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PICARESQUE NOVEL, THE

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Originally appearing in Volume V21, Page 579 of the 1911 Encyclopedia Britannica.
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PICARESQUE NOVEL, THE . This See also:special See also:form of the See also:roman d'aventures may be defined as the See also:prose autobiography of a real or fictitious personage who describes his experiences as a social See also:parasite, and who satirizes the society which he has exploited. The picaroon, or See also:rogue type, is represented by Encolpos, Ascyltos and Giton in the Salyricon which tradition ascribes to See also:Petronius; it persists in See also:Lucian, in the Roman de Renart, in the fableaux, and in other See also:works popular during the See also:middle ages; and it is incarnated in real See also:life by such men of See also:genius as the See also:Archpriest of See also:Hita and See also:Francois See also:Villon. But in its final form the picaresque novel may be regarded as a See also:Spanish invention. The word picaro is first used, apparently, in a See also:letter written by Eugenio de Salazar at See also:Toledo on the 15th of See also:April 156o; the See also:etymology which derives picaro from picar (to pick up) is unsatisfactory to philologists, but it suggests the picaroon's See also:chief business in life. In the Tesoro de la lengua castellana (See also:Madrid, 1611) See also:Sebastian Covarrubias y Orozco, the best of Spanish lexicographers, describes a picaro as a See also:man of loose See also:character engaged in See also:menial See also:work and—by See also:extension—a See also:rascal who attains his ends by skilful dissimulation; and the earliest application of the expression picaro to a character in fiction occurs in Mateo Alema.n's Guzman de Alfarache, the first See also:part of which was published in 1599. But a genuine novela picaresca existed in See also:Spain before the word picaro became generally current. The earliest specimen of the See also:kind is La See also:Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de See also:sus fortunas y adversidades, an See also:anonymous See also:tale See also:long attributed, on insufficient grounds, to Diego Hurtado de See also:Mendoza (q.v.). The authorship of this brilliant See also:book and the circumstances of its publication are obscure; however, it was certainly issued not later than 1554, and was thrice reprinted before 1559, when it was placed on the See also:Index. Imitations of so successful a See also:story were inevitable, and so See also:early as 1555 there appeared at See also:Antwerp La Segunda parte de Lazarillo de Tormes, an anonymous sequel which completely misinterpreted the irreverent wit of the See also:original. The first part had been prohibited because of its attacks on the See also:clergy; in the second part the See also:hero is presented as a devout youth transformed into a See also:tunny at the intercession of the Virgin See also:Mary, who thus saved him from See also:death; after many extravagant experiences in this form he is restored to human shape, and proposes to See also:teach the submarine See also:language at the university of See also:Salamanca. This dull performance naturally failed to please and, meanwhile, many surreptitious copies of the first part were introduced into Spain; the See also:Inquisition finally gave up the See also:attempt to suppress it, and in 1573 an expurgated edition was authorized.

With this mutilated version the Spanish public was forced to be content during the remaining fifteen years of See also:

