One of the first and most influential pre-modern picaresque novels was the Golden Ass of Apuleius, which he published sometime in the 2nd century CE. (ms. Vat. Lat. 2194, Vatican Library) (1345 illustration).The modern picaresque began with the Spanish novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) (title page)
The picaresque novel (Spanish: picaresca, from pícaro, for "rogue" or "rascal") is a genre of prose fiction. It depicts the adventures of a roguish, but "appealing hero", usually of low social class, who lives by his wits in a corrupt society.[1] Picaresque novels typically adopt a realistic style. There are often some elements of comedy and satire. While the term "picaresque novel" was only coined in 1810, the picaresque novel originated in Imperial Rome during the 1st-2nd century CE, in particular with works such as the Satyricon of Petronius and later, and more particularly with authors such as Apuleius in Roman Numidia. It would see a revival in Spain during the Spanish Golden Age in 1554. Early Spanish contributors included Mateo Alemán and Francisco de Quevedo, who were influenced in particular by Apuleius' 2nd century work. Other notable ancient influences of the modern picaresque genre include Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence. The Golden Ass of Apuleius nevertheless remains, according to many scholars such as F. W. Chandler, A. Marasso, T. Somerville and T. Bodenmüller, the primary influence for the modern Picaresque genre.[2] Subsequently, after the revival in Spain, the genre flourished throughout Europe for more than 200 years for the first time since the Roman period. It continues to influence modern literature.
According to the traditional view of Thrall and Hibbard (first published in 1936), seven qualities distinguish the picaresque novel or narrative form, all or some of which an author may employ for effect:[3]
A picaresque narrative is usually written in first person as an autobiographical account.
The main character is often of low character or social class. They get by with wits and rarely deign to hold a job.
There is little or no plot. The story is told in a series of loosely connected adventures or episodes.
There is little if any character development in the main character. Once a pícaro, always a pícaro. Their circumstances may change but these rarely result in a change of heart.
The pícaro's story is told with a plainness of language or realism.
The behavior of a picaresque protagonist stops just short of criminality. Carefree or immoral rascality positions the picaresque hero as a sympathetic outsider, untouched by the false rules of society.
In the English-speaking world, the term "picaresque" is often used loosely to refer to novels that contain some elements of this genre; e.g. an episodic recounting of adventures on the road.[4] The term is also sometimes used to describe works which only contain some of the genre's elements, such as Cervantes' Don Quixote, or Charles Dickens' Pickwick Papers.
Etymology
The word pícaro first starts to appear in Spain with the current meaning in 1545, though at the time it had no association with literature.[5] The word pícaro does not appear in Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), the novella credited by modern scholars with founding the genre. The expression picaresque novel was coined in 1810.[6][7] Whether it has any validity at all as a generic label in the Spanish sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Cervantes certainly used "picaresque" with a different meaning than it has today—has been called into question. There is unresolved debate within Hispanic studies about what the term means, or meant, and which works were, or should be, so called. The only work clearly called "picaresque" by its contemporaries was Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), which to them was the Libro del pícaro (The Book of the Pícaro).[8]
History
Lazarillo de Tormes and its sources
While elements of Chaucer and Boccaccio have a picaresque feel and may have contributed to the style,[9] the modern picaresque begins with Lazarillo de Tormes,[10] which was published anonymously in 1554 in Burgos, Medina del Campo, and Alcalá de Henares in Spain, and also in Antwerp, which at the time was under Spanish rule as a major city in the Spanish Netherlands. It is variously considered either the first picaresque novel or at least the antecedent of the genre.
The protagonist, Lázaro, lives by his wits in an effort to survive and succeed in an impoverished country full of hypocrisy. As a pícaro character, he is an alienated outsider, whose ability to expose and ridicule individuals compromised within society gives him a revolutionary stance.[11] Lázaro states that the motivation for his writing is to communicate his experiences of overcoming deception, hypocrisy, and falsehood (engaño).[12]
The character type draws on elements of characterization already present in Roman literature, especially Petronius' Satyricon. Lázaro shares some of the traits of the central figure of Encolpius, a former gladiator,[13][14] though it is unlikely that the author had access to Petronius' work.[15] From the comedies of Plautus, Lazarillo borrows the figure of the parasite and the supple slave. Other traits are taken from Apuleius' The Golden Ass.[13]The Golden Ass and Satyricon are rare surviving samples of the "Milesian tale", a popular genre in the classical world, and were revived and widely read in Renaissance Europe.
