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Culture: Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), was a Spanish novelist, poet and
playwright. William Shakespeare, Cervantes' great contemporary, had evidently read Don Quixote,
but it is very unlikely that Cervantes on the other hand had ever heard of Shakespeare.
In 1585, Cervantes published his first major work, La Galatea, a pastoral romance.
At the same time, 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 even though
he repeatedly promised to.
When the first part of Don Quixote appeared in 1605, it brought him international appreciation as a writer,
even though it did not make him rich. Short novels, and the vogue obtained by Cervantes's story
led to the publication of a continuation of Don Quixote by an unknown who published under the name of
Alonso Fernández de Avellaneda.
As a reaction to this, Cervantes produced his own continuation, or "Second Part", of Don Quixote in 1615.
For the world at large, interest in Cervantes centers particularly on Don Quixote. Of the two parts
written by Cervantes, the first has ever remained the favorite. On the whole, the Exemplary Novels
are worthy of the fame of Cervantes; they bear the same stamp of genius as Don Quixote.
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| Courses Overview |
 Course 1
Lesson 1 Lesson 3 Lesson 4 Lesson 5 Lesson 6 Lesson 7 Epilogue I
 Course 2
Course 3
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Lesson 2
