Miguel de Cervantes Analysis

Although Miguel de Cervantes longed for the popular success and financial rewards offered by the stage, he hoped to gain a more prestigious literary reputation as a great poet, as evidenced by the time and dedication that went into his long derivative poem El viaje del Parnaso (1614; The Voyage of Parnassus, 1870), as well as his numerous occasional poems, such as his songs addressed to the Invincible Armada. He believed that his reputation as a writer of narrative would rest on a work to which he devoted much of his energy during his last years, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (1617; The Travels of Persiles and Sigismunda: A Northern History, 1619), a novel that he regarded as the best of all his works. It is no more remembered today and no more widely read than a lifeless pastoral novel written early in his career, La Galatea (1585; Galatea: A Pastoral Romance, 1833). His own age and subsequent generations have recognized his outstanding work to be El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha (1605, 1615; Don Quixote de la Mancha, 1612-1620). In this long novel, Cervantes not only made a lasting contribution to the development of narrative form but also created two of the most memorable of all imaginary characters, the immortal knight-errant and his squire, Sancho Panza. Cervantes also played an important role in developing the short story as a genre.

Miguel de Cervantes was the first modern novelist. His influence on the novel has been recognized for centuries, not only by scholars but also by novelists themselves. His masterpiece, Don Quixote de la Mancha, achieved immediate and lasting success, making Cervantes one of the unquestioned great figures of world literature. Cervantes also launched the modern short story. Just as in his masterpiece Don Quixote de la Mancha, Cervantes transformed prose fiction through his short stories, collected in Novelas ejemplares. His characters are personalities who are independent of their author. He was the first fiction writer to utilize dialogue to allow his characters to portray themselves. According to E. C. Riley, he was the first writer to theorize extensively on the novel. His most memorable prose presents reality as complex and ambiguous. This style has had a pervasive and ongoing influence on literature in the West.

Miguel de Cervantes (sur-VAHN-teez) never sought acclaim as a writer of fiction. He longed for the more popular success and financial rewards offered by the stage and hoped to gain a more prestigious literary reputation as a great poet, as evidenced by the time and dedication he committed to his long derivative poem Viaje del Parnaso (1614; The Voyage to Parnassus, 1870). These ambitions were unrealized. In fact, he admits in the poem of 1614 that heaven never blessed him with the poetic gift. His efforts in the theater did not bring him success at the time but did produce some significant work. Cervantes contributed to the Spanish theater not only by writing plays but also by stirring critical debate. In chapter 48 of the first part of Don Quixote de la Mancha, Cervantes attacked the Spanish stage and certain kinds of popular plays. This attack prompted a response from Lope de Vega Carpio, Arte nuevo de hacer comedias en este tiempo (1609; The New Art of Writing Plays, 1914) that was the central piece of dramatic theorizing of the Golden Age of Spanish theater. Cervantes also wrote one epic tragedy, El cerco de Numancia (wr. 1585, pb. 1784; The Siege of Numantia, 1870), a play praised in later centuries by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Percy Bysshe Shelley, Friedrich Schlegel, and Arthur Schopenhauer, and he published a collection of eight comedies and eight interludes in 1615. These works were never performed in the author’s lifetime. The eight interludes, one-act farces that would have been performed as intermission pieces, are original, dynamic, and highly theatrical. They rank with the finest work in the one-act form by Anton Chekhov, August Strindberg, and Tennessee Williams.

In what ways does Don Quixote reflect the age of Miguel de Cervantes, who began it when he was in his late middle age?

Much of Cervantes’ humor is very difficult to translate. How might a reader unfamiliar with Spanish at least partially overcome this difficulty?

Since few people today are, like Don Quixote, victims of an insatiable love of chivalric romances, how can his story impress modern readers as much as, or more than, it did readers who were very familiar with them?

Is Don Quixote a crazy old man? Does Don Quixote possess nobility?

Consider the statement that Don Quixote transforms Sancho into a better man.

What does the rich assortment of minor characters contribute to Don Quixote?

Does the evidence of the novel Don Quixote itself confirm the suspicion that Cervantes only gradually learned what kind of book he was writing?