The principal episodes of Lazarillo are based on Arabic folktales that were well known to the Moorish inhabitants of Spain. The Arabic influence may account for the negative portrayal of priests and other church officials in Lazarillo.[16]Arabic literature, which was read widely in Spain in the time of Al-Andalus and possessed a literary tradition with similar themes, is thus another possible influence on the picaresque style. Al-Hamadhani (d.1008) of Hamadhan (Iran) is credited with inventing the literary genre of maqamat in which a wandering vagabond makes his living on the gifts his listeners give him following his extemporaneous displays of rhetoric, erudition, or verse, often done with a trickster's touch.[17] Ibn al-Astarkuwi or al-Ashtarkuni (d.1134) also wrote in the genre maqamat, comparable to later European picaresque.[18]
The curious presence of Russian loanwords in the text of the Lazarillo also suggests the influence of medieval Slavic tales of tricksters, thieves, itinerant prostitutes, and brigands, who were common figures in the impoverished areas bordering on Germany to the west. When diplomatic ties to Germany and Spain were established under the emperor Charles V, these tales began to be read in Italian translations in the Iberian Peninsula.[19]
As narrator of his own adventures, Lázaro seeks to portray himself as the victim of both his ancestry and his circumstance. This means of appealing to the compassion of the reader would be directly challenged by later picaresque novels such as Guzmán de Alfarache (1599/1604) and El Buscón (composed in the first decade of the 17th century and first published in 1626) because the idea of determinism used to cast the pícaro as a victim clashed with the Counter-Reformation doctrine of free will.[20]
Other initial works
Title page of the book Guzmán de Alfarache (1599)
An early example is Mateo Alemán's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), characterized by religiosity. Guzmán de Alfarache is a fictional character who lived in San Juan de Aznalfarache, Seville, Spain.
Francisco de Quevedo's El Buscón (1604 according to Francisco Rico; the exact date is uncertain, yet it was certainly a very early work) is considered the masterpiece of the subgenre by A. A. Parker, because of his baroque style and the study of the delinquent psychology. However, a more recent school of thought, led by Francisco Rico, rejects Parker's view, contending instead that the protagonist, Pablos, is a highly unrealistic character, simply a means for Quevedo to launch classist, racist and sexist attacks. Moreover, argues Rico, the structure of the novel is radically different from previous works of the picaresque genre: Quevedo uses the conventions of the picaresque as a mere vehicle to show off his abilities with conceit and rhetoric, rather than to construct a satirical critique of Spanish Golden Age society.
Miguel de Cervantes wrote several works "in the picaresque manner, notably Rinconete y Cortadillo (1613) and El coloquio de los perros (1613; “Colloquy of the Dogs”)". "Cervantes also incorporated elements of the picaresque into his greatest novel, Don Quixote (1605, 1615)",[21] the "single most important progenitor of the modern novel", that M. H. Abrams has described as a "quasi-picaresque narrative".[22] Here the hero is not a rogue but a foolish knight.
In order to understand the historical context that led to the development of these paradigmatic picaresque novels in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries, it is essential to take into consideration the circumstances surrounding the lives of conversos, whose ancestors had been Jewish, and whose New Christian faith was subjected to close scrutiny and mistrust.[23]
In other European countries, these Spanish novels were read and imitated. In Germany, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen wrote Simplicius Simplicissimus[24] (1669), the most important of non-Spanish picaresque novels. It describes the devastation caused by the Thirty Years' War. Grimmelshausen's novel has been called an example of the German abenteuerroman (which literally means "adventure novel"). An abenteuerroman is Germany's version of the picaresque novel; it is an "entertaining story of the adventures of the hero, but there is also often a serious aspect to the story."[25]
Alain-René Le Sage's Gil Blas (1715) is a classic example of the genre,[26] which in France had declined into an aristocratic adventure.[citation needed] In Britain, the first example is Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) in which a court page, Jack Wilson, exposes the underclass life in a string of European cities through lively, often brutal descriptions.[27] The body of Tobias Smollett's work, and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722) are considered picaresque, but they lack the sense of religious redemption of delinquency that was very important in Spanish and German novels. The triumph of Moll Flanders is more economic than moral. While the mores of the early 18th century wouldn't permit Moll to be a heroine per se, Defoe hardly disguises his admiration for her resilience and resourcefulness.
