MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

CEIP PADRE CLARET.

• Miguel de Cervantes was born in Alcalá de Henares in 1547.

• He was the fourth son in a family of seven children.

• Little is known about his early life but it is doubtful if he received much formal education.

• His father was a surgeon, but he earned too little to feed his family.

• At 20,together with his brother Rodrigo, Miguel participated in the Battle of Lepanto against the Turks.

• He received a wound in his left hand.

• He rejoined the army, but was captured and he and his brother were sold as slaves in Algiers.

• They were ransomed later.• He returned to Spain in 1580,

without any means of livelyhood.

• Out of desperation, he began to write for the theatre, but, of the 30 or 40 plays he wrote only a few survived.

• At 40, he married Catalina de Salazar, the daughter of a well-to-do farmer.

• He applied for many civil service posts and eventually he was granted a job as a commisary collecting foodstuffs for the Invincible Armada.

• He became a Book Keeper and was twice imprisoned for owing money to the treasury from a shortage in his accounts.

• He started writing Don Quixote in prison and finally completed it in 1604.

• Don Quixote, his masterpiece, was an inmediate bestseller, but he did not get no further profit from the book, other than the money originally his publisher paid.

• When he was 67 years old, still dogged by poverty and with his health failing, he began the sequel of Don Quixote.

• He met with misfortune and disillusion like his hero, although during the last years of his life he solidified his reputation as a writer.

Literary Works:-Don Quixote.-Exemplary Novels, twelve stories about local life in Spain.-Eight Interludes and Eight Comedies.The Troubles of Persiles and Segismunda, his last work.

• He died on April 22nd, 1616, the same month that marks the death of William Shakespeare.