Philip II.'s reign. Upon the death of this sombre monarch society relaxed its hypocritical pose of austerity, and in 1599 Mateo See also:Aleman (q.v.) published the Primera parte de Guzman de Alfarache. It is modelled upon Lazarillo de Tormes, being the autobiography of the son of a ruined Genoese See also:money-lender; but the writer indulges in a tedious See also:series of moralizings. This contrasts sharply with the laconic cynicism of Lazarillo de Tormes; but Guzman de Alfarache is richer in invention, in variety of See also:episode and in the presentation of character. Its extraordinary popularity tempted a Valencian lawyer named Juan Jose See also:Marti to publish a Segunda See also:park de la vida del picaro Guzman de Alfarache (1602) under the See also:pseudonym of Mateo Lujan de Sayavedra. Though partly plagiarized from the See also:manuscript of the genuine second part to which Marti had somehow obtained See also:access, the continuation was coldly received; in 1604 Aleman brought out the true continuation, and revenged himself by introducing into the narrative a See also:brother of Marti—a crazy picaroon of the lowest morality who ultimately commits See also:suicide in disgust at his own turpitude. In Lazarillo de Tormes, and still more in Guzman de Alfarache, it is difficult to distinguish between the invented episodes and the See also:personal reminiscences of the authors. The Viage entretenido (1603) of Agustin de Rojas is a realistic See also:account of the writer's experiences as a strolling actor and playwright, and, apart from its considerable See also:literary merits, it is an invaluable contribution to the See also:history of the Spanish See also:stage as well as a graphic See also:record of contemporary See also:low life; the chief character in the book is called the See also:caballero del milagro, an expression which recurs in Spanish literature as the See also:equivalent of a See also:chevalier d'industrie. The next in See also:chronological See also:order of the Spanish picaresque tales is La Picara Justina (16o5), the history of a woman picaroon, which it has long been customary to ascribe to See also:Andres See also:Perez, a Dominican See also:monk: there is, however, no See also:good See also:reason to suppose that the name of Francisco See also:Lopez de Ubeda on the See also:title-See also:page is a pseudonym. The Picara Justina has wrongly acquired a reputation for indecency; its real defects are an affected diction and a want of originality. The writer frankly admits that he has taken material from the See also:Celestina, from Lazarillo de Tormes, from See also:Guevara, Timoneda and Aleman, and he boastfully asserts that " there is nothing good in ballad, See also:play or Spanish poet, but that its See also:quintessence is given here." Unluckily he has not the See also:talent to utilize these stolen goods. The Picara Justina was thrice reprinted during the seventeenth See also:century; this is the only basis for the untenable theory that it is the source of the culteranismo which reaches its See also:climax in Gracian's See also:treatises.

The Picara Justina is now read solely by philologists in quest of verbal eccentricities. Gives de Pasamonte, one of the secondary figures in See also:

Don Quixote (160 1615), is a singularly vivid See also:sketch of the Spanish rogue, and in the See also:comedy entitled Pedro de Urdemalas Cervantes again presents a brilliant See also:panorama of picaresque existence. He returns to the subject in Rinconete y Cortadillo and in the Coloquio de los perros, two of the best stories in the Novelas ejemplares (1613). The attraction of picaresque life was See also:felt by pious and learned critics, and expounded in See also:print. In the Viage del mundo (1614) the zealous missionary Pedro de Cevallos interpolates amusing tales of what befell him in the slums of See also:Andalusia before he fled from See also:justice to See also:America, where he lived as a sinful soldier till his spiritual See also:conversion was accomplished. Cristobal See also:Suarez de Figueroa, a See also:caustic critic of his contemporaries and an arbiter of See also:taste, did not think it beneath his dignity to show a disconcerting acquaintance with the ways of professional rogues, and in El Pasagero (1617) he The roving See also:instinct of See also:Vicente Martinez See also:Espinel (q.v.) had led him into See also:strange and dangerous See also:company before and after his ordination as a See also:priest, and a See also:great part of his Relaciones de la vida del escudero Marcos de ObregOn (1618) is manifestly the See also:confession of one who has regretfully outlived his pleasant vices. The baffling See also:compound of fact with fiction and the lucid See also:style of which Espinel was a See also:master would suffice to win for Marcos de ObregOn a permanent See also:place in the history of Spanish literature; the fact that it was largely utilized by Le See also:Sage in Gil Blas has won for it a place in the history of See also:comparative literature. Within five months of its publication at Madrid a fragmentary See also:French version by the Sieur d'Audiguier was issued at See also:Paris, and at Paris also there appeared a Spanish picaresque story entitled La Desordenada codicia de los bienes ajenos (1619), ascribed conjecturally to a certain Dr See also:Carlos See also:Garcia, who reports his conversation with a garrulous See also:gaol-See also:bird, and appends a glossary of See also:slang terms used by the confraternity of thieves; he was not, however, the first worker in this See also:field, for a See also:key to their See also:gross See also:jargon had been given ten years previously by Juan See also:Hidalgo in his Romances de germania (1609), a series of gipsy See also:ballads. Every kind of picaroon is portrayed with intelligent sympathy by Alonso Jeronimo de See also:Salas Barbadillo, who is always described as a picaresque novelist; yet he so constantly neglects the recognized conventions of the Spanish school that his right to the title is disputable. Thus in La Hija de Celestina (1612) he abandons the autobiographical form, in El Subtil cordobes Pedro de Urdemalas (162o) he alternates between See also:dialogue and See also:verse, and in El Necio bien afortunado (1621) the chief character is rather a cunning dolt than a successful See also:scoundrel. The pretence of warning new-comers against the innumerable occasions of See also:sin in the See also:capital is solemnly kept up by See also:Antonio Linan y Verdugo in his Guia y avisos de forasteros que vienen a la See also:carte (162o), but in most of his tales there is more entertainment than decorum. The profession of a serious moral purpose on the part of many picaresque writers is often a transparent excuse for the introduction of unsavoury incident.

