Miguel+de+Cervantes+by+Sam+Park

Miguel de Cervantes by Sam Park


 * 1) **Name**: Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra
 * 2) **Birth/Death Date**: September 29, 1547 - April 23, 1616
 * 3) **Childhood/Family Life**: He was born in Alcalá de Henares, a small town near Madrid, into a family of the minor nobility. His mother was Leonor de Cortinas; she gave birth to seven children, Cervantes was the fourth. Rodrigo de Cervantes, his father, was an apothecary-surgeon. Much of his childhood Cervantes spent moving from town to town while his father sought work. In 1584, he married 18 years younger Catalina de Salazar y Palacios, the daughter of a well-to-do peasant. The marriage was childless. He had also a daughter, Isabel de Saavedra, from an affair he had with an actress, Ana Franca de Rojas. In the late 1580s Cervantes left his wife. During the next 20 years, he led a nomadic existence, also working as a purchasing agent for the Spanish Armada and a tax collector. He suffered a bankruptcy and was imprisoned at least twice because of fiscal irregularities. For a period he was excommunicated for expropriating grain from Church stores. In 1606, Cervantes settled permanently in Madrid where he spent the rest of his life. Miguel de Cervantes died in 1616. He is buried in the Convent of the Barefoot Trinitarians in Madrid, Spain.
 * 4) **Personality of Author**: He seems to have led a varied life – from being an attendant to a cardinal to collecting taxes to finally entering a brotherhood where he led a very simple life. Whatever else his life may have been, it certainly was not monotonous.
 * 5) **Famous Writings**: **Don Quixote, La Española Inglesa**(The English Spanish Lady), and **La Galatea**(The Gypsy Girl).
 * 6) **Interesting Facts**
 * According to Cervantes, he wrote 30 plays, but only two copies have survived.
 * Cervantes joined a Spanish regiment in Naples. He took part in the sea battle at Lepanto, during which he received a wound that permanently maimed his left hand. Cervantes was extremely proud of his role in the famous victory and of the nickname he earned, the cripple of Lepanto.
 * In 1575, he set out with his brother Rodrigo on the galley El Sol for Spain. The ship was captured by pirates under Arnaute Mami and the brothers were taken to Algiers as slaves. His brother was ransomed in 1577 but the Moors thought that Cervantes was more valuable because he was carrying letters written by important persons. He spent five years as a slave until his family could raise enough money to pay his ransom. During this period he tried to escape several times without success. Cervantes was released in 1580, with the ransom money raised by his family and the Trinitarian order.
 * Don Quixote exerted a profound influence on European literature and it was published to great success and widely lauded for its satire of existing tales of chivalry and mischief.
 * His famous quote: " Everyone is as God made him, and often a great deal worse. Every man is as heaven made him, and sometimes a great deal worse."
 * His influence on the Spanish Language has been so great that Spanish is often called **la lengua de Cervantes**(the language of Cervantes). He has been dubbed **El Príncipe de los Ingenios**(The Prince of Wits).

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