The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature

Download or read book The Picaresque Novel in Western Literature written by J. A. Garrido Ardila and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 2015-05-19 with total page 289 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: 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.