the Picaresque Novel

PICARESQUE NOVEL, THE. This special form of the roman d'aventures may be defined as the prose autobiography of a real or fictitious personage who describes his experiences as a social parasite, and who satirizes the society which he has ex ploited. The picaroon, or rogue type, is represented by Encolpios, Ascyltos and Giton in the Satyricon, which tradition ascribes to Petronius ; it persists in Lucian, in the Roman de Renart, in the fabliaux and in other works popular during the middle ages. But in its final form the picaresque novel may be regarded as a Spanish invention. The word picaro is first used, apparently, in a letter written by Eugenio de Salazar at Toledo on April 15, 156o; the etymology which derives picaro from picar (to pick up) is unsatis factory to philologists, but it suggests the picaroon's chief busi ness in life. A connection with French picoreur (praedator) is possible. The earliest application of the expression picaro to a character in fiction occurs in Mateo Aleman's Guzincin de Al farache (1599). But a genuine novela picaresca existed in Spain before the word picaro became generally current.

Spanish Examples.

The earliest specimen of the kind is La Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades, an anonymous tale long attributed, on insufficient grounds, to Diego Hurtado de Mendoza (q.v.). The authorship of this bril liant book and the circumstances of its publication are obscure; however, it was certainly issued not later than 1554 (in three editions), and was thrice reprinted before 1559, when it was placed on the Index. Imitations of so successful a story were inevitable, and as early as 1555 there appeared at Antwerp La segunda parte de Lazarillo de Tormes, an anonymous sequel which completely misinterpreted the irreverent wit of the original. The 'first part had been prohibited because of its attacks on the clergy; in the second part the hero is presented as a devout youth transformed into a tunny. Another sequel, by Juan de Luna, was published at Paris in 1620. Meanwhile, many surreptitious copies of the first part were introduced into Spain ; the Inquisition finally gave up the attempt to suppress it, and in 1573 an expurgated edition was authorized. In 1599 Mateo Aleman (q.v.) published the Primera parte de Guzmin de Alfarache. It is modelled upon Lazarillo de Tormes, being the autobiography of the son of a ruined Genoese money-lender ; but the writer indulges in a tedious series of moralizings. This contrasts sharply with the laconic

cynicism of Lazarillo de Tormes; but Guzmin de Alfarache is richer in invention, in variety of episode and in the presentation of character. Its extraordinary popularity tempted a Valencian lawyer named Juan Jose Marti to publish a Segunda parte de la vida del picaro Guzman de Alfarache (1602) under the pseudonym of Mateo Lujan de Sayavedra; but in 1604 Aleman brought out the true continuation. A third part, written in Spanish by the Portuguese Felix Machado de Silva, Marques de Montebilo, was first printed in 1927. The Viaje entretenido (1603) of Agustin de Rojas is a realistic account of the writer's experiences as a strolling actor and playwright, and, apart from its considerable literary merits, it is an invaluable contribution to the history of the Spanish stage as well as a graphic record of contemporary low life.

The next in chronological order of the Spanish picaresque tales is La Picara Justina (1605), the history of a woman picaroon, which it has long been customary to ascribe to Andres Perez, a Dominican monk; there is, however, no good reason to suppose that the name of Francisco Lopez de Ubeda on the title-page is a pseudonym. The Picara Justina has wrongly acquired a reputation for indecency; its real defects are an affected diction and a want of originality. The Picara Justina is now read solely by phi lologists in quest of verbal eccentricities. Gines de Pasamonte, one of the secondary figures in Don Quixote (1605-15), is a singularly vivid sketch of the Spanish rogue, and in the comedy entitled Pedro de Urdemalas Cervantes again presents a brilliant panorama of picaresque existence. He returns to the subject in Rinconete y Cortadillo and in the Coloquio de los perros, two of the best stories in the Novelas ejemplares (1613). In the Viaje del mundo (1614) the zealous missionary Pedro de Cevallos inter polates amusing tales of what befell him in the slums of Anda lusia before he fled from justice to America. In El Pasajero (1617) Cristobal Suarez de Figueroa fills in the sketch of the knavish innkeeper already outlined by Cervantes in Don Quixote. Evidence of the widely diffused taste for picaresque literature is found in Enriquez de Castro (1617), a story in Spanish by the Frenchman Francois Loubayssin de Lamarca.