Cervantes (1547-1616)

Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra; 29 September 1547 (assumed) - 22 April 1616) was a Spanish writer who is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the Spanish language and one of the world's pre-eminent novelists.

His major work, Don Quixote, is considered the first modern novel, a classic of Western literature, and is regarded among the best works of fiction ever written.His influence on the Spanish language has been so great that the language is often called la lengua de Cervantes ("the language of Cervantes"). He has also been dubbed El príncipe de los ingenios ("The Prince of Wits").

In 1569, in forced exile from Castile, Cervantes moved to Rome, where he worked as chamber assistant of a cardinal. Then he enlisted as a soldier in a Spanish Navy infantry regiment and continued his military life until 1575, when he was captured by Barbary pirates. After five years of captivity, he was released on payment of a ransom by his parents and the Trinitarians, a Catholic religious order, and he returned to his family in Madrid.

In 1585, Cervantes published a pastoral novel named La Galatea. He worked as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada, and later as a tax collector for the government. In 1597, discrepancies in his accounts for three years previous landed him in the Crown Jail of Seville.

In 1605, Cervantes was in Valladolid when the immediate success of the first part of his Don Quixote, 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, publishing the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels) in 1613, the Viaje al Parnaso (Journey to Parnassus) in 1614, and the Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses and the second part of Don Quixote in 1615. His last work, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda ("The Works of Persiles and Sigismunda"), was published posthumously in 1617.

Birth and early life

The Church of Santa María la Mayor where Cervantes was baptized in Alcalá de Henares. 

The square in front of it is now called Plaza Cervantes.

It is assumed that Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares, a Castilian city about 35 kilometres (22 mi) northeast from Madrid, probably on 29 September (the feast day of Saint Michael the Archangel) 1547. The probable date of his birth was determined from records in the church register, given the tradition of naming a child after the feast day of his birth. He was baptized in Alcalá de Henares on 9 October 1547 at the parish church of Santa María la Mayor. The register of baptisms records the following:

On Sunday, the ninth day of the month of October, the year of our Lord one thousand five hundred forty and seven, Miguel, son of Rodrigo Cervantes and his wife Leonor, was baptised; his godfathers were Juan Pardo; he was baptised by the Reverend Bachelor Bartolomé Serrano, Priest of Our Lady. Witnesses, Baltasar Vázquez, Sexton, and I, who baptised him and signed this in my name. Bachelor Serrano.

Miguel at birth was not surnamed Cervantes Saavedra. He adopted the "Saavedra" name as an adult. By Spanish naming conventions, his second surname was that of his mother, Cortinas. His father, Rodrigo, was a barber-surgeon of Galician extraction from Córdoba, who set bones, performed bloodlettings, and attended to "lesser medical needs"; at that time, it was common for barbers to do surgery as well. His paternal grandfather, Juan de Cervantes, was an influential lawyer who held several administrative positions. His uncle was mayor of Cabra for many years. His mother, Leonor de Cortinas, was a native of Arganda del Rey and the third daughter of a nobleman, who lost his fortune and had to sell his daughter into matrimony in 1543. This led to a very awkward marriage and several affairs by Rodrigo. Leonor died on 19 October 1593.

Little is known of Cervantes' early years. It seems he spent much of his childhood moving from town to town with his family, eventually enrolling in The Imperial School, a Jesuit educational establishment for boys in Madrid. During this time, he met a young barmaid named Josefina Catalina de Parez. The couple fell madly in love and plotted to run away together. Her father discovered their plans and forbade Josefina from ever seeing Cervantes again, perhaps because of the young man's poor prospects of ever rising from poverty-Miguel's own father was embargoed for debt. The court records of the proceedings show a very poor household. While some of his biographers argue that he studied at the University of Salamanca, there is no solid evidence for supposing that he did so. There has been speculation also that Cervantes studied with the Jesuits in Córdoba or Seville.

