A parody of the chivalric romances popular in Cervantes’s day, Don Quixote informs as it entertains. The work is considered the first modern novel because of how its central characters interact and because of its general reflections on life in Counter- Reformation Spain.
Spain’s Golden Age—imperial pre-eminence. Cervantes was born 50 years into Spain’s ascension as a global empire. The nation rapidly achieved the rank of a world power after the union through marriage of Queen Isabella I of Castile and King Ferdinand of Aragon in 1469. In 1492 Columbus’s discovery of the New World gave Spain footholds in both Americas, lands occupied by indigenous peoples, whom Spain proceeded to conquer and colonize. Shortly thereafter, through war and marriage, Spain gained control of most of Western Europe, including much of Italy, Germany, the Netherlands, and Austria. The breadth of Spain’s achievement was awe-inspiring, prompting King Ferdinand to claim in 1514, “the crown of Spain has not for over seven hundred years been as great or resplendent as it now is” (Ferdinand in Kamen, p. 9).
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