Read this excerpt from a Wikipedia entry: Man of La Mancha3 and the biography entry for Miguel de Cervantes and answer the quest
ion.
Synopsis
It is the late sixteenth century. Failed author-soldier-actor and tax collector Miguel de Cervantes has been thrown into a dungeon by the Spanish Inquisition, along with his manservant. They have been charged with foreclosing on a monastery. The two have brought all their possessions with them into the dungeon. There, they are attacked by their fellow prisoners, who instantly set up a mock trial. If Cervantes is found guilty, he will have to hand over all his possessions. Cervantes agrees to do so, except for a precious manuscript which the prisoners are all too eager to burn. He asks to be allowed to offer a defense, and the defense will be a play, acted out by him and all the prisoners. The "judge," a sympathetic criminal called "the Governor," agrees.
Cervantes takes out a makeup kit from his trunk, and the manservant helps him get into a costume. In a few short moments, Cervantes has transformed himself into Alonso Quijana, an old gentleman who has read so many books of chivalry and thought so much about injustice that he has lost his mind and now believes that he should go forth as a knight-errant. Quijana renames himself Don Quixote de La Mancha, and sets out to find adventures with his "squire," Sancho Panza. They both sing the title song Man of La Mancha (I, Don Quixote) .
Synopsis
The son of a deaf surgeon, Miguel de Cervantes was born near Madrid in 1547. He became a soldier in 1570 and was badly wounded in the Battle of Lepanto. Captured by the Turks in 1575, de Cervantes spent five years in prison. He was freed in 1580 and returned home. De Cervantes finally achieved literary success in his later years, publishing the first part of Don Quixote in 1605. He died in 1616.
"Too much sanity may be madness and the maddest of all, to see life as it is and not as it should be."
— Miguel de Cervantes
Early Years
For nearly his entire life, Miguel de Cervantes struggled financially. His father, Rodrigo, deaf from birth, worked as a surgeon—a lowly trade at the time. De Cervantes and his family moved around several times in his youth, as his father searched for better work prospects.
De Cervantes was an avid reader as a child—a skill he was reportedly taught by a relative. Whether he had much formal education has been a subject of debate among scholars. Some believe that de Cervantes may have been taught by the Jesuits based on some of his writings, but others dispute this claim.
Poetry and War
The first published works by de Cervantes appear in 1569. He contributed some poetry to a memorial collection after the death of Elizabeth of Valois, the wife of Spanish king Philip II. By the following year, de Cervantes had put his words aside and, instead, picked up a weapon: He had joined a Spanish military unit in Italy.
Known for his bravery, de Cervantes took part in the Battle of Lepanto. Stationed on the ship La Marquesa, he fought against the Ottoman Empire and sustained serious injuries in the conflict: He suffered two chest wounds and his left hand was completely maimed. Despite his disability, de Cervantes continued to serve as a soldier for several more years.
In 1575, de Cervantes and his brother, Rodrigo, tried to return to Spain, but they were captured by a group of Turkish ships during their voyage. De Cervantes spent five years as a prisoner and a slave, and made several failed attempts to escape during his imprisonment. He finally went home after a ransom was paid for his release.
Don Quixote
De Cervantes published his first novel, La Galatea, in 1585. This pastoral romance failed to make much of a splash. Around the same time, de Cervantes tried to make it the then-lucrative world of theater (plays were an important form of entertainment in Spain at the time, and a successful playwright could earn a good living). Unfortunately, de Cervantes did not achieve fortune and fame with his plays. In fact, only two of his plays survived.
In late 1580s, de Cervantes began working for Spanish Armada as a commissary. It was a thankless task, collecting grain supplies from rural communities. Many did not want to provide the goods, and de Cervantes ended up in prison on two occasions because of charges of mismanagement. During this trying time, he began writing some of literature's greatest masterpieces.
De Cervantes published the first part of Don Quixote in 1605. The novel tells the story of an elderly man who becomes so enamored by old stories of brave knights that he seeks out his adventures.
Write a summary of how Cervantes' portrayal of his main characters compares with how Dale Wasserman, playwright of Man of La Mancha, portrays his main characters. Provide details from at least two of the following in your answer: the synopsis of Man of La Mancha, the excerpt of Don Quixote, or the synopsis of Miguel de Cervantes.