His siblings were Andrés (1543), Andrea (1544), Luisa (1546), Rodrigo (1550), Magdalena (1554) and Juan-known solely because he is mentioned in his father's will.

Military service and captivity

The Battle of Lepanto by Paolo Veronese (c. 1572, oil on canvas, 

169 x 137 cm, Gallerie dell'Accademia, Venice)

The reasons that forced Cervantes to leave Spain remain uncertain. Possible reasons include that he was a "student" of the same name, a "sword-wielding fugitive from justice", or fleeing from a royal warrant of arrest, for having wounded a certain Antonio de Sigura in a duel. Like many young Spanish men who wanted to further their careers, Cervantes left for Italy. In Rome, he focused his attention on Renaissance art, architecture, and poetry - knowledge of Italian literature is discernible in his work. He found "a powerful impetus to revive the contemporary world in light of its accomplishments". Thus, Cervantes' stay in Italy, as revealed in his later works, might be in part a desire for a return to an earlier period of the Renaissance.

By 1570, Cervantes had enlisted as a soldier in a regiment of the Spanish Navy Marines, Infantería de Marina, stationed in Naples, then a possession of the Spanish crown. He was there for about a year before he saw active service. In September 1571, Cervantes sailed on board the Marquesa, part of the galley fleet of the Holy League (a coalition of Pope Pius V, Spain, the Republic of Venice, the Republic of Genoa, the Duchy of Savoy, the Knights Hospitaller based in Malta, and others, under the command of Philip II of Spain's illegitimate half brother, John of Austria) that defeated the Ottoman fleet on October 7 in the Battle of Lepanto, in the Gulf of Patras. Though taken down with fever, Cervantes refused to stay below and asked to be allowed to take part in the battle, saying he would rather die for his God and his king than keep under cover. He fought on board a vessel and received three gunshot wounds - two in the chest and one which rendered his left arm useless. In Journey to Parnassus he was to say that he "had lost the movement of the left hand for the glory of the right" (referring to the success of the first part of Don Quixote). Cervantes looked back on his conduct in the battle with pride: he believed he had taken part in an event that shaped the course of European history.

After the Battle of Lepanto, Cervantes remained in hospital in Messina, Italy, for about six months, before his wounds healed enough to allow his joining the colors again. From 1572 to 1575, based mainly in Naples, he continued his soldier's life: he participated in expeditions to Corfu and Navarino, and saw the fall of Tunis and La Goulette to the Turks in 1574.

Statue of Miguel de Cervantes at the harbour of Naupactus (Lepanto)

On September 6 or 7, 1575, Cervantes set sail on the galley Sol from Naples to Barcelona, with letters of commendation to the king from the Duke of Sessa. On the morning of September 26, as the Sol approached the Catalan coast, it was attacked by Ottoman pirates and he was taken to Algiers, which had become one of the main and most cosmopolitan cities of the Ottoman Empire, and was kept here in captivity between the years of 1575 and 1580. After five years as a slave in Algiers, and four unsuccessful escape attempts, he was ransomed by his parents and the Trinitarians and returned to his family in Madrid. Not surprisingly, this traumatic period of Cervantes' life supplied subject matter for several of his literary works, notably the Captive's tale in Don Quixote and the two plays set in Algiers - El trato de Argel (Life in Algiers) and Los baños de Argel (The Dungeons of Algiers) - as well as episodes in a number of other writings, although never in straight autobiographical form.

Later life

"The pen is the language of the soul; as the concepts that in it are generated, 

such will be its writings." - Miguel de Cervantes at the 

Biblioteca Nacional de España (National Library of Spain).