Works with some picaresque elements
The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini, written in Florence beginning in 1558, also has much in common with the picaresque.
The classic Chinese novel Journey to the West is considered to have considerable picaresque elements. Having been written in 1590, it is contemporary with much of the above—but is unlikely to have been directly influenced by the European genre.
William Makepeace Thackeray is the master of the 19th-century English picaresque. Like Moll Flanders, Thackeray's best-known work, Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero (1847-1848)—a title ironically derived from John Bunyan's Puritan allegory of redemption The Pilgrim's Progress (1678)—follows the career of fortune-hunting adventuress Becky Sharp. His earlier novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844) recounts the rise and fall of an Irish arriviste conniving his way into the 18th-century English aristocracy.
Aleko Konstantinov wrote the 1895 novel Bay Ganyo about the eponymous Bulgarian rogue. The character conducts business of uneven honesty around Europe before returning home to get into politics and newspaper publishing. Bay Ganyo is a well-known stereotype in Bulgaria.
Works influenced by the picaresque
In the English-speaking world, the term "picaresque" has referred more to a literary technique or model than to the precise genre that the Spanish call picaresco.[29] The English-language term can simply refer to an episodic recounting of the adventures of an anti-hero on the road.[30]
Kvachi Kvachantiradze is a novel written by Mikheil Javakhishvili in 1924. This is, in brief, the story of a swindler, a Georgian Felix Krull, or perhaps a cynical Don Quixote, named Kvachi Kvachantiradze: womanizer, cheat, perpetrator of insurance fraud, bank-robber, associate of Rasputin, filmmaker, revolutionary, and pimp.
Examples from the 1980s include John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces, which was published in 1980, eleven years after the author's suicide, and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. It follows the adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a well-educated but lazy and obese slob, as he attempts to find stable employment in New Orleans and meets many colorful characters along the way. As well, there is Angela Carter's Nights at the Circus (1984).
In contemporary Latin American narrative, there are Manuel Rojas' Hijo de ladrón (1951), Joaquín Edwards' El roto (1968), Elena Poniatowska's Hasta no verte Jesús mío (1969), Luis Zapata's Las aventuras, desventuras y sueños de Adonis García, el vampiro de la colonia Roma (1978) and José Baroja's Un hijo de perra (2017), among others.[39]
Hannah Tinti's novel The Good Thief (2008) features a young, one-handed orphan who craves a family, and finds one in a group of rogues and misfits.
Atlus' video game Persona 5 (2016) was heavily inspired by picaresque fiction. Featuring many picaresque elements, including depictions of other characters, similar themes and literary devices.[citation needed]
The sixth episode of Season 1 of the Spanish fantasy television series, El ministerio del tiempo (English title: The Ministry of Time), entitled "Tiempo de pícaros" (Time of rascals) focuses on Lázarillo de Tormes as a young boy prior to his adventures in the genre-creating novel that bears his name.
↑ Fouad Al-Mounir, "The Muslim Heritage of Lazarillo de Tormes," The Maghreb Review vol. 8, no. 2 (1983), pp. 16–17.
↑ James T. Monroe, The art of Badi'u 'l-Zaman al-Hamadhani as picaresque narrative (American University of Beirut c1983).
↑ Monroe, James T. translator, Al-Maqamat al-luzumiyah, by Abu-l-Tahir Muhammad ibn Yusuf al-Tamimi al-Saraqus'i ibn al-Astarkuwi (Leiden: Brill 2002).
↑ S. Rodzevich, "K istorii russkogo romantizma", Russky Filologichesky Vestnik, 77 (1917), 194-237 (in Russian).
↑ A Glossary of Literary Terms (7thed.). Harcourt Brace. 1985. p.191. ISBN0-03-054982-5.