There is, however, no ground for doubting the sincerity of the physician Jeronimo de See also:

Alcala Yanez y See also:Ribera, who at one See also:time thought of taking See also:holy orders, and studied See also:theology under St See also:John of the See also:Cross. An unusual gravity of intention is visible in Alonso, mono de muchos See also:amos (1624-1626), in which the repentant picaro Alonso, now a See also:lay-brother, tells the story of his past life to the See also:superior of the monastery in which he has taken See also:refuge. It abounds with pointed anecdotes and with curious See also:information concerning the Spanish See also:gipsies, and this last characteristic explains See also:George See also:Borrow's hyperbolical praise of the work as competing with Don Quixote in See also:grave See also:humour, and as unequalled " for knowledge of the human mind and acute observation." At about this time there lived in Spain an ex-See also:nun named Catalina de Erauso, who fled from her See also:convent, dressed herself in men's clothes, enlisted, was promoted See also:ensign, and saw more of life than any other nun in history. Broadsides See also:relating the story of this picaresque See also:amazon were circulated during her lifetime, and the details of her adventures arrested the See also:attention of De Quincey, who would seem to have read them in a Spanish original which has been admirably translated since then by the French poet Jose Maria de See also:Heredia. The Spanish original, in its existing form, was issued no earlier than 1829 by Joaquin Maria de Ferrer, whose character is not a satisfact:.:y See also:guarantee of the work's authenticity; but its See also:interest is unquestionable. No such suspicion attaches to the Vida of Alonso de Contreras, first published in 1899; this out-at-elbows soldier faithfully records how he became a See also:knight of the Order of See also:Santiago, how he II See also:broke all the Commandments, how he found himself stranded in Madrid, how his See also:fine See also:air captivated Lope de See also:Vega, who housed him for eight months and dedicated to him a play entitled Rey sin reino, and how the ex-See also:captain ended by " resolving to retire to a lonely spot and there serve See also:God as a See also:hermit." Every See also:convention of the picaresque novel is faithfully observed, and the incidents are no doubt substantially true, though Contreras, like most converts, See also:judges his own past with unnecessary harshness. This subtle form of vanity also pervades the Comentarios de el desenganado de si mismo of Diego duque de See also:Estrada, a rakish soldier and inferior dramatist whose autobiography (begun in 1614 and continued at intervals during many years) was not printed till 186o. A far higher order of talent distinguishes the Capitulaciones de la vida de la See also:cork y oficios entretenidos in See also:ella, a bitterly unsparing See also:review of picaresque life written by the great satirist Francisco See also:Gomez de Quevedo y See also:Villegas (q.v.). These thumbnail sketches were the preparatory studies worked up into the more elaborate Vida del buscan Don Pablos (1626), the cleverest and most revolting book of its class. There is no attempt to scare the wicked by means of awful examples; the moral See also:lesson is contemptuously thrown aside; the See also:veil of See also:romance is See also:rent in See also:twain, and the picaro—the See also:nephew of the public executioner—is revealed as he is, gloating in See also:cruelty and revelling in the conscious enjoyment of See also:crime. But though Quevedo detests mankind, his morose See also:vision of existence rarely degenerates into See also:caricature. In his repugnant, misanthropic masterpiece the sordid genius of the Spanish picaroon finds See also:absolute expression.