Cervantes led a middle-class life after his return to Spain. Like almost all authors of his day, he was unable to support himself through his writings. Two periods of his life that are very well documented are his years of work in Andalucía as a purchasing agent for the Spanish navy (i.e., the King). This led to his imprisonment for a few months in Seville after a banker where he had deposited Crown funds went bankrupt. (Since Cervantes says that Don Quixote was "engendered" in a prison, that is presumably a reference to this episode.) He also worked as a tax collector, travelling from town to town collecting back taxes due the crown. He applied unsuccessfully for "one of four vacant positions in the New World", one of them as an accountant for the port of Cartagena. At the time he was living in Valladolid, then briefly the capital (1601-1606), and finishing Don Quixote Part One, he was presumably working in the banking industry, or a related occupation where his accounting skills could be put to use. He was turned down for a position as secretary to Pedro Fernández de Castro y Andrade, the Count of Lemos, although he did receive some type of pension from him, which permitted him to write full-time during his final years (about 1610 to 1616). His last known written words - the dedication to Persiles y Sigismunda - were written, he tells us, after having received Extreme Unction. He died in 1616 of type II diabetes. His burial place in Madrid was reportedly rediscovered in March 2015, but his unpublished manuscripts were mostly lost.

Literary pursuits

Miguel de Cervantes's famous work, 

Don Quijote illustrated by Doré

In Esquivias, Toledo, on 12 December 1584, he married the much younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios (born Esquivias - d. 31 October 1626),[9] daughter of Fernando de Salazar y Vozmediano and Catalina de Palacios. Her uncle Alonso de Quesada y Salazar is said to have inspired the character of Don Quixote.[citation needed] Over the next 20 years, Cervantes led a nomadic existence, working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and as a tax collector. He suffered bankruptcy and was imprisoned at least twice (1597 and 1602) for irregularities in his accounts. Between 1596 and 1600, he lived primarily in Seville. In 1606, Cervantes settled in Madrid, where he remained for the rest of his life.

In 1585 Cervantes published his first major work, La Galatea,[9] a pastoral romance, at the same time that some of his plays, now lost - except for El trato de Argel (where he dealt with the life of Christian slaves in Algiers) and El cerco de Numancia - were playing on the stages of Madrid. La Galatea received little contemporary notice; and Cervantes never wrote the continuation for it, which he repeatedly promised to do. Cervantes next turned his attention to drama, hoping to derive an income from that source, but his plays failed.[citation needed] Aside from his plays, his most ambitious work in verse was Viage del Parnaso (1614) - an allegory which consisted largely of a rather tedious though good-natured review of contemporary poets. Cervantes himself realized that he was deficient in poetic talent.

Another Don Quijote Illustration by Gustave Doré, 

this one is of the famous windmill scene

If a remark which Cervantes himself makes in the prologue of Don Quixote is to be taken literally, the idea of the work (though hardly the writing of its First Part, as some have maintained) occurred to him while in jail. Cervantes' idea was to give a picture of real life and manners, and to express himself in clear language. The intrusion of everyday speech into a literary context was acclaimed by the reading public. The author stayed poor until January 1605, when the first part of Don Quixote appeared.

The popularity of Don Quixote led to the publication of an unauthorized continuation of it by an unknown writer, who masqueraded under the name of Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda.[9] Cervantes produced his own continuation, or Second Part, of Don Quixote, which made its appearance in 1615. He had promised the publication of a second part in 1613 in the foreword to the Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels), a year before the publication of Avellaneda's book. Don Quixote has been regarded chiefly as a novel of purpose. It is stated again and again that he wrote it in order to satirize the chivalric romance and to challenge the popularity of a form of literature that had been a favourite of the general public for more than a century.

"What I cannot help taking amiss is that he charges me with being old and one-handed, as if it had been in my power to keep time from passing over me, or as if the loss of my hand had been brought about in some tavern, and not on the grandest occasion the past or present has seen, or the future can hope to see. If my wounds have no beauty to the beholder's eye, they are, at least, honourable in the estimation of those who know where they were received; for the soldier shows to greater advantage dead in battle than alive in flight." - from the Preface to Volume 2 of Don Quixote.

