Cervantes’ tomb and literary pilgrimage
Investigators in Madrid say they have found bones that probably include those of Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra, better known as Cervantes, the creator of Don Quixote. That the discovery should come just in time for the 400th anniversary of the writer’s death helps explain what otherwise might have seemed a quest better suited for the knight-errant of La Mancha.
Historical records indicated that Cervantes was buried in the crypt of the Convent of the Discalced Trinitarians in the Literary Quarter of Madrid, but the Madrid City Council financed a yearlong search to establish this as certain. What Francisco Etxeberria, a forensic expert involved in the search, actually found was a common grave with the remains of 15 people, but he declared he was convinced that “we have Cervantes”. Certainly the writer, whose immortal novel is all about imposing romantic fiction onto mundane reality, would have savoured the quest.
If the discovery bolsters interest in Cervantes and his works and leads more literary pilgrims to Madrid next year, well and good. But the costly search and the dramatic announcement of the discovery raise a question. What is it about the graves of great writers and poets that makes them so popular? Medieval Christianity’s fascination with religious relics — physical remains, personal effects, grave sites — had at least the benefit of bestowing grace on those who venerated them, while the relics of writers would seem to add little identifiable value to their life’s work.
Yet visitors flock to the Poets’ Corner in Westminster Abbey in London, where Geoffrey Chaucer was the first poet to be interred; or Shakespeare’s grave at Trinity Church in Stratford-upon-Avon, with its famed warning: “... And curst be he that moves my bones”; or Leo Tolstoy’s unmarked mound on his old estate, Yasnaya Polyana; or Oscar Wilde’s grave at the Père Lachaise Cemetery in Paris, with protective glass around it covered in lipstick kisses; or even the burial places of lesser luminaries like Ian Fleming whose epitaph would be equally appropriate for 007: “Having enjoyed all life’s prizes, you now decay.” These and hundreds more such hallowed graves around the world seem to exert an endless and powerful pull on visitors. It is not only the great writers whose graves draw visitors, of course; celebrities from Elvis Presley to Lenin also summon their share of tourists. But the places associated with historic literary figures and artists seem more hallowed than others. Perhaps this literary idolatry is in some sense related to the medieval pilgrimages: those who stand before the mortal remains of a great poet may feel they are receiving the grace of an immortal talent. More likely it is something as simple as paying respects to someone whose art has contributed beauty and wisdom to one’s own life.
Whatever the reason, we should be glad that Cervantes’ mortal remains have been found, and that they can now be ensconced in a proper monument.
That may well be a proper place to quote the writer’s own words from the prologue which he wrote to his final novel, when he knew that he was dying: “Farewell, waggish jokes; farewell, wittiness; farewell, merry friends, for I am dying and longing soon to see you, happy in the life to come.”