↑ For an overview of scholarship on the role of conversos in the development of the picaresque novel in 16th- and 17th-century Spain, see Halevi-Wise, Yael (2011). "The Life and Times of the Pícaro Converso from Spain to Latin America". In Halevi-Wise, Yael (ed.). Sephardism: Spanish Jewish History in the Modern Literary Imagination. Stanford University Press. pp.143–167. ISBN978-0-8047-7746-9.
↑ Paulson, Ronald (1965). "Reviewed Work: Rogue's Progress: Studies in the Picaresque Novel by Robert Alter". The Journal of English and Germanic Philology. 64 (2): 303. JSTOR27714644.
↑ Schmidt, Michael (2014). The Novel: A Biography. Cambridge: Belknap Press.
↑ The title page of the first edition of Joseph Andrews lists its full title as: The History of the Adventures of Joseph Andrews, and of His Friend Mr. Abraham Adams. Written in Imitation of the Manner of Cervantes, Author of Don Quixote.
↑ Striedter, Jurij (1961). Der Schelmenroman in Russland: Ein Beitrag zur Geschichte des Russischen Romans vor Gogol (in German). Berlin. OCLC1067476065.
↑ Leonardo De Franceschi. Lo sguardo eclettico. Marsilio, 2001.
Related Research Articles
Don Quixote is a Spanish epic novel by Miguel de Cervantes. Originally published in two parts, in 1605 and 1615, its full title is The Ingenious Gentleman Don Quixote of La Mancha or, in Spanish, El ingenioso hidalgo don Quixote de la Mancha. A founding work of Western literature, it is often labelled as the first modern novel and one of the greatest works ever written. Don Quixote is also one of the most-translated books in the world.
The Satyricon, Satyriconliber, or Satyrica, is a Latin work of fiction believed to have been written by Gaius Petronius, though the manuscript tradition identifies the author as Titus Petronius. The Satyricon is an example of Menippean satire, which is different from the formal verse satire of Juvenal or Horace. The work contains a mixture of prose and verse ; serious and comic elements; and erotic and decadent passages. As with The Golden Ass by Apuleius, classical scholars often describe it as a Roman novel, without necessarily implying continuity with the modern literary form.
The Life of Lazarillo de Tormes and of His Fortunes and Adversities is a Spanish novella, published anonymously because of its anticlerical content. It was published simultaneously in three cities in 1554: Alcalá de Henares, Burgos and Antwerp. The Alcalá de Henares edition adds some episodes which were most likely written by a second author. It is most famous as the book establishing the style of the picaresque satirical novel.
The genre of Menippean satire is a form of satire, usually in prose, that is characterized by attacking mental attitudes rather than specific individuals or entities. It has been broadly described as a mixture of allegory, picaresque narrative, and satirical commentary. Other features found in Menippean satire are different forms of parody and mythological burlesque, a critique of the myths inherited from traditional culture, a rhapsodic nature, a fragmented narrative, the combination of many different targets, and the rapid moving between styles and points of view.
Spanish literature generally refers to literature written in the Spanish language within the territory that presently constitutes the Kingdom of Spain. Its development coincides and frequently intersects with that of other literary traditions from regions within the same territory, particularly Catalan literature, Galician intersects as well with Latin, Jewish, and Arabic literary traditions of the Iberian peninsula. The literature of Spanish America is an important branch of Spanish literature, with its own particular characteristics dating back to the earliest years of Spain’s conquest of the Americas.
The culture of Spain is based on a variety of historical influences, primarily based on the culture of ancient Rome, Spain being a prominent part of the Greco-Roman world for centuries, the very name of Spain comes from the name that the Romans gave to the country, Hispania. Other ancient peoples such as Greeks, Tartessians, Celts, Iberians, Celtiberians, Phoenicians and Carthaginians also had some influence. In the areas of language and also religion, the Ancient Romans left a lasting legacy in the Spanish culture because Rome created Hispania as a political, legal and administrative unit. The subsequent course of Spanish history added other elements to the country's culture and traditions.
Francisco Cervantes de Salazar was a Spanish man of letters and rector of the Royal and Pontifical University of Mexico, founded in 1551.