Don Quixote certainly reveals much narrative power, considerable humour, a mastery of dialogue, and a forceful style. Of the two parts written by Cervantes, perhaps the first is the more popular with the general public – containing the famous episodes of the tilting at windmills, the attack on the flock of sheep, the vigil in the courtyard of the inn, and the episode with the barber and the shaving basin. The second part shows more constructive insight, better delineation of character, improved style, and more realism and probability in its action. Most people agree that it is richer and more profound.

In 1613, he published a collection of tales, the Exemplary Novels, some of which had been written earlier. The picaroon strain, already made familiar in Spain through the Picaresque novels of Lazarillo de Tormes and his successors, appears in one or another of them, especially in the Rinconete y Cortadillo. In 1614, he published the Viage del Parnaso and in 1615, the Eight Comedies and Eight New Interludes. At the same time, Cervantes continued working on Los Trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda, a novel of adventurous travel, completed just before his death, and appearing posthumously in January 1617.

Death

Cervantes was buried at the Convent 

of the Barefoot Trinitarians in Madrid

While April 23, 1616, was recorded as the date of his death in some references, and is the date on which his death is widely commemorated (along with that of William Shakespeare), Cervantes died in Madrid the previous day, April 22. He was buried on 23 April. The cause of his death, according to Antonio López Alonso, a modern physician who has examined the surviving documentation, was type-2 diabetes, a result of a cirrhosis of the liver. This is the best explanation for the intense thirst he complained of. The cirrhosis was not caused by alcoholism; Cervantes was too productive, especially in his final years, to have been an alcoholic.

In accordance with Cervantes' will, he was buried in the neighboring Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians, in central Madrid. His bones went missing in 1673 when building work was done at the convent, and were known to have been taken to a different convent and returned later. A project promoted and led by Fernando de Prado began in 2014 to rediscover his remains.

In January 2015, it was reported that researchers searching for Cervantes' remains had found part of a casket bearing his initials, MC, at the convent. Francisco Etxeberria, the forensic anthropologist leading the search, said: "Remains of caskets were found, wood, rocks, some bone fragments, and indeed one of the fragments of a board of one of the caskets had the letters 'M.C.' formed in tacks." The first significant search for Cervantes' remains had been launched in May 2014 and had involved the use of infrared cameras, 3D scanners and ground-penetrating radar. The team had identified 33 alcoves where bones could be stored.

On 17 March 2015, it was reported that Cervantes' remains had been discovered, along with those of his wife and others, at the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians. Through documentary research, archaeologists stated that they had identified the remains as those of Cervantes. Clues from Cervantes' life, such as the loss of the use of his left hand at age 24 and the fact that he had taken at least one bullet to the chest, were hoped to help in the identification. Historian Fernando de Prado had spent more than four years trying to find funding before Madrid City Council had agreed to pay. DNA testing would now be carried out in an attempt to confirm the findings.

On 11 June 2015, Cervantes was given a formal burial at a Madrid convent, containing a monument holding bone fragments that were believed to have been the author's. The city mayor Ana Botella and military attended the event.

Works

Don Quixote

Statuettes of Don Quixote (left) and Sancho Panza (right).

Don Quixote (spelled "Quijote" in modern Spanish) is two separate volumes, now nearly always published as one, that cover the adventures of Don Quixote de la Mancha, a hero who carries his enthusiasm and self-deception to unintentional and comic ends. On one level, Don Quixote works as a satire of the romances of chivalry, which, though still popular in Cervantes' time, had become an object of ridicule among more demanding critics. The choice of a madman as hero also served a critical purpose, for it was "the impression of ill-being or 'in-sanity,' rather than a finding of dementia or psychosis in clinical terms, that defined the madman for Cervantes and his contemporaries." Indeed, the concept of madness was "associated with physical or moral displacement, as may be seen in the literal and figurative sense of the adjectives eccentric, extravagant, deviant, aberrant, etc." The novel allows Cervantes to illuminate various aspects of human nature. Because the novel, particularly the first part, was written in individually published sections, the composition includes several incongruities. Cervantes pointed out some of these errors in the preface to the second part; but he disdained to correct them, because he conceived that they had been too severely condemned by his critics. Cervantes felt a passion for the vivid painting of character. Don Quixote is noble-minded, an enthusiastic admirer of everything good and great, yet having all these fine qualities accidentally blended with a relative kind of madness. He is paired with a character of opposite qualities, Sancho Panza, a man of low self-esteem, who is a compound of grossness and simplicity.

