Lazarillo de Tormes and its sources While elements of literature by
Geoffrey Chaucer and
Giovanni Boccaccio have a picaresque feel and may have contributed to the style, the modern picaresque begins with
Lazarillo de Tormes, which was published anonymously in 1554 in
Burgos,
Medina del Campo, and
Alcalá de Henares in Spain, and also in
Antwerp, which at the time was under Spanish rule as a major city in the
Spanish Netherlands. It is variously considered either the first picaresque novel or at least the antecedent of the genre. The protagonist, Lázaro, lives by his wits in an effort to survive and succeed in an impoverished country full of hypocrisy. As a
pícaro character, he is an alienated outsider, whose ability to expose and ridicule individuals compromised within society gives him a revolutionary stance. Lázaro states that the motivation for his writing is to communicate his experiences of overcoming deception, hypocrisy, and falsehood (
engaño). The character type draws on elements of
characterization already present in
Roman literature, especially Petronius's
Satyricon. Lázaro shares some of the traits of the central figure of
Encolpius, a former gladiator, though it is unlikely that the author had access to Petronius's work. From the comedies of
Plautus,
Lazarillo borrows the figure of the parasite and the supple slave. Other traits are taken from Apuleius's
The Golden Ass.
The Golden Ass and
Satyricon are rare surviving samples of the "
Milesian tale", a popular genre in the classical world, and were revived and widely read in Renaissance Europe. '' by
Apuleius, which he published sometime in the 2nd century AD. (ms. Vat. Lat. 2194,
Vatican Library) (1345 illustration). The principal episodes of
Lazarillo are based on Arabic folktales that were well known to the Moorish inhabitants of Spain. The Arabic influence may account for the negative portrayal of priests and other church officials in
Lazarillo.
Arabic literature, which was read widely in Spain in the time of
Al-Andalus and possessed a literary tradition with similar themes, is thus another possible influence on the picaresque style.
Al-Hamadhani (d.1008) of Hamadhan (Iran) is credited with inventing the literary genre of
maqāmāt in which a wandering vagabond makes his living on the gifts his listeners give him following his extemporaneous displays of rhetoric, erudition, or verse, often done with a
trickster's touch. Ibn al-Astarkuwi or al-Ashtarkuni (d.1134) also wrote in the genre
maqāmāt, comparable to later European picaresque. During the 17th century, Islamic picaresque tales found renewed popularity in Western Europe.
The One Thousand and One Nights were popularised in Europe by authors such as
Hanna Diyab,
Jean de La Fontaine, and
Antoine Galland. These tales featured roguish and cunning protagonists who succeeded by subverting social conventions and dramatic acts of guile, such as
Scheherazade,
Sinbad the Sailor, and
Morgiana the Slave-Girl. The new popularity of the
Thousand and One Nights coincided with the development of the
fairy tale (
conte de fées) as a genre of popular literature, and the works of such fabulists as
Charles Perrault and the
Madame d'Aulnoy. The curious presence of Russian
loanwords in the text of the
Lazarillo also suggests the influence of medieval Slavic tales of tricksters, thieves, itinerant prostitutes, and brigands, who were common figures in the impoverished areas bordering on Germany to the west. When diplomatic ties to Germany and Spain were established under the emperor
Charles V, these tales began to be read in Italian translations in the
Iberian Peninsula. As narrator of his own adventures, Lázaro seeks to portray himself as the victim of both his ancestry and his circumstance. This means of appealing to the compassion of the reader would be directly challenged by later picaresque novels such as
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599/1604) and
El Buscón (composed in the first decade of the 17th century and first published in 1626) because the idea of
determinism used to cast the
pícaro as a victim clashed with the
Catholic Revival doctrine of
free will.
Other initial works An early example is
Mateo Alemán's
Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), characterized by religiosity. Guzmán de Alfarache is a fictional character who lived in the city of
San Juan de Aznalfarache, in
Seville, Spain.
Francisco de Quevedo's
El Buscón (1604 according to Francisco Rico; the exact date is uncertain, yet it was certainly a very early work) is considered the absolute masterpiece of the genre by A. A. Parker, because of his
baroque style and the study of delinquent psychology. However, a different school of thought, led by
Francisco Rico, rejects Parker's view, contending instead that the protagonist is an unrealistic character and that—as the structure of the novel is radically different from previous works in the picaresque genre—Quevedo is using the form as a mere vehicle to show off his abilities with conceit and rhetoric (rather than to actually construct a satirical critique of
Spanish Golden Age society).