The Milesian tale is a genre of fictional story prominent in ancient Greek and Roman literature. According to most authorities, a Milesian tale is a short story, fable, or folktale featuring love and adventure, usually of an erotic or titillating nature.
James Thomas Monroe, or James T. Monroe, is an American scholar and translator of Arabic. He is emeritus professor of Arabic and Comparative Literature at the University of California at Berkeley, focusing on Classical Arabic Literature and Hispano-Arabic Literature. His doctorate was from Harvard University. Professor Monroe "works in the areas of lyric poetry, the Middle Ages, and East-West relations with particular interest in the importance of the Arab contribution to Spanish civilization."
Spanish Baroque literature is the literature written in Spain during the Baroque, which occurred during the 17th century. Spanish Baroque literature is a period of writing which begins approximately with the first works of Góngora and Lope de Vega, in the 1580s, and continues into the late 17th century.
El Buscón is a picaresque novel by Francisco de Quevedo. It was written around 1604 and published in 1626 by a press in Zaragoza, though it had circulated in manuscript form previous to that.
Frederick A. de Armas is a literary scholar, critic and novelist who is Robert O. Anderson Distinguished Service Professor in Humanities at the University of Chicago.
Guzmán de Alfarache is a picaresque novel written by Mateo Alemán and published in two parts: the first in Madrid in 1599 with the title Primera parte de Guzmán de Alfarache, and the second in 1604, titled Segunda parte de la vida de Guzmán de Alfarache, atalaya de la vida humana.
A novel is a relatively long work of narrative fiction, typically written in prose and published as a book. The present English word for a long work of prose fiction derives from the Italian: novella for "new", "news", or "short story of something new", itself from the Latin: novella, a singular noun use of the neuter plural of novellus, diminutive of novus, meaning "new". Some novelists, including Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville, Ann Radcliffe, John Cowper Powys, preferred the term "romance" to describe their novels.
Hispanism is the study of the literature and culture of the Spanish-speaking world, principally that of Spain and Hispanic America. It can also entail studying Spanish language and culture in the United States and in other presently or formerly Spanish-speaking countries in Africa, Asia, and the Pacific, such as the Philippines and Equatorial Guinea.
La vida y hechos de Estebanillo González, hombre de buen humor, Life and facts of Estebanillo González, man of good humour, is a Spanish picaresque novel, written as a genuine autobiography of a rogue, but for some scholars, it is a work of fiction. Against the background of the Thirty Years War, the main character writes about his life being a servant of distinguished masters, in a personal narrative all Europe around as a soldier, messenger, etc., witnessing important historic events, such as the Huguenot rebellions while placed in France as the servant to an undercover spy. He serves as part of the company under the command of Cardinal-Infante Ferdinand of Spain ravaging the French provinces of Champagne, Burgundy and Picardy, and even threatening Paris in 1636. It is one of the last great achievements of Spanish Baroque literature during the seventeenth century.
Ginés de Pasamonte is a fictional character in Miguel de Cervantes' novel Don Quixote.
I picari, internationally released as The Rogues, is a 1987 Italian comedy film written and directed by Mario Monicelli. It is freely inspired by the Spanish novels Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzman de Alfarache.
Juan Bobo is a folkloric character on the island of Puerto Rico. For nearly two centuries a collection of books, songs, riddles and folktales have developed around him. Hundreds of children's books have been written about Juan Bobo in English and Spanish. Juan Bobo stories are used as instructional models in public school districts and libraries throughout the United States and on PBS Television.
References
Parker, Alexander Augustine (1967). Literature and the delinquent: the picaresque novel in Spain and Europe, 1599-1753. Norman Maccoll lecture. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. OCLC422136249.
Garrido Ardila, Juan Antonio, El género picaresco en la crítica literaria, Madrid: Biblioteca Nueva, 2008.
Garrido Ardila, Juan Antonio, La novela picaresca en Europa, Madrid: Visor libros, 2009.
Meyer-Minnemann, Klaus and Sabine Schlickers (eds), La novela picaresca: Concepto genérico y evolución del género (siglos XVI y XVII), Madrid, Iberoamericana, 2008.
Klein, Norman M. and Margo Bistis, The Imaginary 20th Century, Karlsruhe, ZKM: Center for Art and Media, 2016.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
