Road-book America

Road-book America PDF Author: Rowland A. Sherrill
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252025464
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
In Road-Book America, Rowland A. Sherrill explores how the old picaresque tradition, embodied in such novels as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, opens to include a number of recent American texts, both fiction and nonfiction. Sketching the socially marginal, ingenuous, travelling characters common to old and new versions of the genre, Road-Book America is a wide-ranging and sophisticated discussion of the "new American picaresque", exemplified by William Least HeatMoon's Blue Highways, John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, James Leo Herlihy's Midnight Cowboy, Bill Moyers's Listening to America, E. L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate, and hundreds of other narratives published in the past four decades. Open, resilient, adaptable, and perennially hopeful, the protagonist of the new American picaresque follows a therapeutic path for the alienated modern self and lays the groundwork for spiritual renewal.

Road-book America

Road-book America PDF Author: Rowland A. Sherrill
Publisher: University of Illinois Press
ISBN: 9780252025464
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 404

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Book Description
In Road-Book America, Rowland A. Sherrill explores how the old picaresque tradition, embodied in such novels as Henry Fielding's Tom Jones and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders, opens to include a number of recent American texts, both fiction and nonfiction. Sketching the socially marginal, ingenuous, travelling characters common to old and new versions of the genre, Road-Book America is a wide-ranging and sophisticated discussion of the "new American picaresque", exemplified by William Least HeatMoon's Blue Highways, John Steinbeck's Travels with Charley, James Leo Herlihy's Midnight Cowboy, Bill Moyers's Listening to America, E. L. Doctorow's Billy Bathgate, and hundreds of other narratives published in the past four decades. Open, resilient, adaptable, and perennially hopeful, the protagonist of the new American picaresque follows a therapeutic path for the alienated modern self and lays the groundwork for spiritual renewal.

Spanish Picaresque Fiction

Spanish Picaresque Fiction PDF Author: Peter N. Dunn
Publisher: Cornell University Press
ISBN: 9780801428005
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 364

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Book Description
Exiled to the margins of society and surviving by his wits in the course of his wanderings, the picaro marks a sharp contrast to the high-born characters on whom previous Spanish literature had focused. In this illuminating book, Peter N. Dunn offers a fresh view of the gamut of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century Spanish picaresque fiction.

The Picaresque and the Writing Life in Mexico

The Picaresque and the Writing Life in Mexico PDF Author: Jorge Téllez
Publisher:
ISBN: 9780268200176
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 292

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Book Description
This book studies picaresque narratives from 1690 to 2013, examining how this literary form serves as a reflection on the material conditions necessary for writing literature in Mexico. In The Picaresque and the Writing Life in Mexico, Jorge Téllez argues that Mexican writers have drawn on the picaresque as a device for pondering what they regard as the perils of intellectual and creative labor. Surveying ten narratives from 1690 to 2013, Téllez shows how, by and large, all of them are iterations of the same basic structure: pícaro meets writer; picaro tells life story; writer eagerly writes it down. This written mediation (sometimes fictional but other times completely factual) is presented as part of a transaction in which it is rarely clear who is exploiting whom. Highlighting this ambiguity, Téllez's study brings into focus the role that the picaresque has played in the presentation of writers as disenfranchised and vulnerable subjects. But as Téllez demonstrates, these narratives embody a discourse of precarity that goes beyond pícaros, and applies to all subjects who engage in the production and circulation of literature. In this way, Téllez shows that the literary form of the picaresque is, above all, a reflection on the value of literature, as well as on the place and role of writing in Mexican society more broadly. The Picaresque and the Writing Life in Mexico is a unique work that suggests new paths for studying the reiteration of literary forms across centuries. Looking at the picaresque in particular, Téllez offers a new interpretation of this genre within its national context and suggests ways in which this genre remains relevant for reflecting on literature in contemporary society. It will be of interest to students and scholars of Latin American studies, Mexican cultures and literatures, and comparative literature.

The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature

The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature PDF Author: J. A. Garrido Ardila
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 131629854X
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 289

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Book Description
Since the sixteenth century, Western literature has produced picaresque novels penned by authors across Europe, from Alemán, Cervantes, Lesage and Defoe to Cela and Mann. Contemporary authors of neopicaresque are renewing this traditional form to express twenty-first-century concerns. Notwithstanding its major contribution to literary history, as one of the founding forms of the modern novel, the picaresque remains a controversial literary category, and its definition is still much contested. The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature examines the development of the picaresque, chronologically and geographically, from its origins in sixteenth-century Spain to the neopicaresque in Europe and the United States.

Play and the Picaresque

Play and the Picaresque PDF Author: Gordana Yovanovich
Publisher: University of Toronto Press
ISBN: 9780802047045
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 182

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Book Description
Analyses three important Latin American novels in an attempt to redefine the nature of the picaresque, especially in regard to the roles of spontaneous play and carnivalesque laughter.

