Edward H. Friedman
- Published in print:
- 2015
- Published Online:
- June 2015
- ISBN:
- 9780199641925
- eISBN:
- 9780191800443
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199641925.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, European Literature, Prose (inc. letters, diaries)
The publication of Lazarillo de Tormes in 1554 marked a significant point in the development of European narrative. Paralleling its titular protagonist, this short work transgressed a number of ...
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The publication of Lazarillo de Tormes in 1554 marked a significant point in the development of European narrative. Paralleling its titular protagonist, this short work transgressed a number of boundaries. Lazarillo defies the conventions of the idealistic fiction of the time as it helps to define new forms of realism and advances toward the realist novel of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As demonstrated in Don Quixote, Cervantes seems to have learned a valuable lesson from picaresque narrative (Lazarillo and its successor, Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache) in terms of underscoring process along with product. This chapter focuses on early forms of the picaresque, the creation of a subgenre, the archetypal picaresque narratives (Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzmán de Alfarache, and La vida del buscón), other picaresque narratives of Early Modern Spain, including feminine variations, the picaresque and realism, the picaresque and Cervantes, and the continuity of the picaresque.Less
The publication of Lazarillo de Tormes in 1554 marked a significant point in the development of European narrative. Paralleling its titular protagonist, this short work transgressed a number of boundaries. Lazarillo defies the conventions of the idealistic fiction of the time as it helps to define new forms of realism and advances toward the realist novel of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. As demonstrated in Don Quixote, Cervantes seems to have learned a valuable lesson from picaresque narrative (Lazarillo and its successor, Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache) in terms of underscoring process along with product. This chapter focuses on early forms of the picaresque, the creation of a subgenre, the archetypal picaresque narratives (Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzmán de Alfarache, and La vida del buscón), other picaresque narratives of Early Modern Spain, including feminine variations, the picaresque and realism, the picaresque and Cervantes, and the continuity of the picaresque.
Ning Ma
- Published in print:
- 2016
- Published Online:
- January 2017
- ISBN:
- 9780190606565
- eISBN:
- 9780190606589
- Item type:
- chapter
- Publisher:
- Oxford University Press
- DOI:
- 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780190606565.003.0004
- Subject:
- Literature, World Literature
This chapter discusses Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote in light of imperial Spain’s position in the Age of Silver. It first relates the picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes’s pioneering realism to ...
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This chapter discusses Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote in light of imperial Spain’s position in the Age of Silver. It first relates the picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes’s pioneering realism to rapid commercial developments in Spain after the colonization of the New World. Don Quixote is a far more complex literary engagement of the same context. Drawing on transnational approaches to Cervantes, the chapter interprets Don Quixote’s romantic idealism as connoting aspects of Habsburg imperialism, and addresses his relations to Sancho and Dulcinea as symbolizing historical ironies within imperial Spain’s ideologies and material foundation. The chapter also contextualizes the novel within Spain’s Muslim connections, “purity of blood” doctrine, transatlantic colonialism, and Spanish-East Asia relations, thus situating Don Quixote’s modernity within early modern global history, and reading from the novel a nationally symbolic political critique similar to the other cases.Less
This chapter discusses Miguel de Cervantes’s Don Quixote in light of imperial Spain’s position in the Age of Silver. It first relates the picaresque novel Lazarillo de Tormes’s pioneering realism to rapid commercial developments in Spain after the colonization of the New World. Don Quixote is a far more complex literary engagement of the same context. Drawing on transnational approaches to Cervantes, the chapter interprets Don Quixote’s romantic idealism as connoting aspects of Habsburg imperialism, and addresses his relations to Sancho and Dulcinea as symbolizing historical ironies within imperial Spain’s ideologies and material foundation. The chapter also contextualizes the novel within Spain’s Muslim connections, “purity of blood” doctrine, transatlantic colonialism, and Spanish-East Asia relations, thus situating Don Quixote’s modernity within early modern global history, and reading from the novel a nationally symbolic political critique similar to the other cases.
