Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda

Abstract

Published posthumously, Los trabajos de Persiles y Sigismunda: Historia setentrional (1617) was the triumphant capstone to a remarkable run of works written, revised, or concluded in the wake of the first part of Don Quixote (1605). Cervantes would leave his inventive stamp on every major genre of literary entertainment then fashionable: myriad verse forms, drama, pastoral and chivalric novels, the novella, the Menippean satirical dream, and the Heliodoran adventure novel, along with others as interpolated tale, incident, or passing characterization. The last four years of his life, which saw a rapid succession of publications, suggest a veteran writer used to taking his time but now acutely aware it was running out. Proud of the 1605 Quixote’s wild popularity, Cervantes was also anxious to shape his literary legacy so that it would not be swallowed up by its run-away success.