El Buscón
Author | Francisco de Quevedo |
---|---|
Original title | Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaños |
Country | Spain |
Language | Spanish |
Genre | Picaresque, Satire |
Publisher | Pedro Verges |
Publication date | 1626 |
Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
El Buscón (full title Historia de la vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos, ejemplo de vagamundos y espejo de tacaños (literally: History of the life of the Swindler, called Don Pablos, model for hobos and mirror of misers); translated as Paul the Sharper or The Scavenger and The Swindler) is a
Purpose of the work
The only novel written by Quevedo, it is presented in the
El Buscón has been considered a profound satire on Spanish life, but also as a literary exercise for Quevedo, in that he was able to utilize word-play and verbal flourishes and his skill as a literary caricaturist.[1] El Buscón also propounds the notion that children of parents without honor will never be able to achieve honor themselves.[1]
C. Brian Morris has written that Quevedo pursues Pablos with a series of "desgracias...encadenadas" ("linked calamities").[4] James Iffland describes these "linked calamities" as a "torturously up and down, bouncing trajectory which marks Pablos's career from the outset."[5]
Quevedo satirizes Spanish society, but also attacks Pablos himself, who attempts throughout the novel to achieve a higher station in life and become a gentleman.[2] Such aspirations from the lower classes would only destabilize the social order, in Quevedo's eyes.[2] Quevedo punishes Pablos for attempting to better himself. "For Pablos, human society is the only reality. He knows no other. He is young, innocent, a little foolish."[6] Eventually, Pablos is driven to become a pícaro, or rogue.[6]
The work also incorporates autobiographical elements. In 1608, Quevedo dueled with the writer and fencing master Luis Pacheco de Narváez as a result of Quevedo criticizing one of his works. Quevedo took off Pacheco's hat in the first encounter. They were enemies all their lives.[7][8] In El Buscón, this duel is parodied with a fencer relying on mathematical calculations having to run away from a duel with an experienced soldier.[9]
Quevedo makes an early references to the effects of syphilis when he puns in his Buscón[10] about a nose entre Roma y Francia meaning both "between Rome and France" and "between dull and eaten by the French illness".
Linguistic significance
Picaresque works are valuable linguistically because they record the
Structure and plot
The novel is divided into three books. Book One is divided into seven chapters; Book Two is divided into six chapters; Book Three has ten chapters. One scholar has argued that the structure Quevedo adopts is not one of randomness and Pablos the focus around whom a series of satirical characters and situations group. Instead, "Buscón has a unity and coherence created by something other than the hero's presence, for an orderly train of misfortunes, which connects network of recurring motifs..."[12] These motifs include the closely related themes of family, filth, and legal and lawless cruelty.[13]
Book One
Pablos is first introduced as a child. His father, Clemente Pablo, is a
Pablos then receives a letter that his father has been hanged and his mother imprisoned. For his part, Don Diego receives a letter from his father stating that he does not wish for his son and Pablos to be friends. The friends separate, and Pablos decides to meet with a relative and receive an inheritance due to him as a result of his father's death.
Book Two
On his way to Segovia to claim his inheritance, Pablos encounters a slightly mad
Book Three
Pablos and the alleged gentleman arrive at the house of Don Toribio Rodríguez Vallejo Gómez de Ampuerto y Jordán, who also claims to be a gentleman. At this house, Pablos encounters various cheats and liars, a cofradía de pícaros y rufianes (confraternity of rogues and ruffians). Pablos, still wishing to become a gentleman, is dressed in rags and patched-up clothing. He is subsequently arrested and thrown into prison, along with his new-found friends. Pablos befriends the jailer, who decides not to flog him. The jailer eventually liberates Pablos and dines with him; Pablos claims that he is a relative of the jailer's wife. His friends, however, are flogged and exiled to Seville.
Pablos changes his name to “Ramiro de Guzmán,” and goes to an inn. Pablos decides to pretend to be rich in order to win over the daughter of the innkeeper, Berenguela de Rebolledo. Berenguela falls for his lies and tells Pablos to visit her at night by climbing the rooftop and entering her room in this manner. Unfortunately, the roof collapses. The innkeepers wake up, and, infuriated, beat him and have him thrown into jail.
