The Routledge Dictionary of Literary Terms

174 Picaresque
criticism but there is little of that philosophy
in the work of British romantics, with the
exception perhaps of Coleridge. There
are, however, pronounced phenomenological
themes in the work of F. R. Leavis,
although he does not use the term. His
concern with perception and the concrete,
and his commitment to becoming more
conscious in our response to literature
certainly chimes with the writings of the
major thinkers in this tradition.
See Michael Bell, F. R. Leavis (1988);
Dermot Moran, Introduction to
Phenomenology (2000).
GD
Picaresque A kind of realistic fiction
which originated in Spain with the anonymous
Lazarillo de Tonnes (1554) and the
more influential novel by Mateo Alemán,
Guzmán de Alfarache (1559 and 1604),
which was widely translated. Other important
novels in this genre include in German,
Grimmeishausen’s Simplicissirnus (1669),
and in French, Le Sage’s Gil Bias
(1715–35). The Spanish picaro or
picarón, the anti-hero of such a novel,
was translated into English as the picaroon;
a scoundrel of low birth and evil
life, at war with society. The form of the
novel is commonly an autobiographical
account of the picaroon’s fortunes, misfortunes,
punishments and opportunism.
The tales are episodic, frequently
arranged as journeys. The endings are
abrupt, either as the picaroon sets off for
America for a ‘new life’, or for the galleys.
This allows a sequel to be added; but
the mode is not formless. The pessimistic
judgement of life does not allow a neat
dénouement. Life is just more of the
same. The stories inflict physical damage
on their characters, and the damage is a
sign of experience. Experience, however,
is only more instances for picaroons of their
irrepressible independence and society’s
unalterable hostility. The novels allow a
statement of the individual’s freedom and
independence but invoke the counterbalancing,
restraining oppression of
society. All picaroons have a series of
tyrannical masters, and the servile relationship
which demands abasement and
allows cheating is a microcosm of the
human state.
Picaresque is a term that must refer
to the nature of the subject matter as
well as to the superficial autobiographical
and episodic features of the fiction.
Unfortunately, in English it is the accidental
arrangements that are usually indicated
by picaresque: a low-life narrator, a
rambling tale. There was plenty of rogue
literature in England from Nashe’s
Unfortunate Traveller (1594) onwards.
Obviously Defoe in Moll Flanders (1722)
has some affinity with the picaresque.
The novel is episodic; it has an autobiographical
narrator and it is realistic.
Moll, though, does not seem to be a real
picaro. She is that peculiarly English
figure, a temporary déclassé(e). Smollett’s
Roderick Random (1748) is similar.
Random is only temporarily of low estate;
he ends by being restored to his own
level. He is really a master, not a servant.
The same author’s The Adventures of
Ferdinand Count Fathom (1753) is more
nearly a real picaresque. Various features
of the picaresque are found in different
English novels: Tom Jones is organized
along a journey; Dickens’s Nicholas
Nickleby allows realistic description of
scenes of real life; Joyce Cary’s The
Horse’s Mouth presents physical decay as
the sign of experience, and Gully Jimson
enjoys the ‘free life’.
See Robert Alter, Rogue’s Progress:
Studies in the Picaresque Novel (1964);
A. A. Parker, Literature and the
Delinquent: A Study of the Picaresque
Novel (1947); Giancarlo Maiorino (ed.),