Cervantes Square sees and thinks
▓ Zhang Changning
From Seville, Spain to Madrid, the preferred attraction coordinates are the long-looking Plaza de España, turning the bustling downtown street eyes suddenly bright, the huge square in the center of a rectangular clear water pool, mirror-like water reflects tall monuments and groups of statues.
Don Quixote, riding a skinny horse with a spear in his hand, and Sancho, a donkey-ridden servant with a round shield on his back.
Also known as Piazza Cervantes, the giant stone statue of Miguel de Cervantes, built from 1925 to 1930 in honor of Miguel de Cervantes, is a giant of world culture, Cervantes, whose facial expression is harsh and melancholy, and whose right hand buckles is his hardcover don Quixote book, which has been called "the first modern novel in the history of world culture", and his left arm, which has been fought for by the sculptor, has been covered by the sculptor's cloak.
The bronze statue below the stone sculpture of Cervantes is the two protagonists of Don Quixote: Don Quixote, riding a thin horse with a spear, and Sancho, a donkey servant with a round shield on his back. In addition, Cervantes' village girl Altosha Rozhiso and the imaginary beautiful Durcinia Thierso Toposo, two statues, one to the left and one to the right, are separated from the stone piers on either side, and the stone-carved Cervantes seems to be looking down on their every move.
Most of this square was built between 1925 and 1930, and at the top of the Monument to Cervantes is a globe sculpture, and the five people in a circle under the ball represent the five continents of the world, symbolizing the immortal masterpiece "Don Quixote" that enjoys the five continents of the world, is the pride of Spain, and is also a treasure of world culture and art. The German poet Heine once concluded that in the three major fields of novel, drama and poetry, there are three giants who have reached the pinnacle, namely Cervantes, Shakespeare, and Goethe.
Panoramic view of Plaza de España
According to Sophia, a Chinese-American Spanish guide, there is a tall building behind each side of Piazza Cervantes, which was once the tallest building in Europe, madrid tower and Spanish tower, which were built in 1948. In the early years, Spain was credit-downgraded after the Greek sovereign debt crisis, which also showed symptoms of national fiscal fragility. The Chinese Wanda Company came to buy the Spanish Building for a lot of money, and it was expected that the Spanish state leader would be replaced, and legal disputes would be caused by the fact that the rear officials ignored the front account.
Miguel de Cervantes had a rough life, he was disabled in the left arm of the war, kidnapped on the way back from the army, pirates were plundered as slaves, redeemed to return to China as a petty official and falsely imprisoned, but he conceived and began to write "Don Quixote" with a tenacious will in prison, he was more than 50 years old, he projected his extraordinary experience to the protagonist of the novel, Don Quixote, describing this ranger knight full of the ideal of helping the weak and the strong, 3 times from his hometown to defend the shield and carry a gun around the country, Eventually, he was seriously injured and sent back to his hometown as a madman.
When I was in college, don Quixote was an important part of our Chinese foreign literature course, and it was also a must-read in school. In 1605, at the age of 58, the first of Don Quixote's don Quixote was finally published in Spain, and it was reprinted six times that year. In the book, Cervantes pinpointed the shortcomings of the times, exposed the darkness, ridiculed the magnates, dissatisfied with the church, and flogged hypocrites, etc., which were generally recognized by society and The Luoyang paper was expensive, but it attracted the slander and suppression of the mainstream class at that time. In 1614, someone forged a sequel to try to distort the protagonist of the novel, so Cervantes rushed to write the second part of don Quixote, which became popular again in Spain in 1615, and was translated into almost all kinds of languages, and is recognized as the first modern novel in history.
Cervantes's misfortune is also that the success of his writing did not lift him out of poverty, and he spent his sentences in many prisons without hesitation, which eventually destroyed his body repeatedly, so that his body was edema in his later years. When Cervantes needed to sign his will before he died, he shook his head and said he didn't have the money to pay for a lawyer and a notary firm. Cervantes died on 23 April 1616, after which it is difficult to know where he was buried.
Many years after Cervantes' death, his hometown and his country were finally proud of him, and the monument erected in Madrid in Piazza de España in the capital commemorated him, also in the most solemn way to express his belated apology. Later, Spain declared World Book Day on the month of Cervantes' death. Coincidentally, on April 23, 1616, William Shakespeare of England also died unexpectedly.
Although the two major cultural giants of the Western world shared the date of their deaths, they did not die on the same day. This is because Spain uses the Gregorian calendar, the calendar commonly used today. At that time, England still used the ancient Julian calendar, so Shakespeare should have bid farewell to Life 10 days later than Cervantes. Leaving The Piazza Cervantes and returning to the hotel, a check of the information found that on July 29, 1616, Tang Xianzu, the author of the ancient Chinese classic drama "Peony Pavilion", also unfortunately died, and the Chinese cultural master was in a hurry.
Zhang Changning close-up
Zhang Changning, born in Nanjing in 1954, has a bachelor's degree in Chinese from Nanjing University, and has been engaged in news gathering and editing business in Nanjing Daily and Xinhua Media Group for 30 years. The travelogues included in this series are all articles that the author has published in many newspapers and periodicals in recent years.