1. TILTING AT WINDMILLS
MIGUEL DE CERVANTES

2. MIGUEL DE CERVANTES
• The exact date of his birth is not known, but it
is probable that he was born on September
29, the feast day of Saint Michael the
Archangel, given the tradition to name a child
with the name of the feast day of his birth.
• His father was Rodrigo de Cervantes, a
surgeon of Galician descen

3. • While in Tomar, Portugal, in 1581, Cervantes
was given money to accomplish a royal
mission to Oran.
• On December 12, 1584, Cervantes married
Doña Catalina de Palacios Salazar y
Vozmediano, from Esquivias, in the old
kingdom of Toledo, Spain.

4. • It is very probable that Cervantes was jailed
again for financial reasons. Most of his time
must have been taken up by the writing
of Don Quixote. In January 1605 Don
Quixote was published in Madrid. It was an
immediate success. In the words of the
German philosopher F. W. J. von Schellin

5. “TILTING AT WINDMILLS”
• Attacking imaginary enemies.
• The phrase derives from an episode in the
novel Don Quixote by Miguel de Cervantes. In
the novel, Don Quixote fights windmills that
he imagines to be giants. Quixote sees the
windmill blades as the giant's arms.

6. • Part I published in 1605; Part II in 1615.
• Don Quixote is considered the most influential
work of literature from the Spanish Golden
Age and the entire Spanish literary canon.
• Don Quixote was cited as the "best literary
work ever written".

7. • As a founding work of modern Western
literature, and one of the earliest canonical
novels, it regularly appears high on lists of the
greatest works of fiction ever published.

8. •TILTING AT
WINDMILLS
STORY