Don Quixote is cited as the first classic model of the modern romance or novel, and it has served as the prototype of the comic novel. The humorous situations are mostly burlesque, and it includes satire. Don Quixote is one of the Encyclopædia Britannica's Great Books of the Western World, while the Russian author Fyodor Dostoyevsky called it "the ultimate and most sublime work of human thinking". It is in Don Quixote that Cervantes coined the popular phrase "the proof of the pudding is in the eating" (por la muestra se conoce el paño), which still sees heavy use in the shortened form of "the proof is in the pudding", and "who walks much and reads much, knows much and sees much" (quien anda mucho y lee mucho, sabe mucho y ve mucho).

Novelas ejemplares (Exemplary Novels)

Don Quijote illustrated by Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré

Cervantes intended his novels should be to Spanish nearly what the novellas of Boccaccio were to Italians. Some are anecdotes, some are romances in miniature, some are serious, some comic; they are written in a light, smooth, conversational style.

Four novelas, though favorites in Cervantes' day, are perhaps of less interest today than the rest: El amante liberal, La señora Cornelia, Las dos doncellas, and La española inglesa. The theme common to these is pairs of lovers (couples) separated by lamentable and complicated events; they are finally reunited and find the happiness they have longed for. The heroines are all beautiful and of perfect behavior; they and their lovers are capable of the highest sacrifices; and they try to elevate themselves to the ideal of moral and aristocratic distinction which illuminates their lives. In El amante liberal, the beautiful Leonisa and her lover Ricardo are carried off by Turkish pirates. Both fight against serious material and moral dangers. Ricardo conquers all obstacles, returns to his homeland with Leonisa, and is ready to renounce his passion and to hand her over to her former lover in an outburst of generosity; but Leonisa's preference naturally settles on Ricardo in the end.

Another group of "exemplary" novels is formed by La fuerza de la sangre, La ilustre fregona, La gitanilla, and El celoso extremeño. The first three offer examples of love and adventure happily resolved, while the last unravels itself tragically. Its plot deals with the old Felipe Carrizales, who, after traveling widely and becoming rich in America, decides to marry, taking all the precautions necessary to forestall being deceived. He weds a very young girl – and isolates her from the world, by having her live in a house with no windows facing the street. But in spite of his defensive measures, a bold youth succeeds in penetrating the fortress of conjugal honour; and one day Carrizales surprises his wife in the arms of her seducer. Surprisingly, he pardons the adulterers, recognizing that he is more to blame than they, and dies of sorrow over the grievous error he has committed. Cervantes here deviated from literary tradition, which demanded the death of the adulterers; but he transformed the punishment inspired, or rather required, by the social ideal of honour into a statement on the responsibility of the individual. Rinconete y Cortadillo, El casamiento engañoso, El licenciado Vidriera, and the untitled novella known today as El coloquio de los perros, four works of art which are concerned more with the personalities of the characters than with the subject matter, form the final group of these stories. The protagonists are, respectively, two young vagabonds, Rincón and Cortado, Lieutenant Campuzano, a student - Tomás Rodaja (who goes mad and believes he has become glass, and who makes many remarks on society and customs of the time) and finally two dogs, Cipión and Berganza, whose wandering existence serves to mirror the most varied aspects of Spanish life. El coloquio de los perros features even more sardonic observations on the Spanish society of the time.

