Spanish Picaresque Novels: Key Works and European Legacy
Key Spanish Picaresque Novels
Quevedo’s El Buscón
The following picaresque masters are discussed briefly. Quevedo’s El Buscón picks up themes from Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzmán de Alfarache, but removes the element present in Lazarillo where the beginning of the protagonist’s life presents a series of open perspectives. In Quevedo’s work, the character’s childhood environment is infamous, marked by blood. Although offered a horrid job, he refuses it to continue his infamous life, owning it. Quevedo has no preoccupation with social criticism or presenting a degraded world across all social classes. Moreover, he satirizes certain aspects, much like he did in Los Sueños (The Dreams), using great control of language and virtuosity with puns and wordplay.
Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599-1604), written by Mateo Alemán, had a publishing history similar to Cervantes’s Don Quixote: after Alemán wrote the first part, an apocryphal sequel was published, prompting him to write the authentic second part.
This book tells the life of someone from a very low social standing, trying to achieve a better life. It is told from an autobiographical viewpoint, presenting the protagonist as a model of the self. This point of view contrasts with the life that actually unfolds for the reader. To the reader, Guzmán is presented as someone from humble origins in a world where he cannot reach high social levels; he eventually attains a position, albeit one viewed negatively.
The narrative suggests the character carries the germ of evil within himself, seeking a life of seeing the world and serving different masters. However, he cannot escape his destiny, ending up sentenced to the galleys with a bleak future.
The length of Guzmán is similar to that of Don Quixote because episodes of his life are interspersed with moral sermons. This string of sermons makes the book a less commonly read picaresque novel today, but they also serve to underline the character’s inherent dignity.
Later Spanish Picaresque Developments
A series of picaresque novels and tales emerged throughout the 17th century in Spain.
La Pícara Justina and the Female Rogue
The book by Francisco López de Úbeda, written in 1605, titled La Pícara Justina, represents a subgenre: the female picaresque narrative (the story of the pícara). However, it suffers from a lack of clear unity. The female rogue archetype is very similar to the male: humble origins, but also marginalization often linked to prostitution.
Estebanillo González: Autobiography and Realism
La vida y hechos de Estebanillo González tells the story of a character who is not initially a rogue. Its interest is twofold: the character is likely real, presenting an autobiography of someone portraying himself as a rogue in an environment where the rogue’s life makes sense (specifically, among the foot soldiers on the imperial side of the Thirty Years’ War).
European Absorption and Adaptation
Translation and Transformation
In Europe, there was a period of absorption and adaptation of the Spanish picaresque. Novels were translated until around 1750 into French, German, and English. The care taken with English translations should be emphasized. A general feature of these adaptations is that the values are adjusted to a more modern, bourgeois perspective, where humble origins do not necessarily condemn one to infamy but can be a starting point for integration into society.
Adaptations in France, England, and Germany
In France, a more sentimental touch was often added. When El Buscón was translated, it was often presented as an adventure story of a clever young man, sometimes with a happy ending, clearly showing how the genre was being redirected.
In England, there are many examples. Daniel Defoe represents the 18th-century bourgeois narrative, writing picaresque-style novels (like Moll Flanders) with many of their characteristic ingredients. A feature of the British reception is the focus on the playful, eccentric, original, rare, and shocking aspects, linking the genre with a sense of the unusual.
Hans Grimmelshausen’s Simplicius Simplicissimus (1668) in Germany presents the story of someone with humble origins in picaresque environments. However, it is the story of someone trying to build moral dignity, ultimately achieving it, reclaiming dignity as a human being, and finding a valuable place within society. Although the character is fictional, the novel draws authenticity from the author’s experiences, as it is set during the Thirty Years’ War.