Nothing further remained to be done in the See also:

matter of See also:realism; henceforth the taste for picaresque novels See also:grew less keen, and later writers unconsciously began to humanize their personages. The See also:Varia See also:fortuna del soldado Pindaro (1626) added nothing to the established reputation of Gonzalo Cfspedes y Meneses. A See also:clever anonymous story, Don Raimundo el entretenido (1627), missed See also:fire, even though it was attributed to Quevedo; yet the author, Diego Tovar y Valderrama, compiled a sprightly See also:diary of the events which make up a picaroon's crowded See also:day, and failed solely because the interest in rogues was waning. Other writers of undoubted gifts were slow to see that the See also:fashion had changed. Alonso de See also:Castillo Sol6rzano (q.v.) tempted the public with three picaresque stories published in See also:quick See also:succession: La Nina de los embustes, Teresa de See also:Manzanares (1634), the Aventuras del Bachiller Trapaza (1637) and a sequel to the latter entitled La Garduna de Sevilla (1642). Clever as Castillo Sol6rzano's stories are, their tricky heroes and heroines were no longer welcomed with the old See also:enthusiasm in Spain; the Bachiller Trapaza was destined to be continued by Mateo da See also:Silva Cabral in See also:Portugal and to be exploited by Le Sage in See also:France, and to these two accidents it owes its survival. Le Sage likewise utilized in Gil Blas episodes taken from El Siglo pitagOrico (1644), the work of Antonio Enrfquez Gomez (q.v.); but most of El Siglo pitageirico is in verse, and as it was published at Paris by an exiled Portuguese See also:Jew, its circulation in Spain must have been limited. The normal See also:primitive rogue returns to the See also:scene in La Vida y hechos de Estebanillo Gonzalez (1646), which is no doubt the genuine autobiography that it purports to be. If he is still occasionally read by students he owes it to the fact that Le Sage See also:drew upon him in the Histoire al'Estev¢nille Gonzales. By the See also:general public he is completely forgotten, and the same may be said of many subsequent Spanish writers who adopted the picaresque See also:formula. The Buscan is the last great book of its kind. Meanwhile, the rogue had forced his way into other See also:European literatures.

The Antwerp continuation (1555) of Lazarillo de Tormes brought the original to the See also:

