Knowing Subjects: Cognitive Cultural Studies and Early Modern Spanish Literature

Chapter Four: Social Intelligence and Social Climbing: Pícaros and Cortesanos

105 Chapter Four Social Intelligence and Social Climbing Pícaros and Cortesanos In Chapter 3, this study traced the initial development of Social Intelligence skills among young picaresque protagonists. The cognitive skills include Mind Reading (MR)—also known as formation of a Theory of Mind (ToM)—for projecting the thoughts of other people who seek to deceive unwary youths, including Simulation Theory and Theory Theory approaches. Over time, the young pícaro will learn to emulate his deceivers, developing the cognitive traits of Machiavellian Intelligence (MI) and Social Intelligence (SI) in order to ascertain the most appropriate modes of deception (see Chapter 1 for a comprehensive survey of this branch of cognitive theory). Once the pícaro achieves a certain level of economic stability, he can use the combination of ill-gotten gains and precocious SI in order to achieve a second metamorphosis: from mere survivor to bureaucrat or page. The creation of a substantial bureaucracy in the early modern Spanish court, especially under Philip II, gave rise to the emergence of the letrado class. This development allowed literate and witty men of nearly any background to escape humble status and obtain secretarial positions within the early modern court, providing another avenue of advancement. It is precisely this rung of gentrified society that the pícaro aspires to reach; however, all three of the picaresque novels indicate that such mobility is possible only via extensive and sustained use of ToM and MI (Ruan, Pícaro; F. Sánchez, Bourgeois). The SI required for this type of social advancement is far more sophisticated than that associated with foraging or thievery; it is precisely at the point where Lazarillo achieves food security and begins to pursue new forms of identity that he moves beyond primate status and appears fully human (Maiorino 28). The narratives of Guzmán and Pablos emphasize this more abstract pursuit of status; although extreme hunger does mark certain stages of the lives of all three youths, the 106 Chapter Four most vivid adventures in the seventeenth-century novels revolve around SI deployed for the acquisition of elevated status. Studies of early modern social advancement must take into account the rise of courtier conduct manuals, beginning with Castiglione’s The Courtier, which circulated in Spain via numerous editions and translations throughout the latter half of the sixteenth century. The Italian text waned in popularity in the following century, but was replaced by home-grown variants such as Lucas Gracián Dantisco’s Galateo español and Baltasar Gracián’s manuals (Burke 82, 123; F. Sánchez, Bourgeois 103–15; Ruan, “Taste” 315). In a series of essays and books, Francisco Sánchez and Felipe Ruan have shown that picaresque fiction shares many features with courtier conduct manuals, and characterize the novels as an alternate form of handbook for those who aspired to letrado status. In recent years, scholars have paid new attention to the social anxieties produced by courtesy books; although such guides fostered a new level of surface civility at court, they also elicited concern about rampant deception and the (im)possibility of authentic selfhood and true knowledge of others in the wake of intensive “self-fashioning” (Burke 2–3, 31; Greenblatt 2–3). Picaresque con games designed to facilitate social advancement often depended upon the ability to amass enough monetary and cultural capital to put on a temporary front, designed to convince a superior that the pretender merits a court or government position—or even a prosperous or blue-blooded bride (F. Sánchez, Bourgeois 50; Ruan, Pícaro). Conduct manuals and picaresque novels could be seen as problematic precisely because they provided the type of social knowledge or capital that would permit class or caste “passing” (Ruan, “Taste” 320; Fuchs 9). In cognitive terms, then, the courtesy manuals taught dangerous SI skills, so that aspiring courtiers could better use ToM and MI to deceive and manipulate their social superiors. By juxtaposing the functions of SI in the picaresque novel and in early modern courtier manuals, I am interested in developing the model Felipe Ruan has put forth in the recent study Pícaro and Cortesano: Identity and the Forms of Capital in Early Modern Spanish Picaresque Narrative and Courtesy Literature, which explores the representation of cultural capital. I will highlight instead the homologies between picaresque cognitive modalities and the types of cognitive behavior that Gracián represents as necessary 107 Social Intelligence and...