Rogue's Progress

Rogue's Progress PDF Author: Robert Alter
Publisher: Cambridge, Harvard U.P
ISBN:
Category : Lazarillo de Tormes
Languages : en
Pages : 178

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Book Description


A Good Map of All Things

A Good Map of All Things PDF Author: Alberto Álvaro Ríos
Publisher: University of Arizona Press
ISBN: 0816541035
Category : Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 249

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Book Description
In Alberto Álvaro Ríos’s new picaresque novel, momentous adventure and quiet connection brings twenty people to life in a small town in northern Mexico. A Good Map of All Things is home to characters whose lives are interwoven but whose stories are their own, adding warmth and humor to this continually surprising communal narrative. The stories take place in the mid-twentieth century, in the high desert near the border—a stretch of land generally referred to as the Pimería Alta—an ancient passage through the desert that connected the territory of Tucson in the north and Guaymas and Hermosillo in the south. The United States is off in the distance, a little difficult to see, and, in the middle of the century, not the only thing to think about. Mexico City is somewhere to the south, but nobody can say where and nobody has ever seen it. Ríos has created a whimsical yet familiar town, where brightly unique characters love fiercely and nurture those around them. The people in A Good Map of All Things have secrets and fears, successes and happiness, winters and summers. They are people who do not make the news, but who are living their lives for the long haul, without lotteries or easy answers or particular luck. Theirs is the everyday, with its small but meaningful joy. Whether your heart belongs to a small town in Mexico or a bustling metropolis, Alberto Álvaro Ríos has crafted a book that is overflowing with comfort, warmth, and the familiar embrace of a tightly woven community.

Microhistory and the Picaresque Novel

Microhistory and the Picaresque Novel PDF Author: Binne de Haan
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1443869589
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 145

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Book Description
In the sixteenth century, the picaresque novel introduced marginal figures (wanderers, beggars and thieves) as the protagonists of elaborate prose narratives, thus appearing to give a voice to hitherto unrepresented social types. This raises several questions as to the referentiality of the picaresque text, pertinent both to historians and literary scholars alike. Microhistory can help investigate this referentiality of the picaresque text, by revealing how particular historical agents perceived marginals and marginality, and juxtaposing these agent perspectives to the literary representation. Microhistory and the Picaresque Novel is the first publication to combine scholarship on the picaresque novel and the practice of microhistory. This innovative volume argues that the approach of microhistorical studies, such as The Cheese and the Worms by Carlo Ginzburg, Inheriting Power: The Story of an Exorcist by Giovanni Levi and The Return of Martin Guerre by Natalie Zemon Davis, can be used to shed new light on classic picaresque novels such as Guzmán de Alfarache, Gil Blas, Grimmelshausen, and their many epigones. The volume brings together expert scholars on the picaresque novel such as Professor Robert Folger, on the one hand, and established microhistorians such as Professor Giovanni Levi, on the other. This exploration is further enriched with contributions by Professor Matti Peltonen, an expert on history theory, and Professor Hans Renders, an expert on biography studies, as well as providing case studies from recent research by the editors Binne de Haan and Dr Konstantin Mierau.

Picaresque Narrative, Picaresque Fictions

Picaresque Narrative, Picaresque Fictions PDF Author: Ulrich Wicks
Publisher: Greenwood
ISBN:
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 392

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Book Description
Wicks has made a number of important contributions to the study of the picaresque. . . . Wicks's book does not attempt to answer all questions posed by the term, but it provides the most comprehensive view to date on the issues in the picaresque debate. The first third of the book deals with a consideration of the picaresque as a genre, the role of the picaresque in literary scholarship, the value of a modal approach, and the nature of picaresque narrative. The difficulties raised in the chapter on the picaresque mode, for example, indicate how this approach, despite its flaws, can illuminate texts and contribute to the critical process. The remainder of the book includes brief but perceptive analyses of more than 60 picaresque works, from Alonso, mozo de muchos amos to the Woody Allen film, Zelig. The metacritical thrust and the extensive bibliography make this a true `theory and research guide.' A must for public and academic libraries. Choice Picaresque fiction, according to Wicks, is neither a historical episode in the development of the novel nor merely a phenomenon in the social and literary history of Spain, although both are important manifestations of this essential narrative form. It is, he contends, universal narrative structure and theme. His book describes and defines picaresque narrative with careful attention paid to its historical development as a genre and its persistent appeal as an archetypal narrative structure. Beginning with a definition and discussion of the basic picaresque narrative structure and theme, Part I considers the origins and development of a specific type of picaresque narrative in sixteenth and seventeenth century Spain--the picaresque novel. This is followed by a history of the term and its various interpretations by critics over the years. He then proposes a genre-construct of picaresque narrative, followed by an extensive bibliography of critical works. Part II explores the usefulness of generic awareness in the act of reading by describing sixty specific works of fiction which collectively illustrate the full narrative spectrum of the picaresque mode.

The Picaresque

The Picaresque PDF Author: Harry Sieber
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1315299615
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
First published in 1977, this book studies the picaresque as a literary genre. It begins by discriminating between the literature of roguery and the picaresque in particular before discussing the origins of the genre in Spain and tracing its development into Europe. The book concludes with a brief description of ‘contemporary’ works which belong to the same tradition. In tracing the itinerary of the picaro in Europe and in America, it attempts to define a ‘myth’ of the picaresque which consists of two phases: the first being the traditional Spanish model of the picaresque and the second comprising of an ‘anti-picaresque’ myth, in which the ‘hero’ or ‘anti-hero’ no longer remains alienated but instead is the figure in which the ‘new’ society is formed.