James Baquet

    Who doesn’t know about the addled knight Don Quixote, charging around the countryside with his companion Sancho Panza, tilting at windmills and practicing courtly love to a kitchen wench?

    But in fact, the story of his creator — Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra (1547-1616), usually called in English just “Cervantes” — is almost as fascinating as that of the “knight errant” himself. His influence is so great that some people have called Spanish “the language of Cervantes.”

    Like many young Spanish men who wanted to get ahead, he left Spain for Rome. Some say he had wounded another man in a sword fight, but at any rate, he ended up taking a job as personal assistant to a high-ranking official in the Roman Catholic Church. While enjoying the beauties of Rome, he developed a love of the things of the past — which may have had an influence on his greatest creation.

    By his early 20s, he had joined the Spanish navy in Naples, which then belonged to Spain. He was seriously wounded in one battle, and spent six months in the hospital. After several other adventures, he was captured by pirates, and spent five years as a slave in North Africa. After four unsuccessful attempts to escape, he was ransomed and returned to Madrid. These adventures provided useful material for his later writings.

    While serving as a purchasing agent for the Spanish king, Cervantes was imprisoned on charges of mishandling money. It may be here that he began to write his greatest work, “Don Quixote.” He continued work as a civil servant — and was arrested again for financial irregularities.

    At last, in 1600, he settled in Madrid. He continued writing, but it wasn’t until five years later that “Don Quixote” became a success and he no longer had to worry about money.

    The character Don Quixote is anachronistic, embodying the values of an earlier day in a lunatic but noble way. The word “quixotic” has come to mean impulsive and unpredictable, but also chivalrous, romantic, and visionary. These qualities continue to attract readers.

    Cervantes is to Spanish as Shakespeare is to English. Remarkable, then, that both men died on the same day.

    Vocabulary:

    Which word above means:

    1. problems; discrepancies;

    2. confused in the mind;

    3. paid to set free, as when someone has been kidnapped;

    4. mad; crazy;

    5. acting without thinking;

    6. behaving with courtesy, like a knight;

    7. out of the normal time, like an airplane in a movie about the 1500s;

    8. riding at something while holding a long spear