Cervantes wrote “Don Quixote de la Mancha” to mock the books of chivalry and the knights-errant that populated it. We will have heard and read it many times, but this Friday it was denied in Castro del Rio: “Whoever says that Cervantes is looking for knights errant and books of chivalry is lying. “It does not stand up to a lucid reading when we see what Cervantes thinks about courage, war and history.”
It didn’t take long for the writer Arturo Pérez-Reverte capturing the attention of those who heard it during the first conference of the Cervantes Days which take place in the city and which aroused notable anticipation.
‘Soldier of Lepanto. Courage, Militia and the History of Don Quixote’ was the title of his lecture, in which, before accessing the writer’s experience as a soldier, he began by denying that his work eliminated books of chivalry. “When Cervantes was writing, books of chivalry were in decline, because their peak was in the previous century,” said Pérez-Reverte, who also stressed that he was not making fun of all the works of the genre that had been so popular, “but only bad“.
“The old soldier of Lepanto admires the heroism and he venerates him and satirizes the decadence of knights-errant”, declared the writer, which explains the anachronism of his attire, because Don Quixote could go in search of adventures dressed as a knight from the war of Grenade.
The author spoke about “Captain Alatriste” of what he called the “nudges” of Cervantes, that is to say the winks, and one of them, when he speaks of soldiers and weapons, is the memory of his brother, Rodrigo de Cervantes, who fell in combat in Flanders five years previously. publication of the masterpiece of literature in the Spanish language.
The reading of “Don Quixote de la Mancha” by Arturo Pérez-Reverte was profound and he assured that Don Quixote is not courageous: “He only believes that he is.” For him, it is more evident in the second part, as the plot progresses, and in Catalonia, in Barcelona, ”he finds the real adventure, the real blood.” “When the bachelor Samson Carrasco defeats and kills him, in a way, he eliminates a dying hero. The one who was brave was Miguel de Cervantes, and when Don Quixote attacks, he actually uses Cervantes’ heart.
The writer covered the work extensively and found many examples of how he admired heroism and couragewhich he had shown at the battle of Lepanto, and of which he spoke so many times. “The wounds from before glory “They’re taking it away,” he says at one point.
Pérez-Reverte explained that at that time, Miguel de Cervantes was an obscure civil servant who worked as collector“and that’s the complete opposite of heroism.” But he has nostalgia for what he experienced, for the captive of Algiers, after the battle of Lepanto, whom his captors had respected.
“He likes to receive and pronounce that he is a Spanish soldier, and that is his glory and his comfort“And even more now that it tastes like ashes, and that his companions are begging at the doors of the churches,” he says.
I wanted to go to America“but they were not soldiers, but officials and priests, so they did not allow him to try his luck.” The summary was “The Odyssey”: “Hector and Achilles no longer exist, now he is Odysseus and he must be called nobody.”
Soul of Spain
He denied another sentence from Unamuno: Don Quixote does not embody the soul of the Spanish people, which is in the dukes, the innkeepers and those who despised and mistreated him. “Don Quixote looks at himself in the mirror of unrewarded courage and regrets the invention of artillerywhich is used remotely. “He who speaks thus is not a foolish gentleman, but a sensible man.”
This is why he declared Arturo Pérez-ReverteDon Quixote is a work that you don’t understand until you’re 40. As the second part progresses, “at the beginning he was sure of his worth, and this firmness cracks as the pages go by, to begin to be more thoughtful.”
He did not neglect the speech on arms and letters, in which he speaks of the embarked militias and which shows “a deep knowledge of military life, which inspires continuous reflections”. It is not in vain, for him, that arm to letters and “the honor of a soldier will accompany him all his life, when he says that the soldier seems rather to have died in battle than dead in flight.” Military slang and Germanic words appear constantly, as in the episode where Don Quixote frees the galley slaves.
The second lecture was given by the writer Juan Eslava Galán, who was to speak about the Cervantas, that is, the women who were part of his family. They were not secondary charactersbut they knew how to read and write and managed to support the family in certain situations.
No fortune
He was talking about the writer’s father, Rodrigo de Cervantes, a hemorrhagic surgeon, that is to say a kind of nurse, but without much fortune. The family, especially the grandfather Juan de Cervantes, a prestigious jurist, had been in the service of the Duke of Infantado in Guadalajara, but they had to leave and ended up in many places. Miguel’s aunt was there, Marriedwho ends up becoming the lover of the Gypsy, “a bastard son that the Duke had”. When she was abandoned, she was able to sue the heir to compensate him.
Miguel de Cervantes’ sisters also had to overcome difficult situations. Magdalena and Andrea’s marriages, to members of the Portocarrero family, were not very happy, but even though they failed, they also showed themselves capable of not only moving forward themselves, but also of to do with their father and with everyone who was in their family. the family needed help.
This is why the reputation of being easy accompanied them. So, when ValladolidEslava Galán said that a mortally wounded man appeared at the doors, a woman insinuated something about the many men who entered the house. For Juan Eslava Galán, we must not forget that they were “what today we would call autonomous women”.