Don Quijote (Don Quixote) illustration 

by Paul Gustave Louis Christophe Doré.

Rinconete y Cortadillo is today considered one of the most delightful of Cervantes' works. Its two young vagabonds come to Seville, attracted by the riches and disorder that the 16th-century commerce with the Americas had brought to that metropolis. There they come into contact with a brotherhood of thieves, the Thieves' Guild, led by Monipodio, whose house is the headquarters of the Sevillian underworld. The solemn ritual of this band of ruffians is all the more comic for being presented in Cervantes' drily humorous style.

Miguel de Cervantes y Saavedra; (29 tháng 9 năm 1547 - 23 tháng 4 năm 1616) là tiểu thuyết gia, nhà thơ và nhà soạn kịch người Tây Ban Nha.

Ông được biết đến nhiều nhất với cuốn tiểu thuyết hai tập Don Quixote de la Mancha, được coi như tiểu thuyết hiện đại đầu tiên của châu Âu[3], một trong những tác phẩm vĩ đại nhất trong văn học phương Tây, và là tác phẩm lớn nhất bằng tiếng Tây Ban Nha từng được viết. Ảnh hưởng của ông đối với ngôn ngữ Tây Ban Nha lớn đến mức ngôn ngữ này thường được gọi là la Lengua de Cervantes ("ngôn ngữ của Cervantes"). Ông được mệnh danh là El Príncipe de los Ingenios ("Hoàng tử của trí tuệ").

Năm 1569 Cervantes chuyển đến Rome, nơi ông làm việc như trợ lý cho một hồng y. Sau đó ông đăng lính trong quân binh đoàn Tây Ban Nha và tiếp tục cuộc sống quân ngũ của mình cho đến 1575, khi ông bị cướp biển của Algeria bắt giữ. Sau năm năm bị giam, ông đã được tha sau khi cha mẹ ông và các Trinitarians (một dòng tu Công giáo) trả một khoản tiền chuộc, và sau đó ông trở về sống với gia đình ở Madrid.

Năm 1585, Cervantes xuất bản một cuốn tiểu thuyết mục vụ tên là La Galatea. Ông làm việc như một đại lý mua hàng cho Armada Tây Ban Nha, và sau đó với vị trí thu thuế. Trong năm 1597 vì sự khác biệt trong các tài khoản trong ba năm trước đó, ông đã phải đi tù tại Crown of Seville. Trong năm 1605, ông ở Valladolid. Phần đầu cuốn truyện Đôn Kihôtê của ông đã tạo ra thành công tức thời sau khi xuất bản tại Madrid, đã báo hiệu sự trở lại của ông với thế giới văn chương. Năm 1607, ông định cư tại Madrid, nơi ông sống và làm việc cho đến khi qua đời. Trong chín năm cuối cùng của cuộc đời mình, Cervantes đã củng cố danh tiếng của mình như là một nhà văn; ông xuất bản Novelas ejemplares (Tiểu thuyết kiểu mẫu) năm 1613, Hành trình đến Parnassus (Viaje al Parnaso) năm 1614, và năm 1615, Ocho comedias y entremeses Ocho và phần thứ hai của Đôn Kihôtê.

Tuổi thơ

Nhà thờ Santa María la Mayor (cảnh nền), nơi Cervantes đã được 

rửa tội tại Alcalá de Henares. Quảng trường phía trước 

của nhà thờ bây giờ được gọi là Plaza Cervantes

Người ta cho rằng Cervantes đã được sinh ra tại Alcalá de Henares, một thành phố Castilian khoảng 35 km (22 dặm) về phía đông bắc từ Madrid, có thể là vào ngày 29 tháng 9 (ngày lễ Thánh Micae) năm 1547. Ngày sinh của ông có thể đã được xác định từ sổ đăng ký nhà thờ, do truyền thống đặt tên một đứa trẻ theo tên Thánh của ngày sinh. Ông được rửa tội tại Alcalá de Henares vào ngày 9 tháng 10 năm 1547 tại nhà thờ giáo xứ Santa María la Mayor. Sổ đăng ký rửa tội ghi lại như sau:

