Hostname: page-component-77c89778f8-rkxrd Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-07-19T13:25:05.208Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

Two Arguments for the Spanish Authorship of Gil Blas

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 October 2020

Extract

Today Picaresque is a Catch-All Term, Which Literary Critics and General Readers Use to Characterize Almost any Story of playfulness and mischief. It has been stretched across so many national boundaries that any notion of its historical or geographic referents is often lost. The central character, an antihero, seems to express the author's devilry and wit rather than any social criticism. This view, growing out of readers' preference for pleasant entertainment and critics' focus on language and form, sees no more than an on-the-road plot, with “adventures” ending whenever the author chooses to stop. However, this sense of the picaresque forgets the complex, frequently damning portrayal of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spain that the picaresque's original stories provided, as well as the contestation of the genre in postrevolutionary France, where it describes high crimes and suggests their punishment.

Type
Little-Known Documents
Copyright
Copyright © Modern Language Association of America, 2010

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Works Cited

Blackall, Eric A. The Emergence of German as a Literary Language, 1700–1775. 2nd ed. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1978. Print.Google Scholar
Cruz, Anne. Discourses of Poverty: Social Reform and the Picaresque in Early Modern Spain. Toronto: U of Toronto P, 1989. Print.Google Scholar
Dunn, Peter N. Spanish Picaresque Fiction: A New Literary History. Ithaca: Cornell UP, 1993. Print.Google Scholar
Guillén, Claudio. Literature as System. Princeton: Princeton UP, 1971. Print.Google Scholar
Hume, Martin. Spanish Influence on English Literature. London: Nash; Edinburgh: Constable, 1905. Print.Google Scholar
Isla, Francisco de. “Conversación preliminar, que comunmente llaman prologo y dedicatoria al mismo tiempo, a los que me quisieren leer.” Prologue. Aventuras de Gil Blas de Santillana, robadas a España y adoptadas en Francia por Mr. Le Sage; restituidas a su patria y a su lengua nativa por un español zeloso que no sufre se burlen de su nacion. Vol. 1. Barcelona: De la Viuda é Hijos de Gorchs, 1836. v-xvi. Print.Google Scholar
Llorente, Juan Antonio. Observaciones críticas sobre el romance de Gil Blas de Santillana, en las cuales se hace ver que Mr. Le Sage lo desmembró del de El bachiller de Salamanca, entonces manuscrito español inédito. Barcelona: De la Viuda é Hijos de Gorchs, 1837. Print.Google Scholar
Monlau, Pedro Felipe. “Noticia de la vida y obras del Padre Isla.” Introduction. Obras escogidas del Padre José Francisco de Isla. By Francisco de Isla. Madrid: B.A.E., 1945. i-xxxviii. Print.Google Scholar
Neufchâteau, Nicolas François de. Examen de la question de savoir si Le Sage est l'auteur de Gil Blas, ou s'il la pris de l'espagnol… avec des notes relative à la présente édition. Notes. Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, par Le Sage, édition collationnée sur celle de 1747 … avec un examen préliminaire, des notes… par M. le Cte François de Neufchâteau. Paris: Lefèvre, 1820. Print.Google Scholar
Peña y Marín, Evaristo, ed. Historia de Gil Blas de Santillana, publicada en francés por A.R. Le Sage, traducida al castellano por el Padre Isla. By Francisco Isla. Paris: Baudry, Librería Europea, 1850. Print.Google Scholar
Priestley, J. B. Introduction. The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane. By Alain René LeSage. Trans. Tobias Smollett. Illus. John Austen. Oxford: Oxford UP, 1937. v-x. Print.Google Scholar
Vogeley, Nancy. “The Picaresque Tradition Updated: Alfonso Sastre's Lumpen, marginación y jerigonça.Ideologies and Literature 2.2 (1987): 2542. Print.Google Scholar
Wicks, Ulrich. Picaresque Narrative, Picaresque Fictions: A Theory and Research Guide. New York: Greenwood, 1989. Print.Google Scholar