Spanish Golden Age Prose and Lazarillo de Tormes

Sixteenth-Century Prose and Lazarillo de Tormes

1. Didactic Prose

Dialogues and conferences:

• Treated in the form of a dialogue on philosophical, religious, and moral themes.
• Classical models: Plato, Cicero.
• Modern models: Symposia, Erasmus.
• Renaissance dialogues in Spanish.

Ascetic and mystical: Santa Teresa de Jesús.

History: Chronicles of the Indies.

2. Prose Fiction

Medieval Tradition:

• Novels or books of chivalry: chivalric adventures achieved great success, such as Amadís of Gaul.

New genres:

• Pastoral novel: Of Italian origin, it recounts the amorous adventures of refined shepherds in an idyllic setting, such as The Seven Books of Diana.
• Byzantine romance: The protagonist lovers suffer numerous setbacks, culminating in a final reunion.

Typically Hispanic Genres:

• Moorish novel: An idealized vision of the relationship between Moors and Christians.
• Picaresque novel: The narrative form becomes more important.

3. Lazarillo de Tormes

Text and Author

Published in 1554 and 1559, and banned by the Inquisition in 1573, it reappeared later but in an expunged version. It is an anonymous work.

Plot

Lazarus serves a blind man and then different masters, experiencing starvation and ill-treatment. As an adult, his luck improves.

Realism

• A non-idealized vision of reality.
• A realistic setting and concrete, known geography.

Structure

An autobiographical and epistolary narrative written in the first person in letter form.

Linear structure: A succession of episodes, with the subordination of individual episodes to the final outcome.

Parts:

• A prologue and seven treatises (chapters).
• First three chapters: extensive and related to the issue of hunger.
• The remaining treatises are short.
• Last treatise: the "good fortune" of Lazarus.

Evolution of the Character

Anti-hero:

• Humble and dishonorable origins.
• Faced with a hostile world, he is driven by necessity.

Evolution:

• A story of moral degradation, the product of a corrupting society.
• The transition from Lazarus as a naive child educated in cunning and deceit, to Lazarus as a cynical and morally degraded adult.

Language and Style

• Colloquial speech, abounding in popular expressions and proverbs.
• Distinctive features of literary language: synonymy, enumerations, polysyndeton, etc.

Interpretations

• A simple book of jokes, humorous, with great literary quality.
• Erasmian influence: anticlerical criticism.
• A book of social criticism and religious convert (converso) perspectives.

Lazarillo and the Picaresque Novel

• Model of a new genre: the picaresque.
• Derived traits: autobiographical form, dishonorable origin, leaving home and serving many masters, cunning and ingenuity, desire for social advancement, and realism.