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Introduction to the Revised Edition
- University of Wisconsin Press
- Chapter
- Additional Information
INTRODUCTION TO THE REVISED EDITION THERE APPEARED in 1554 three editions of La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades, a book which marked the triumph of a new literary genre, the picaresque novel, sometimes called the "romance of roguery" or the "epic of hunger." Lazarillo is essentially a story of adventure told by a character who must depend on his wits if he would escape starvation. He serves many masters and thus is able to satirize each of the social classes with which he comes in contact. The picaresque novel is a realistic treatment of the seamy side of life in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain as well as a satire on its society as a whole. In the reign of Charles V, in the first half of the sixteenth century, and in the subsequent reigns of the Philips, parasitism, false pride, and a religion harboring many abuses existed in Spain. Most of the Jews and Moriscos, who were the producers of Spain's wealth, had been expelled; shopkeepers and artisans were regarded with contempt. Proud Spaniards preferred to beg rather than to learn a useful trade, and the well-to-do entered the church, army, law, or governmental service. Retired soldiers, gypsies , criminals, picaroons, and others swelled the ranks of the unemployed . Ruinous taxation, repudiated loans, together with a violent inHation produced by the How of gold and silver from the new world, precipitated financial chaos. In such an environment as this the picaresque novel Hourished. In the strain of the Golden Ass of Apuleius and the Satyricon of Petronius Arbiter, Spanish literature began to develop realistic fiction as early as the latter part of the thirteenth century. One of the earliest works containing such elements was the Caballero Cifar, written about 1300. A few years later Prince Juan Manuel completed his Conde Lucanor, a series of unrelated anecdotes shOwing these same tendencies. Next appeared Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor, the first literary work of Spain to show a genuine interest in the lower classes. Nearly a century later the Archpriest of Talavera wrote his E1 corbaclw, the fruit of long and close contact with human frailty. Another important fbrerunner of the picaresque xiii novel was the Tragi-comedia of Calisto y Melibea, 1499, better known as the Celestina, the name of the central figure. Chronologically , the next development in the history of realistic fiction was Francisco Delgado's La lozana andaluza, 1528. Who was the author of the Lazarillo? No early edition bears his name. He undoubtedly realized that this book was controversial and that he would be risking trial by the Inquisition if he should sign it, and so preferred to remain anonymous. But, on the other hand, perhaps th~ work was printed without the knowledge of the author, possibly long after his death; being thus pirated it may have been deliberately issued as anonymous. It has been suggested that the author probably was one of those liberal thinkers of the time who was appalled by the wretched conditions in church and state. Because of its satire on some of the contemporary clerical abuses, the Lazarillo enjoyed the dubious distinction of being placed on the first Spanish Index librorum prohibitorum in 1559. An expurgated edition was published in Madrid in 1573 with the consent of the Inquisition, but the original version was constantly smuggled into the peninsula from abroad. An anonymous sequel to the Lazarillo appeared at Antwerp in 1555. This continuation deals with Lazaro's adventures among the tunny fish whose leader he beco~es. Juan de Luna published a Segunda parte, Paris, 1620, which likewise dealt with the tunny fish episode but which also contained many realistic elements. From the sixteenth century on, many translations of Lazarillo circulated in French, Dutch, Italian, English, German, and other languages. During the seventeenth century the picaresque novel reached its highest artistic development. Mateo Aleman published the first part of his Guzman de Alfarache in 1599, and the second part in 1604. Guzman starts out much like Lazaro, serving various masters; after numerous adventures, Guzman goes to the galleys as punishment for a crime and there he writes his memoirs. Many critics regard this work as the greatest of all Spanish picaresque novels. Conceptism first penetrated the picaresque novel with the publication of Francisco L6pez de Obeda's La picara Justina in 1605. The greatest contribution of Alonso Jer6nimo de Salas Barbadillo to the picaresque novel was La hila de Celestina, 1612...