Vào chủ nhật, ngày 9 tháng 10, năm của Chúa chúng ta 1547, Miguel, con trai của Rodrigo Cervantes và vợ Leonor, được rửa tội; cha đỡ đầu là ông Juan Pardo; đứa trẻ được Reverend Bachelor Bartolomé Serrano, Linh mục của Đức Mẹ rửa tội. Các nhân chứng, Baltasar Vázquez, Sexton, và tôi, người đã rửa tội cho đứa trẻ và ký tên. Bachelor Serrano.

Cervantes lúc sinh không có tên Cervantes Saavedra. Ông đặt tên "Saavedra" khi đã trưởng thành. Theo quy ước đặt tên Tây Ban Nha họ thứ hai của ông là của người mẹ, Cortinas.

Cervantes sinh ra tại một gia đình quý tộc sa sút ở Tây Ban Nha. Cha ông là một bác sĩ ngoại khoa bất đắc chí, từng phải ra toà vì thiếu nợ. Do kinh tế gia đình vất vả, ông chỉ học đến Trung học, tuy nhiên, ông rất chăm chỉ đọc sách.

Hơn 22 tuổi, ông đến Ý, đúng vào thời kỳ Phục Hưng và làm người hầu cho một Hồng y giáo chủ. Đây là cơ hội lớn cho ông đọc sách của chủ và học tập.

Năm 1571, hạm đội Thổ Nhĩ Kỳ xâm nhập vào khu vực Địa Trung Hải, Tây Ban Nha và Cộng hoà Venise tổ chức hạm đội liên hợp chống lại. Hạm đội Liên minh thần thánh cuối cùng cũng đánh tan quân Thổ trong trận Lepanto, Cervantes tham gia trận này, được mô tả như một "hiệp sĩ gầy gò và khờ dại".

Năm tháng tù đày

Sau khi tham gia nhiều trận đánh lớn trên biển Địa Trung Hải với tư cách là lính Tây Ban Nha, ông bị cướp biển Bắc Phi bắt giữ khi trên đường trở về Tây Ban Nha. Chúng đòi tiền chuộc quá lớn, gia đình ông không kịp chuẩn bị và triều đình thì không hề quan tâm. Ông bị giam 10 năm ở Algie, tiếp xúc với văn hóa Hồi giáo (sau trở thành tư liệu quan trọng cho sáng tác của ông). Đến năm 1580, khoản tiền chuộc giảm xuống một phần vì bọn cướp phục lòng dũng cảm của ông, một phần vì chúng nhận ra không thể lợi dụng ông để lấy tiền từ triều đình Tây Ban Nha. Hai chị gái của ông đã phải gia nhập vào nhà thờ để nhận một số tiền đem chuộc ông.

Cái chết

Ông mất tại Madrid ngày 23 tháng 4 năm 1616 trong lịch Gregory, cùng ngày Shakespeare mất trong lịch Julian. Đáng kể là bách khoa toàn thư Encyclopedia Hispanica cho rằng ngày mất của Cervantes theo truyền thống - 23 tháng 4 - là ngày đề trên mộ. Theo truyền thống ở Tây Ban Nha trong hồi đó, ngày trên mộ là ngày chôn, chứ không phải là ngày mất. Nếu Encyclopedia Hispanica đúng thì Cervantes chắc qua đời ngày 22 tháng 4 và được chôn ngày 23 tháng 4. Dù sao, Cervantes và Shakespeare thực sự không mất cùng ngày, tại vì hai nước Anh và Tây Ban Nha đang sử dụng lịch khác trong thời kỳ đó.