For years it was speculated that the titans of literature were the same person.
It is not possible to verify that Cervantes heard about his English contemporary.
View and download the special 'IV centenary of the death of Cervantes' in PDF.
Cervantes is to the Castilian language what William Shakespeare to the English. For years it was speculated, even, that the two titans of universal literature were the same person.
Some contrasting aspects have served to feed these theories-on the other hand, discarded by most historians and philologists.
In the first place, there is no real portrait of Cervantes. All his representations start from the description that the author of Quixote makes about himself in the prologue of his exemplary Novels.
In the same way, until recently, the idea that both writers died on the same day, April 23, 1616, was extended. However, their respective deaths did not have such concurrence.
Cervantes died on April 22 and was buried the next day - it is believed that in a crypt of the convent of Las Trinitarias in the Barrio de las Letras in Madrid. His funeral should have gone without great funerals or tributes. Nor is there a memorial tombstone.
Shakespeare, in contrast, rests in the Holy Trinity Church in the town of Stratford-upon-Avon (Birmingham), a place that has become a real center of tourist attraction. The author of Romeo and Juliet died on May 3. So, why is the confusion?
The answer is that in England and Spain different calendars governed. The Catholic Spanish authorities quickly implemented - like Italy and France - the new Gregorian calendar, 10 days apart from the old Julian calendar.
The English, recently split off from the Vatican doctrine, would maintain the Julian calendar until the middle of the eighteenth century.
Thus, the International Book Day, which was intended to pay homage to Cervantes and Shakespeare on April 23, was built on an error. Or perhaps not so much, considering that the Inca Garcilaso de la Vega, the "first biological and spiritual mestizo of America", did end his days on that date.
The relationship between both authors
But, even with all the points about the I's -about the false similarities-, the relationship between Cervantes and Shakespeare is still under study. The American critic and literary theorist Harold Bloom, at that time professor of the universities of Yale and New York - besides declared cervantista -, considers that "Cervantes was and is, with Shakespeare, the main western writer since the ancients and Dante. three permanent characters: Sancho Panza, Don Quixote and Cervantes himself. "
One aspect that does seem proven is that there was a day when Shakespeare decided to read Cervantes. Moreover, not only did he read the first part of Don Quixote-translated into English by Thomas Shelton in 1612-but he left a mark that led him to develop the quixotic character of Cardenio.
Unfortunately, the track of this book was lost after the fire of the theater The Globe of London in 1613, and it is an unknown if there is any specimen whose whereabouts are unknown. What is no longer so plausible is that Cervantes and Shakespeare had met, or, even less, that they came to speak at a tavern.
It is true that Miguel de Cervantes was a great traveler but, on the contrary, there is not much evidence that William Shakespeare -worried and wealthy- had the need or concern to cross the borders of his native country. It is not even possible to verify that Cervantes heard about his English contemporary.