notice of See also:northern readers, and this first part was translated into French by See also:Jean Saugrain in 1561. A Dutch version was issued anonymously in 1579, and it seems extremely likely that the book had been translated into See also:English before this date. This follows from a manuscript See also:note written by See also:Gabriel See also:Harvey in a copy of the Howleglass given him by See also:Edmund See also:Spenser; Harvey here mentions that he had received the Howleglass, Skoggin, See also:Skelton and Lazarillo from Spenser on the loth of See also:December 1578. The earliest known edition of See also:David See also:Rowland's version of Lazarillo de Tormes is dated 1586,but as a See also:licence to print a See also:translation of this tale was granted on the 22nd of See also:July 1568/1569, it is probable that a 1576 edition which appears in the Harleian See also:Catalogue really existed. Numerous reprints (1599, 1639, 1669-167o, 1672, 1677) go to prove that Lazarillo de Tormes was very popular, and that See also:Shakespeare had read it seems to follow from an allusion in Much See also:Ado about Nothing (See also:Act. 11., sc. i.) : " Now you strike like the See also:blind man; 't was the boy that See also:stole your See also:meat, and you will See also:beat the See also:post." To See also:Thomas See also:Nash belongs the See also:credit, such as it is, of being the first to write a picaresque novel in English: The Unfortunate Traveller; or the Life of See also:Jack See also:Wilton (1594). Nash carefully points out that his work is a new experiment, " being a cleane different veine from other my former courses of See also:writing "; the only possible Spanish See also:model that he can have had was Lazarillo de Tormes, but he has nothing of his predecessor's sardonic brevity, and he anticipates later Spanish writers by his emphatic insistence on the pleasures of eating and drinking to repletion. Nash led the way, and a reference to " Spanish pickaroes " in See also:Middleton's Spanish Gipsie indicates that the picaroon type had speedily become See also:familiar enough for See also:London playgoers to understand the reference. Interest in picaresque literature was kept alive in See also:England by a translation (1622) of a sequel to Lazarillo de Tormes published at Paris two years earlier by Juan de See also:Luna, who came to London to supervise the English rendering; by See also:James Mabbe's admirable version (1622) of Guzman de Alfarache; by The Son of the Rogue or the Politic Thief (1638), an anonymous translation, done through the French, of La desordenada codicia; and by another anonymous translation (1657), likewise done through the French, of Quevedo's Buscan. The result of this See also:campaign was The English Rogue described in the Life of Meriton Latroon, a witty Extravagant (1665), by See also:Richard See also:Head and See also:Francis Kirkman. The authors of this farrago insist on the English See also:nationality of their chief character, and repudiate the See also:idea that they are in any way indebted to Aleman and Quevedo. It is no exaggeration, however, to say that almost all the material in the See also:text is taken from Spanish See also:sources, and even the thieves' vocabulary is stolen from John Awdeley's Fraternitye of Vacabondes or Thomas Harman's See also:Caveat, or Warning for See also:Common Cursetors.

It is not till See also:

Defoe's time that the English picaresque novel acquires any real importance, and the picaresque intention informs much of his work that contravenes the accepted rules of See also:composition. There is a See also:female picaroon in Moll See also:Flanders, and, as Defoe read Spanish, it is conceivable that Moll Flanders was suggested by the Picara Justina; but this resemblance does not make a picaresque novel of Moll Flanders. The satirical spirit which is lacking in Moll Flanders is abundantly See also:present in See also:Colonel Jack, which bravely aims at exhibiting " See also:vice and all kinds of wickedness attended with misery." Henceforward the picaroon is naturalized in English literature, and is gloriously reincarnated in See also:Fielding's See also:Jonathan See also:Wild and in See also:Smollett's See also:Ferdinand, See also:Count See also:Fathom. The See also:classification of See also:Sterne's Tristram Shandy and See also:Morier's Hajji Baba as picaresque novels is not strictly accurate; like Pickwick and See also:Oliver Twist and See also:Barry Lyndon, they are rather varieties of the peripatetic novel, but many incidents in all five recall the pleasing See also:wiles of the Spanish picaroons. The Dutch translation of Lazarillo de Tormes (1579) did not enable the picaresque novel to strike See also:root in See also:Holland, yet from it is derived one of the best Dutch comedies, De Spaensche Brabander Jorolimo (1616) of Gerbrand Bredero. A See also:German translation of Guzman de Alfarache was published by Aegidius Alberitnus in 1615; both Lazarillo and Rinconete y Cortadillo were translated by Niclas Ulenhart in 1716, and in 1627 there appeared an anonymous version of the Picara Justina. The Spanish tradition was followed by See also:Martin Frewden in a continuation (1626) of Guzman de Alfarache, but the only original picaresque novel of real value in German is Grimmelhausen's Simplicissimus. The attempt to acclimatize the picaresque novel in See also:Italy failed completely. Barezzo Barezzi translated Guzman de Alfarache, Lazarillo de Tormes and the Picara Justina in 16o6, 1622 and 1624 respectively, and Giovanni Pietro Franco did the BuscOn into See also:Italian in 1634; but there was no important native development. The same may be said of Portugal; for though Silva Cabral's continuation of the Bachiller Trapaza is called the most remarkable of Portuguese picaresque romances, it is significant that 0 peralvilho de See also:Cordova remains in manuscript. The See also:case was very different in France, where pictures of low life had always found admirers. The first translation of Lazarillo de Tormes appeared, as already noted, at Paris in 1561; the first translation of the first part of Guzman de Alfarache was issued there by Gabriel Chappuis in 1600, and the See also:dictator See also:Chapelain deigned to translate both parts in 1619–162o; the first translation of the Novelas ejemplares was published at Paris in 1618 by Rosset and d'Audiguier; and French See also:translations of Marcos de Obregon, of La Desordenada codicia, of the Buscon and of the Picara Justina were printed in 1618, 1621, 1633 and 1635 respectively.

