In 1575 Cervantes was returning to Spain when his ship was captured by Turkish pirates; for the next five years he was held as a slave for ransom in Algiers. His genuinely heroic efforts to organize escape attempts and the respect with which he was treated by his captors are the stuff of legend.
After a dramatic last-minute ransom that saved him from being shipped to Constantinople and perhaps lost forever to posterity, Cervantes arrived in Spain in 1580 only to learn that ex-soldiers often receive less than the admiring welcome and support of a grateful society that they might have expected. Upon his return Cervantes settled in Madrid, where he turned from arms to letters and became a significant figure in the formative era of the Spanish theater. During this period Cervantes had a liaison with an actress, which led to the birth of his only child, his daughter Isabel. In 1584 he married the respectable Catalina de Salazar from Esqivias, in La Mancha. Long periods of separation in their married life, together with the fact that they had no children, have suggested that the marriage was less than successful, although some biographers also point out that Cervantes's frequent stays in Esquivias can also suggest a more stable family situation.
Cervantes's first substantial work of prose fiction, the pastoral romance entitled Galatea, was published in 1585. Shortly thereafter Cervantes was employed as a civil servant, first requisitioning supplies for the Spanish Armada, and then as a tax collector, performing tasks that required constant travel, mostly in southern Spain. On at least two occasions, in 1597 and 1602, he was jailed when his accounts did not balance. By 1604 Cervantes was living in Valladolid, then the site of the court, writing some of the fiction that was to be published subsequently.
After the appearance of the first part of Don Quixote in 1605, Cervantes moved with the court to Madrid in 1606; there he was to reside for the remainder of his life. Little is known of his activities (besides writing) during this period. After a surprising eight-year lapse of time, Cervantes's final years saw the publication of a brilliant series of works: 1613, Exemplary Tales; 1614, the poetic Voyage to Parnassus; 1615, Don Quixote II and Eight Plays. On April 23, 1616, having recently taken Franciscan vows and been administered last rites, Cervantes died, probably of dropsy. He was buried in an unmarked grave in the Trinitarian convent on what is today the Street of Lope de Vega in Madrid.
Cervantes's life, with its classic mixture of glory and failure, as a model for the artist who was not appreciated by his contemporaries as he would be by posterity, and as an example of how one can maintain humanity and optimism in the face of repeated setbacks and disappointinents, is almost as much a source of inspiration as are his greatest literary efforts. Biographers, novelists, poets, dramatists (e.g., as in the case of the American musical comedy Man of La Mancha) have often fused Miguel de Cervantes and Don Quixote into a single character. In the most literal sense, Cervantes's own words, "Each man is the child of his own works," are true in his case.
Cervantes's literary works include the following: La Galatea (1585; Galatea, 1833); El ingenioso hidalgo Don Quijote de la Mancha (1605; The History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, 1612); Novelas ejemplares (1613; Exemplarie Novells, 1640); Viaje del Parnaso (1614; Voyage to Parnassus, 1870); Segunda parte del ingenioso caballero Don Quijote de la Mancha (1615; The Second Part of the History of the Valorous and Wittie Knight-Errant, Don Quixote of the Mancha, 1620); Ocho comedias y ocho entremeses (1615; Eight Plays and Eight Interludes); Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda (1617; The Trials of Persiles and Sigismunda, 1619); miscellaneous poetry, especially the "Epístola a Mateo Vázquez" (Letter to Mateo Vazquez); and two plays from the 1580s, Los tratos de Argel (The Commerce of Algiers, 1870) and La Numancia (Numantia, 1885). In addition, several works have been attributed to Cervantes: the story' "La tia fingida" (The Feigned Aunt), several interludes, various poems, and a fragment of dialogue entitled "La vida del campo" (Country Life), which has been proposed either as part of the sequel to Galatea or as a section from the projected Semanas del jardín (Weeks in the Garden).
The premise of the 1605 Don Quixote is intertextual. The book is a parody and satire on the romances of chivalry; it contains an ongoing commentary, both literal and metaphorical, on all types of fiction, as well as popular and erudite poetry and the theater; it is an intensely self-conscious literary artifact. Everything don Quixote does in the early part of the novel is in conscious imitration of his literary models: Amadís de Gaula, Belianís de Grecia, and other heroes of chivalric romances. Other characters such as Sancho Panza, friends and relatives from the village of La Mancha, and various innkeepers, travelers and brief acquaintances made along the way, all participate, with greater or lesser enthusiasm and will, in the knight-errant's world of chivalry.
The opposition between the mad, book-inspired, idealistic knight and his sane, pragmatic, materialistic squire appears to be absolute at the beginning of their relationship. But this simple truth--as is the case with all other facile statements about this novel--obscures the subtle, constantly shifting and evolving, relationship between the two as the book progresses. Early in the novel Sancho distracts Don Quixote from his chivalric enterprise, brings out his humanity through humor, and constantly points out--and sometimes forces his master to acknowledge--reality. Meanwhile, the knight-errant broadens the simple farmer's horizons, introducing him to a variety of literature, intellectual discourse, and social interaction that he had never before experienced. Don Quixote begins as an absolute madman, transforms reality to fit his aesthetic construct, is supremely confident in his physical prowess, admits no compromise, and acts before he reflects. By the end of the book he is physically exhausted from the beatings he has received and emotionally and spiritually sapped from the lies and deceits of both friends and casual acquaintances; when he is defeated in the battle with the penitents in Ch. 52 he offers no excuse, and returns home amid scorn and derision in absolute silence, his chivalric career brought to a close. Sancho, meanwhile, slowly assumes an increasingly responsible role in the relationship and even sallies forth in quixotic defense of his master when the latter's supposed friends enviously humiliate and demean him (Chs. 47 and 52). The Sancho who returns home at the end of the book and assures his wife that it is a lovely thing to search for adventures and visit castles is virtually a new man.
The structure of Don Quixote is episodic and has appeared simple and arbitrary to many readers. Such, however, is not the case. The work is carefully modulated to swing between action and reflection, primary and secondary narration. There is ample evidence that Cervantes revised the structure of his text in order to achieve a greater variety and balance of tone, rhythm and theme. A complex web of intratextual allusion to events and concepts is used to develop character, theme and style in such a way that to remove or modify any part would be to jeopardize the whole.