Tag Archives: Cervantes

Cervantes on the beach

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I’ve just returned home from a glorious visit to the Caribbean. My husband and I resolved to do nothing but relax during our stay, and for the most part we managed to honor this commitment. However, my passion for Spanish linguistics is irrepressible! Even while lazing on the beach, I couldn’t resist taking note of several linguistically interesting passages in one of the Spanish books I tossed into my suitcase: a collection of three Novelas ejemplares by Miguel de Cervantes, the author of Don Quijote.

Cervantes published these novelas — actually, short stories — in 1613, between the two volumes of Don Quijote. El licenciado Vidriera, the first story I read, takes place in the academic and courtly communities of Salamanca and Valladolid. La gitanilla focuses on an itinerant gypsy tribe, while Rinconete y Cortadillo describes the initiation of two teenage boys into a gang of street criminals in Seville. The three stories thus offer diverse perspectives on the people and places of Golden Age Spain. 

I will be writing several blog entries about the Novelas ejemplares in the upcoming days. Here are the topics I’ll cover; I’ll add links to the individual entries as I write them:

  • the use of the noun color with feminine gender;
  • sentences that, while lacking the explicit Spanish words for ‘former’ and ‘latter’ (aquel and este), follow the Spanish convention of putting ‘latter’ before ‘former’;
  • camarada, a nice example of a noun ending in -a that can be either masculine or feminine;
  • an explicit reference to the dialectal phenomenon of ceceo;
  • two examples of gustar used in a ‘forwards’ rather than its normal ‘backwards’ fashion;
  • a case study in how to learn a new word (the innocent-sounding piedeamigo);
  • the antiquated word hestoria;
  • exciting (to me) examples of the future subjunctive “in the wild”.

 

 

Walking in Cervantes’s (baby) footsteps)

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¿Don Quijote or Sancho Panza?

Like Gilligan’s Island fans trying to decide between Ginger and Mary Ann, visitors to Alcalá de Henares have to decide between their two favorite characters in Cervantes’s Don Quijote de la Mancha. Do you prefer the Don himself, the delusional would-be knight errant, or Sancho, his hapless but willing squire? Visitors can register their vote by choosing where to sit on the bench outside Cervantes’s childhood home, now a charming museum. You can see my vote below.

Don Quijote or Sancho Panza

Since Alcalá de Henares is a major stop on the Camino del Castellano, one of the inspirations for my linguistic tour of northern Spain, my companion Sue and I decided to spend a day there before leaving Madrid for Salamanca. Alcalá is known for its Cervantes connection and its university, founded at the end of the fifteenth century. Out two favorite stops were the Cervantes museum and the city’s cathedral. The museum is in Cervantes’ actual childhood home, although the furnishings and other decor are not original to the house. The curators have made a strong effort to recreate what the different parts of the house would have looked out, from the ladies’ sitting room, decked out Moorish style with carpets and low furniture, to the braziers in the middle of each room.

Lady’s sitting room in the Museo Casa Natal de Cervantes

The cathedral stands on the spot linked in legend to the 304 C.E. martyrdom of the Santos Niños, two young brothers who declared their faith in Christ knowing that it would lead to their death. The cathedral’s crypt includes the rock on which they were supposedly beheaded, while its museum includes treasures like this priestly robe made in the Phillipines (shown below, alongside an enlarged view of one of the birds embroidered on it). The church was severely damaged during the Spanish Civil War and only repaired in the 1990s. It’s sad to think that this national treasure suffered, like so many Spaniards, from that tragic period in the nation’s history.

vestment

 

One final note: back in Madrid, we wrapped up our day with a quick visit to the Reina Sofía museum to pay homage to Picasso’s masterpiece Guernica, which I used to see in New York’s MOMA when I was a girl (it went back to Spain when Franco died). Looking at the innocent victims screaming in agony, all I could think was: Orlando.