Miguel de Cervantes wrote several works "in the picaresque manner, notably
Rinconete y Cortadillo (1613) and
El coloquio de los perros (1613; "Colloquy of the Dogs")". "Cervantes also incorporated elements of the picaresque into his greatest novel,
Don Quixote (1605, 1615)", the "single most important progenitor of the modern novel", that
M. H. Abrams has described as a "quasi-picaresque narrative". Here the hero is not a rogue but a foolish knight. In order to understand the historical context that led to the development of these paradigmatic picaresque novels in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries, it is essential to take into consideration the circumstances surrounding the lives of
conversos, whose ancestors had been Jewish, and whose
New Christian faith was subjected to close scrutiny and mistrust. The Spanish novels were read and imitated in other European countries where their influence can be found. In Germany,
Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen wrote
Simplicius Simplicissimus (1669), considered the most important of non-Spanish picaresque novels. It describes the devastation caused by the
Thirty Years' War. Grimmelshausen's novel has been called an example of the German
abenteuerroman (which literally means "adventure novel"). An
abenteuerroman is Germany's version of the picaresque novel; it is an "entertaining story of the adventures of the hero, but there is also often a serious aspect to the story." Grimmelshausen wrote several sequels in the same genre, notably
The Life of Courage and
Tearaway, both from 1670.
Alain-René Le Sage's
Gil Blas (1715) is a classic example of the genre, which in France had declined into an aristocratic adventure. In Britain, the first example is Thomas Nashe's
The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) in which a court page, Jack Wilson, exposes the underclass life in a string of European cities through lively, often brutal descriptions. The body of
Tobias Smollett's work, and
Daniel Defoe's
Moll Flanders (1722) are considered picaresque, but they lack the sense of religious redemption of delinquency that was very important in Spanish and German novels. The triumph of Moll Flanders is more economic than moral. While the mores of the early 18th century wouldn't permit Moll to be a heroine
per se, Defoe hardly disguises his admiration for her resilience and resourcefulness.
Works with some picaresque elements The autobiography of
Benvenuto Cellini, written in
Florence beginning in 1558, also has much in common with the picaresque. The classic Chinese novel
Journey to the West is considered to have considerable picaresque elements. Having been published in 1590, it is contemporary with much of the above—but is unlikely to have been directly influenced by the European genre.
18th and 19th centuries Henry Fielding proved his mastery of the form in
Joseph Andrews (1742),
The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great (1743) and
The History of Tom Jones, a Foundling (1749), though Fielding attributed his style to an "imitation of the manner of
Cervantes, author of
Don Quixote". Following the
Greek War of Independence (1821-1829) and the formation of the
First Hellenic Republic, a circle of Greek intellectuals based in Athens started publishing novels inspired by the
Romantic literary movement of the era, as well as the ancient Greek and Roman novels, such as
Aethiopica by
Heliodorus of Emesa, thus establishing the
First Athenian School (1830-1880). Written in
Katharevousa, and often describing semi-autobiographical and quasi-humorous episodes, novels such as
Alexandros Soutsos's
The Exile of 1831 (1831) and Iakovos Pitsipios's
Xouth the Αpe (1848) introduced the picaresque tradition to
Modern Greek literature. Grigorios Palaiologos specifically cites Le Sage's
Gil Blas as a source of inspiration for his picaresque novel,
The Man of Many Sufferings (1839). Greek author and journalist
Emmanuel Rhoides continued this tradition with his provocative novel
The Papess Joanne (1866).
William Makepeace Thackeray is the master of the 19th-century English picaresque. His best-known work,
Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero (1847–1848) — a title ironically derived from
John Bunyan's Puritan allegory of redemption ''
The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) —, follows the career of fortune-hunting adventuress Becky Sharp, her progress echoing the earlier Moll Flanders
. His earlier novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon'' (1844) recounts the rise and fall of an Irish arriviste conniving his way into the 18th-century English aristocracy. The 1880 Romanian novella
Ivan Turbincă tells the story of a kind, but hedonistic and scheming ex-soldier who ends up tricking God, the Devil, and the Grim Reaper so that he can sneak into Heaven to party forever.
