menial compadre,
Sancho Panza, intent on fighting the good fight for the honour of some – as yet
unidentified – woman. He roams the plains of La Mancha, consumed by
delusions of grandeur. Look out – is that flock of sheep really an army or that
windmill a giant? Quixote’s idealism clashes with Panza’s realism, while the
characters they meet speak of Cervantes’ disdain for Golden Age Spanish
society, its conventions and corruptions. Cervantes laughs at the chivalric novel
and we laugh at Don Quixote’s misplaced sense of valour.Yet Cervantes
doesn’t make a total fool of him; much of the book’s rich complexity comes
from the mixed emotions – compassion, derision, hope, even admiration – that
Quixote stirs in the reader.The second volume features more adventuring until
Don Quixote falls ill, briefly regains his sanity and then dies.The book was an
overnight success, translated almost immediately for the rest of Europe.
Woe is him: the life of Cervantes
Born near Madrid in 1547, Miguel de Cervantes Saarvedra had signed up with
the Spanish army in Naples by his early 20s. In 1575 he fought, apparently
heroically, at sea in the Battle of Lepanto, getting shot three times on board
theMarquesa(he never recovered the use of his left hand).Then came five
years as a slave in Algiers, having been kidnapped on his way back to Spain.
A rare moment of joy came in 1584 when he married a woman 18 years his
junior, but the union lasted less than five years. Further misfortune struck in
1597 when he was imprisoned in Seville for creative bookkeeping. By the time
Cervantes enjoyed a taste of success withDon Quixotehe was in his late 50s.
He died of dropsy in Madrid in 1616. While he found his niche as a novelist,
Cervantes spent much of his life hoping to triumph as a playwright.Two of his
works for the stage survive; the most famous isLa Numancia(1582). He also
left the pastoral novelLa Galatea(1585) and the 12 novelettes of theNovelas
ejemplares(1613).
“IN THE WHOLE
WORLD THERE
IS NO DEEPER,
NO MIGHTIER
LITERARY WORK.”
Fyodor Dostoevsky
onDon Quixote.