I 2016 noterte verden dødsfallene for 400 år siden av William Shakespeare og Miguel de Cervantes - to av de største gigantene i vestlig litteraturhistorie. Dramatiker og romanforfatter hadde lite til felles, bortsett fra deres ekstraordinære oppfinnsomhet, universaliteten i appellen og det tilsynelatende tilfeldigheten av deres nesten identiske dødsdatoer (faktisk brukte England den julianske kalenderen og Spania den gregorianske kalenderen på den tiden, så datoene var faktisk 10 dager fra hverandre). Det var imidlertid en fristende mulig kontaktpunkt. Et teaterstykke som ble rapportert å ha blitt skrevet av Shakespeare (med dramatikeren John Fletcher) og fremført i 1613, The History of Cardenio, antas å ha vært basert på hendelser i historien om en rollefigur i Cervantes allerede feirede roman Don Quixote. Manuskriptet til stykket er imidlertidble aldri oppdaget.
Shakespeare.
23. april 1616 døde den engelske poeten og dramatikeren William Shakespeare i hans hjemby Stratford-upon-Avon i en alder av 52. Hans død skjedde på eller nær bursdagen hans (den eksakte datoen for hans fødsel er fortsatt ukjent), noe som kan ha vært kilden til en senere legende om at han ble syk og døde etter en natt med mye drikking med to andre forfattere, Ben Jonson og Michael Drayton. Selv om Shakespeare hadde oppnådd en viss grad av anerkjennelse og økonomisk suksess i løpet av sitt liv, var det å skrive for scenen på hans tidspunkt ikke ennå tenkt på som en seriøs kunstnerisk forfølgelse, og hans beskjedne begravelse i Holy Trinity Church var mer egnet til en velstående lokal pensjonist enn en kjendis. I løpet av få år etter hans død begynte imidlertid Shakespeares venner og beundrere å legge grunnlaget for hans litterære udødelighet.I 1623 samlet John Heminge og Henry Condell skuespillene sine til en stor utgave av stort format. Den utgaven ble kjent som First Folio, en av de mest berømte tekstene i engelsk litteratur. I håp om at verden etter hvert skulle anerkjenne Shakespeares geni, forkynte Jonson - en viktig litterær skikkelse i seg selv - i folioens forord at vennen hans var forfatter “ikke i en tid, men for all tid!” De fire århundrene siden Shakespeares død har bekreftet Jonsons vurdering. "Bard of Avon" har en plass i historien som en av de største forfatterne som har levd, og hans arbeid fortsetter å bli fremført, lest og undervist over hele verden. Shakespeares arv utviklet seg også for å følge med på skiftende tider; for eksempel på 1900- og 21. århundre ble skuespillene hans tilpasset hundrevis av spillefilmer.
In 2016 Shakespeare was lavishly honoured. The Globe Theatre in London organized The Complete Walk—a 4-km (2.5-mi) course that included 37 short films, each of which explored one Shakespearean play; the project was to be exported to cities in several other countries. The Royal Opera House live-streamed performances from opera and ballet adaptations of Shakespeare’s works. The British Council offered interactive options, including films and the opportunity for members of the public to create a scene from A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A free six-week MOOC (massive open online course) on the life and works of Shakespeare was also offered. In the U.S. the Folger Shakespeare Library developed a traveling exhibition intended to take a copy of the First Folio to each state.
Cervantes.
Spanish author Miguel de Cervantes died in Madrid on April 22, 1616. He was buried the next day in a convent. When the convent was rebuilt decades later, Cervantes’s remains were moved, but at some point their exact location became unknown. The grave of Spain’s greatest writer had essentially vanished. Cervantes himself was by no means forgotten, however. Cervantes became a war hero in the 1571 Battle of Lepanto, during which he received two gunshot wounds in the chest and a third that rendered his left hand useless, a disability that earned him the nickname “el Manco de Lepanto.” In 1575 a ship on which he was traveling was attacked by Barbary pirates, and as a result, Cervantes spent five years as a slave in Algiers. He began writing in 1585, trying his hand—with limited success—first at the fashionable genre of pastoral romance and later as a playwright and as a poet. His attempts to support himself as a commissary of provisions and as a tax collector were disastrous; he was twice imprisoned for discrepancies in his bookkeeping. However, the first part of his novel Don Quixote was instantly popular when it was published in 1605. Over the next six years, the work was reprinted across mainland Europe. The publication jumped the English Channel, was translated, and appeared in London in 1612. Two decades after he began writing, Cervantes had found a ravenous audience, so he started a Part II. He had not yet completed that work when a bogus sequel by an unknown author was published in 1614. That perfidy proved to be of no consequence, however; Cervantes’s own Part II was published in 1615, and it quickly spread across Europe and to England. Cervantes enjoyed few benefits from the success of Don Quixote. Because he had sold the publishing rights to his work, he made little money from Part I, and he died less than a year after Part II was released. Yet the novel flourished, in Spanish and particularly in translation. Its central characters, Don Quixote and Sancho Panza, became familiar to generations of readers. By the 20th century, scholars were flattering Don Quixote by subjecting it to every sort of analysis, from which the novel emerged gleaming and resilient. It remained a good, if troubling, story—funny, affecting, and wayward, with paroxysms of violence and suffering that continued to shock. In March 2015 Cervantes suddenly rose from his grave. Spanish researchers announced their discovery of bones that they thought were his. Scientific testing confirmed the hunch, and Cervantes’s remains were reburied in June. The rediscovery of his bones, however, seemed superfluous. Cervantes had proved centuries earlier that he did not require his body to survive.
Cervantes was celebrated in Spain and elsewhere as the inventor of the modern novel. Tours of his hometown, Alcalá de Henares, offered a greater understanding of the writer. The National Dance Company of Spain performed Ballet Don Quixote in various Spanish cities, beginning in Valencia. Students at the University of Málaga gave a reading of the first chapter of Don Quixote in 18 different languages. An exhibition at the National Library in Madrid offered an overview of Cervantes’s work and its worldwide influence. In addition, the Cervantes Institute, the embassy of Spain, and the Film Development Council of the Philippines presented a series of films based on the writings of Cervantes, which were not limited to his immortal novel. An exhibit, Don Quixotes Around the World, which focused on the many translations into some 140 different languages of the novel and its dissemination around the world, began in Madrid and traveled to several other cities during the year.