Aleko Konstantinov wrote the 1895 novel
Bay Ganyo about the
eponymous Bulgarian rogue. The character conducts business of uneven honesty around Europe before returning home to get into politics and newspaper publishing. Bay Ganyo is a well-known stereotype in Bulgaria.
Works influenced by the picaresque In the English-speaking world, the term "picaresque" has referred more to a
literary technique or model than to the precise genre that the Spanish call
picaresco. The English-language term can simply refer to an episodic recounting of the adventures of an
anti-hero on the road.
Laurence Sterne's
The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1761–1767) and
A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) each have strong picaresque elements.
Voltaire's
satirical novel
Candide (1759) contains elements of the picaresque. An interesting variation on the tradition of the picaresque is
The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824), a satirical view on early 19th-century
Persia, written by
James Morier. Another novel on the same theme is ''
A Rogue's Life'' (1857) by
Wilkie Collins. Elements of the picaresque novel are found in
Charles Dickens'
The Pickwick Papers (1836–37).
Mark Twain's
Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) also has some elements of the picaresque novel.
Camilo José Cela's
The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942),
Ralph Ellison's
Invisible Man (1952) and
The Adventures of Augie March by
Saul Bellow (1953) were also among mid-twentieth-century picaresque literature.
John A. Lee's
Shining with the Shiner (1944) tells amusing tales about New Zealand folk hero
Ned Slattery (1840–1927) surviving by his wits and beating the '
Protestant work ethic'. So too is
Thomas Mann's
Confessions of Felix Krull (1954), which like many novels emphasizes the theme of a charmingly roguish ascent in the social order.
Under the Net (1954) by
Iris Murdoch,
Günter Grass's
The Tin Drum (1959) is a German picaresque novel.
John Barth's
The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) is a picaresque novel that parodies the
historical novel and uses
black humor by intentionally incorrectly using
literary devices. and
Aravind Adiga's
The White Tiger (Booker Prize 2008).
William S. Burroughs was a devoted fan of picaresque novels, and gave a series of lectures involving the topic in 1979 at
Naropa University in Colorado. He says it is impossible to separate the
anti-hero from the picaresque novel, that most of these are funny, and they all have protagonists who are outsiders by their nature. His list of picaresque novels includes Petronius' novel
Satyricon (54–68 AD),
The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) by Thomas Nashe, both
Maiden Voyage (1943) and
A Voice Through a Cloud (1950) by
Denton Welch,
Two Serious Ladies (1943) by
Jane Bowles,
Death on Credit (1936) by
Louis-Ferdinand Céline, and even himself. In contemporary Latin American literature, there are
Manuel Rojas'
Hijo de ladrón (1951),
Joaquín Edwards'
El roto (1968),
Elena Poniatowska's
Hasta no verte Jesús mío (1969),
Luis Zapata's
Las aventuras, desventuras y sueños de Adonis García, el vampiro de la colonia Roma (1978) and
José Baroja's
Un hijo de perra (2017), among others.
Works influenced by the picaresque •
Jaroslav Hašek's
The Good Soldier Švejk (1923) is an example of a work from Central Europe that has picaresque elements. •
J. B. Priestley made use of the form in his
The Good Companions (1929), which won the
James Tait Black Memorial Prize for Fiction. •
Fritz Leiber's
sword and sorcery series of novels,
Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser, are considered to have many picaresque elements, and are sometimes described as picaresque on the whole. •
Hannah Tinti's novel
The Good Thief (2008) features a young, one-handed orphan who craves a family, and finds one in a group of rogues and misfits.
In cinema In 1987 an
Italian comedy film written and directed by
Mario Monicelli was released under the Italian title
I picari. It was co-produced with Spain, where it was released as
Los alegres pícaros, and internationally as
The Rogues. Starring
Vittorio Gassman,
Nino Manfredi,
Enrico Montesano,
Giuliana De Sio and
Giancarlo Giannini, the film is freely inspired by the Spanish novels
Lazarillo de Tormes and
Guzman de Alfarache. The
Disney film
Aladdin (1992) can be considered a picaresque story.
In television The sixth episode of Season 1 of the Spanish fantasy television series,
El ministerio del tiempo (English title:
The Ministry of Time), entitled "Tiempo de pícaros" (Time of rascals) focuses on Lazarillo de Tormes as a young boy prior to his adventures in the genre-creating novel that bears his name. The
Netflix series
Inventing Anna (2022) has been called "somewhat anhedonic post-internet picaresque". ==See also==