{ "export": { "source": "https://urth.darkrealm.vip/thread/urth/3705", "note": "Exported from an unofficial mirror of a public mailing list. Copyright in each message remains with the person who wrote it. Email addresses are obscured as `user at host`, the form the original archive published. This file was rebuilt from parsed fields rather than retained headers, so it is faithful in content but not byte-exact.", "addresses": "obscured as 'user at host'" }, "archive": "urth", "thread": { "id": 3705, "subject": "Picaresque", "messages": 2, "voices": 2, "first": "2002-12-22T17:50:02+00:00", "last": "2002-12-23T05:57:34+00:00" }, "messages": [ { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Nigel Price", "address": "nigel.a.price at virgin.net" }, "date": "2002-12-22T17:50:02+00:00", "subject": "(urth) Picaresque", "in_reply_to": null, "reply_link": null, "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 2, "text": "Patera Nutria wrote:\nI won't argue that picaresque tales are not\nstill around. I'm happy to be corrected.\n However: \"The word picaresque derives\nfrom the Spanish picaro, which means rascal\nor crafty good-for-nothing\" (Michael Alpert,\nintroduction [p.7] to *Two Spanish Picaresque\nNovels*, pub. by Penguin.)\n*Tom Jones* is a decent example, from the same\nhistorical period (roughly).\n But that's just a detail." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "From close observation of my daughters' pet rats, I know that grooming is\nvital for their health and well-being. I hope that the esteemed myopotamic\npastoral rodent can therefore forgive me if I indulge in some almost\ncompletely irrelevant nit-picking about a recent comment of his!\n\nFor while Patera Nutria is certainly correct about the origin of the term\n\"picaresque\", I would strongly want to dispute that \"Tom Jones\" is a good\nexample of the form in English.\n\nWhile \"picaresque\" narratives are typically about rogues, their\ndistinguishing structural feature is that they are loosely plotted and\nepisodic. Generally, the central character moves around the place and meets\ndifferent people and encounters various, often unrelated, adventures. Some\ncritics therefore regard it as a \"bridge\" form from the chivalric romance to\nthe novel. The argument in a nutshell would be that the picareque story\nusually makes some attempt at characterisation (though often carricatured\nand grotesque), and thereby rises above the archetypal approach to character\nused in the mediaeval romance and its renaissance literary descendants. On\nthe other hand, unlike the novel, the plotting of the picaresque tale is\nloose and unstructured.\n\nAlthough there are plenty of episodes in \"Tom Jones\", and yes, he does\ntravel round the countryside, the plotting is highly rigorous and precise.\nTrue, there are one or two stand alone sections, like the Man on the Hill\nepisode, but the others are inter-related in a most sophisticated manner. I\nremember Buchan scholar Dr David Daniel comparing the plotting in \"Tom\nJones\" to the precisely meshing of components in a gearbox or aero engine -\nvery unlike the loose plotting in a picaresque story. At best, one could say\nthat there are picaresque elements in \"Tom Jones\".\n\nSo while I would agree that Vance's Cudgel stories are good examples of\nmodern picaresque, I would perhaps suggest Thomas Nashe's \"The Unfortunate\nTraveller\" (1594) as a better example of the genre in English than \"Tom\nJones\". It's not an easy or pleasant read, but an important step in the\ndevelopment of the modern novel. The description of the masacre of the\nGerman Anabaptists is vividly horrific and an interesting insight into\npopular sentiments towards Non-Conformists in Elizabethan England.\n\nFWIW, everything that Fielding says in \"Tom Jones\" about Wiltshire mud is\nabsolutely true.\n\nRegards\nNigel\nMinety, Wiltshire" } ] }, { "message_id": "", "from": { "name": "Alice K. Turner", "address": "aturner6 at nyc.rr.com" }, "date": "2002-12-23T05:57:34+00:00", "subject": "Re: (urth) Picaresque", "in_reply_to": "", "reply_link": "subject", "blocks": [ { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "Patera Nutria wrote:" }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 3, "text": "I won't argue that picaresque tales are not\nstill around. I'm happy to be corrected.\n However: \"The word picaresque derives\nfrom the Spanish picaro, which means rascal\nor crafty good-for-nothing\" (Michael Alpert,\nintroduction [p.7] to *Two Spanish Picaresque\nNovels*, pub. by Penguin.)\n*Tom Jones* is a decent example, from the same\nhistorical period (roughly).\n But that's just a detail." }, { "kind": "quote", "depth": 1, "text": "For while Patera Nutria is certainly correct about the origin of the term\n\"picaresque\", I would strongly want to dispute that \"Tom Jones\" is a good\nexample of the form in English.\n\nWhile \"picaresque\" narratives are typically about rogues, their\ndistinguishing structural feature is that they are loosely plotted and\nepisodic. Generally, the central character moves around the place and\nmeets\ndifferent people and encounters various, often unrelated, adventures. Some\ncritics therefore regard it as a \"bridge\" form from the chivalric romance\nto\nthe novel. The argument in a nutshell would be that the picareque story\nusually makes some attempt at characterisation (though often carricatured\nand grotesque), and thereby rises above the archetypal approach to\ncharacter\nused in the mediaeval romance and its renaissance literary descendants. On\nthe other hand, unlike the novel, the plotting of the picaresque tale is\nloose and unstructured." }, { "kind": "text", "depth": 0, "text": "Correct--the last sentence, that is. The meaning has changed. I invite you\nboth to do a Google on \"picaresque Tom Jones.\" Follow it up with \"picaresque\nDon Quixote\" and then with \"picaresque Candide.\" No one could possibly call\nCandide or the Don rogues; in their different ways they are as saintly (or\ndelusional) as Silk himself. It is the form that is the defining factor now.\n(I wish I could cite you examples from my once beloved OED CD-ROM but alas\nit no longer works with XP. Grrrr.)\n\nJust for fun, I kept an eye out, reading yesterday's New York Times Book\nReview, for use of the word in reviews of new novels. I found it twice, once\nabout two girls who found a rock band that goes on the road (\"So we follow\nHopey as she stumbles into social conundrums and sexual adventures as all\ngood picaresque heroines (or heros) must.\") and one featuring the straight\nman on a vaudeville comedy team. (\"[T]his picaresque tale...whose fortunes\nspanned the glory days of burlesque, Hollywood's golden age and the\nascendance of television.\")\n\nThat first line (about Hopey) strikes me as a pretty good example of the\nmodern usage.\n\n-alga\n\n-alga" } ] } ] }