Before this series of translations was completed See also:

Charles See also:Sorel recounted in Francion (1622) " the comic mishaps which befall evil-doers," invoking the common excuse that it is " lawful to find See also:pleasure at their expense." Many of the episodes in Francion are picaresque in See also:tone, but unfortunately Sorel wanders from his subject, and devotes no small part of his book to satirizing literary men who, though fribbles or paupers, are in no sense picaroons. The legitimate Spanish tradition is followed more closely and with much more ability by See also:Paul See also:Scarron in the Roman comique (1651), in which horseplay is predominant. The framework may have been suggested by Agustin de Rojas or Quevedo, both of whom introduce a strolling company. and such characters as Lfandre, Angelique de 1'Etoile and Ragotin might be found in any See also:average novela picaresca. Scarron frankly mentions Castillo Sol6rzano's Garduna de Sevilla in his text, and his Precaution inutile and See also:Les Hypocrites are convincing proofs of See also:close study of Spanish picaresque stories: the Precaution inutile is taken from Guzman de Alf arache, and Les Hypocrites is merely a translation of Salas Barbadillo's Hija de Celestina. The Roman See also:bourgeois (1666) of See also:Antoine Furetiere is generally described as a picaresque novel, but this involves a new See also:definition of the See also:adjective; the Roman bourgeois includes some portraits and more See also:satire which seem suggested by picaresque See also:reading, but it is concerned with the foibles of the middle class rather than with the sly devices of common vagabonds. The Spanish picaroon lives again in Gil Blas, where, with a dexterity almost rarer than original genius, a master of literary manipulation fuses materials unearthed from forgotten and seemingly worthless Spanish quarries. Gil Blas is a creation of the gentler, sunnier French spirit; like See also:Beaumarchais' See also:Figaro he is a Spaniard See also:born, reared and humanized in Paris, and these two are the only picaroons whose relative refinement has not been gained at the cost of verisimilitude. But the old original scoundrel was not yet See also:extinct: in the See also:interval between the See also:appearance of the See also:Barbier de See also:Seville and the Mariage de Figaro See also:Restif de la Bretonne produced a sequel (1776) to the BuscOn—a sequel so dull as to be wellnigh unreadable. The untamed Spanish rogue had become impossible towards the end of the 18th century: in the 19th he was deliberately rejected when See also:Theophile See also:Gautier wrote his Capitaine Fracasse. Yet Gautier conscientiously provides a Spanish See also:atmosphere; the personages have Spanish names; the See also:knife has a Spanish inscription; the See also:host speaks French with a Spanish See also:accent; Vallombreuse parts from the See also:marquis with a Spanish formula: " beso a vuestra merced la mano, caballero." Capitaine Fracasse is the last important book which continues the picaresque tradition. The possibilities of picaresque fiction can never be exhausted while human nature is unchanged. See also:Pereda (q.v.) in Pedro See also:Sanchez (1884) touches the old theme with the accent of modernity.

It may be that instead of one continuous tale, interrupted by episodical digressions, the picaresque fiction of the future will take the form of See also:

short stories See also:independent of one another; but this would be nothing more than a convenient See also:mechanical See also:device, a readjustment of means to ends.

End of Article: PICARESQUE NOVEL, THE

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