ARTICLE
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Encyclopædia Britannica
picaresque novel, early form of novel, usually a first-person narrative, relating the adventures of a rogue or low-born adventurer (Spanish pícaro) as he drifts from place to place and from one social milieu to another in his effort to survive. In its episodic structure the picaresque novel resembles the long, rambling romances of medieval chivalry, to which it provided the first realistic counterpart. Unlike the idealistic knight-errant hero, however, the picaro is a cynical and amoral rascal who, if given half a chance, would rather live by his wits than by honourable work. The picaro wanders about and has adventures among people from all social classes and professions, often just barely escaping punishment for his own lying, cheating, and stealing. He is a casteless outsider who feels inwardly unrestrained by prevailing social codes and mores, and he conforms outwardly to them only when it serves his own ends. The picaro’s narrative becomes in effect an ironic or satirical survey of the hypocrisies and corruptions of society, while also offering the reader a rich mine of observations concerning people in low or humble walks of life.
The picaresque novel originated in Spain with Lazarillo de Tormes (1554; doubtfully attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza), in which the poor boy Lazaro describes his services under seven successive lay and clerical masters, each of whose dubious character is hidden under a mask of hypocrisy. The irreverent wit of Lazarillo helped make it one of the most widely read books of its time. The next picaresque novel to be published, Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), became the true prototype of the genre and helped establish realism as the dominant trend in the Spanish novel. The supposed autobiography of the son of a ruined Genoese moneylender, this work is richer in invention, variety of episode, and presentation of character than Lazarillo, and it too enjoyed extraordinary popularity.
Among Guzmán’s numerous successors were several short novels by Miguel de Cervantes in the picaresque manner, notably Rinconete y Cortadillo (1613) and El Coloquio de los perros (1613; “Colloquy of the Dogs”). Francisco López de Úbeda’s La picara Justina (1605; “Naughty Justina”) tells the story of a woman picaro who deceives her lovers just as the picaro does his masters. Francisco Gómez de Quevedo’s Vida del Buscón (1626; “The Life of a Scoundrel”) is a masterpiece of the genre, in which the profound psychological depiction of a petty thief and swindler is underlain by a deep concern for moral values. After Buscón the picaresque novel in Spain declined gradually into the novel of adventure.
In the meantime, however, the picaro had made his way into other European literatures after Lazarillo de Tormes was translated into French, Dutch, and English in the later 16th century. The first picaresque novel in England was Thomas Nashe’s Unfortunate Traveller, or, the Life of Jacke Wilton (1594). In Germany the type was represented by H.J. von Grimmelshausen’s Simplicissimus (1669). In England the female picaro was revived in Daniel Defoe’s Moll Flanders (1722), and many picaresque elements can be found in Henry Fielding’s Jonathan Wild (1725), Joseph Andrews (1742), and Tom Jones (1749), and Tobias Smollett’s Roderick Random (1748), Peregrine Pickle (1751), and Ferdinand, Count Fathom (1753). The outstanding French example is Alain-René Lesage’s Gil Blas (1715–35), which preserves a Spanish setting and borrows incidents from forgotten Spanish novels but portrays a gentler, more humanized picaro.
In the mid-18th century the growth of the realistic novel with its tighter, more elaborated plot and its greater development of character led to the final decline of the picaresque novel, which came to be considered somewhat inferior in artistry. But the opportunities for satire provided by the picaresque novel’s mingling of characters from all walks of life, its vivid descriptions of industries and professions, its realistic language and detail, and above all its ironic and detached survey of manners and morals helped to enrich the realistic novel and contributed to that form’s development in the 18th and 19th centuries. Elements of the picaresque novel proper reappeared in such mature realistic novels as Nikolay Gogol’s Dead Souls (1842–52), Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn (1884), and Thomas Mann’s Confessions of Felix Krull (1954).
Aspects of the topic picaresque novel are discussed in the following places at Britannica.
Assorted References
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major reference (in novel (literature): Plot)
There are, however, ways of constructing novels in which plot may play a desultory part or no part at all. The traditional picaresque novel—a novel with a rogue as its central character—like Alain Lesage’s Gil Blas (1715) or Henry Fielding’s Tom Jones (1749), depends for movement on a succession of chance incidents. In the works of Virginia Woolf, the consciousness of...
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genre of Spanish literature (in Golden Age (Spanish literature);
During the Golden Age such late medieval and early Renaissance forms as the chivalric and pastoral novels underwent their final flowering. They were replaced by the picaresque novel, which usually described the comic adventures of low-born rogues and which was exemplified by the anonymously written Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) and by the works of Mateo Alemán and Francisco...
in Spanish literature: The novel; Another reaction appeared in the picaresque novel, a genre initiated with the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). This native Spanish genre, widely imitated elsewhere, featured as its protagonist a pícaro (“rogue”), essentially an antihero, living by his wits and concerned only with staying alive. Passing from master to...
in Spanish literature: New critical approaches )...(1793; “Roderick, Epic Ballad”). Fray Gerundio (1758) by José Francisco de Isla, satirizing exaggerated pulpit oratory, reincorporated aspects of the picaresque novel. This genre was also echoed in works of Diego de Torres Villarroel, whose Vida, ascendencia, nacimiento, crianza y aventuras (1743–58; “Life, Ancestry,...
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history of Spain (in Spain: Spain’s Golden Age in literature)
At one extreme there was the picaresque novel, with its implicit satire of a society in which one could make one’s way by cleverness and roguery rather than by honest work—that is, if one did not happen to be born a nobleman. Thus, the hidalgo in the Lazarillo de Tormes (published 1554; doubtfully attributed to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza), the first of the picaresque novels, is...
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use of humour and wit (in humour (human behaviour): Verbal humour)
Jokes and anecdotes have a single point of culmination. The literary forms of sustained humour, such as the picaresque novel, do not rely on a single effect but on a series of minor climaxes. The narrative moves along the line of intersection of contrasted planes, such as the fantasy world of Don Quixote and the cunning horse sense of Sancho Panza, or is made to oscillate between them....
contribution by
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Alemán (in Mateo Alemán (Spanish author))
...Alfarache (1599; a second part, 1604; Eng. trans., The Spanish Rogue, 1622, 1924), which brought him fame throughout Europe but little profit, is one of the earliest picaresque novels. The first part ran through many editions, almost all pirated; even before he could finish the second part, a spurious sequel had appeared. Alemán’s life, in many ways like...
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Nashe (in Thomas Nashe (English writer))
pamphleteer, poet, dramatist, and author of The Unfortunate Traveller; or, The Life of Jacke Wilton (1594), the first picaresque novel in English.
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Smollett (in Tobias Smollett (Scottish novelist))
Scottish satirical novelist, best known for his picaresque novels The Adventures of Roderick Random (1748) and The Adventures of Peregrine Pickle (1751) and his epistolary novel The Expedition of Humphry Clinker (1771).
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Articles from Britannica encyclopedias for elementary and high school students.
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picaresque novel - Student Encyclopedia (Ages 11 and up)
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A picaresque novel is an early form of writing with a rogue or villain-a picaro, in Spanish-as its main character. The rogue, a low-born wanderer, is usually the one who tells the story of his adventures as he drifts from place to place and from one social setting to another. The episodic structure of the picaresque novel resembles the long, rambling romances of medieval chivalry. Unlike the idealistic knights of those romances, the more realistic picaro is a cynical and amoral rascal who would rather live by his wits than by honest work.
The topic picaresque novel is discussed at the following external Web sites.
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The Literary Encyclopedia - Picaresque novel