![]() ![]() The statement also raises questions about the nature of the novel as an art form. At first glance this statement sounds odd, given that novels, as we understand them, are so prevalent now that it is difficult to imagine a time when they did not exist. The first reference to Don Quixote in the English language was in a play, a comedy, by George Wilkins in 1607.Īs already mentioned, Don Quixote is often described as the first modern novel. By February 1606, the reputation of the novel had crossed the Atlantic to Peru ( Reference CannavagioCanavaggio 1986). It took barely 3 months for Don Quixote to break all sales records. Even more remarkably, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza were already being paraded at processions, ballets and masquerades. Permission for publication in the whole Iberian Peninsula, including Portugal, was granted in April 1605. By the end of 1607, no copy was left in the publisher's shop ( Reference McCroryMcCrory 2002). The first print run was for 1750 copies and the second 1800. Within months, a second edition was under preparation in Madrid. Part 1 of Don Quixote was an immediate success following its publication in March 1605. ![]() The list of Ottoman losses is immense – 110 ships destroyed or sunk and 130 captured, 30 000 men killed or wounded, nearly 15 000 slaves freed – and Cervantes’ contribution to this triumph marked him out as a hero ( Reference CannavagioCanavaggio 1986). The Battle of Lepanto was a triumph for the Spaniards. The benefit of this act of courage to Cervantes was commendation from Don John of Austria. He never recovered the use of his left arm and it took 6 months for the injury to his chest to heal. He led 12 men in a skiff despite suffering from malaria, attacked the Turkish boats at great cost and peril to himself, and suffered 3 shots from a harquebus to his chest and left arm. It was in the Battle of Lepanto, in which the Spaniards faced off the Turks, that Cervantes won honour for valour and courage. He worked as prelate to Giulio Acquaviva (who was himself prelate to the Po pe) until 1570, when he left for Naples to join the Papal naval forces, serving first under Diego de Urbina and later under Álvaro de Bazán, the Marquis of Santa Cruz. This was the start of Cervantes’ exile from Spain. ![]() Within 3 months of the publication of the poems, Cervantes had hurriedly left for Rome, in December 1569.Ĭervantes’ departure for Rome was in direct response to a warrant for his arrest following a duel at which Antonio de Sigura was wounded. This book contained Cervantes’ first published works, four poems commemorating the sudden death of the queen. De Hoyos was the royal chronicler and author of a work on the illness and death of Elisabeth of Valois, Queen of Spain. The family moved to Madrid in 1566, where Cervantes came under the influence of another teacher, Juan López de Hoyos, a curate and humanist. Here it is thought he came in contact with Father Acevedo, a playwright who taught rhetoric. He moved with his family to Cabra and then Seville, where he probably attended another Jesuit college. Cervantes was initially educated in Córdoba, probably at a Jesuit college, where he is thought to have developed his love of learning, the theatre and the picaresque novel. It is known that his father spent the years 1552–1553 in a debtors’ prison. The family moved to Valladolid, which at the time was the capital of Spain, in 1552, in straitened circumstances. The basic elements of his biography are well established. He was the third surviving child of five siblings. He was born in 1547 in Alcalá de Henares to Rodrigo, a barber surgeon, and Leonor de Cortinas, daughter of rural landowners. It is 400 years this year since Miguel de Cervantes died. ![]()
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