They whip him in jail, until he is liberated by two men, one from Portugal, the other from Catalonia, who also had their sights set on Berenguela. The two men try to arrange a marriage between Berenguela and Pablos, but Pablos encounters some rich, elderly women. Renaming himself again as “Don Felipe Tristán,” Pablos arrives at the villa where the two women reside. One of these old women, however, has three nieces, all single, and wants Pablos to marry one of them. He falls for Doña Ana, the most beautiful of the three. As they picnic, a gentleman approaches, who is none other than Don Diego. He spots Pablos without being noticed himself. Pablos plays cards with all the ladies, and wins a lot of money. The next day Don Diego confronts him, and has his old friend beaten. He is arrested by a justice of the peace and taken to an inn. Pablos remains there, until he takes to the road again with a new career: that of a beggar. He meets another beggar, Valcázar, who teaches him in this new profession. Pablos earns some money and buys new clothes, a sword, and a hat, and takes off to Toledo, where no one will recognize him. Pablos meets up and joins a group of comedic actors, and Pablos works as a script writer for them. He takes on another new name, “Alonso el Cruel.” He writes some poetry as well. The leader of this band of actors, however, is apprehended by the police. The group is dispersed and Pablos abandons this profession and falls in love with a nun. He goes to mass frequently to see her; the nun ignores him. He travels to Seville, where he joins a group of thieves. The thieves go out to drink and eat together, and become intoxicated. When they return home, they are stopped by the police, who kill one of the thieves. The others disperse and are not caught, but Pablos and the other thieves decide to try their luck in the Indies, to see if their luck will change. Pablos tells us, at the end of the novel, that things in the Americas went even worse for him there.[16]
Editions of the work
The father of Juan Pérez de Montalbán (1602-1638) issued a pirated edition of Buscón, which roused an angry controversy. In 1882 the publication of Daniel Vierge's edition of Buscón brought the technique of photo-reproduction to a high level of finish.[17]
Adaptations
A film version of the novel was made in 1979.[18] It was directed by Luciano Berriatúa and starred Francisco Algora as Pablos.[19][20] It also starred Ana Belén and Francisco Rabal.
Footnotes
- ^ a b c "Summaries of Spanish Literature Books". Archived from the original on 2008-03-07. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
- ^ a b c "El Buscon - Quevedo". Archived from the original on 2008-01-12. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
- ^ Henry Ettinghausen, “Quevedo's Converso Picaro,” MLN, Vol. 102, No. 2, Hispanic Issue (Mar., 1987), 241.
- ^ C. Brian Morris, "The Unity and Structure of Quevedo’s ‘Buscón’: ‘Desgracias encadenadas’", Occasional Papers in Modern Language, no. 1 (Hull: University of Hull, 1965).
- ^ James Iffland, Quevedo and the Grotesque (Boydell & Brewer, 1982), 76.
- ^ a b Terence E. May, Wit of the Golden Age: Articles on Spanish Literature (Edition Reichenberger, 1986), 125.
- ^ Destreza Translation & Research Project: Famous Duels Archived 2007-10-08 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Luis Pacheco de Narváez y Quevedo, historia de un odio Archived 2007-12-31 at the Wayback Machine
- ^ Quevedo, Francisco de (1670). "Buscon's departure from Alcala towards Segovia; His meeting with two Coxcombs, with whom he passed the time on the way; one was an Engineer, t'other a Fencer". The Life and Adventures of Buscon the Witty Spaniard. Put into English by a Person of Honour. To which is added, The Provident Knight. With a dedicatory letter signed: J. D. Henry Herringman. pp. 81–87.
- ^ wikisource:es:Historia de la vida del Buscón: Libro Primero: Capítulo III: continues with [...] porque se le había comido de unas búas de resfriado, que aun no fueron de vicio porque cuestan dinero;: "[...] because it had been eaten by the bubons of a cold, which were not of vice because they cost money;".
- ^ a b Christopher J. Pountain, A History of the Spanish Language Through Texts (Routledge, 2000), 159.
- ^ C. Brian Morris, "The Unity and Structure of Quevedo’s ‘Buscón’: ‘Desgracias encadenadas’", Occasional Papers in Modern Language, no. 1 (Hull: University of Hull, 1965), 6.
- ^ Morris, "The Unity and Structure of Quevedo’s ‘Buscón’, 6.
- ^ Francisco de Quevedo, Vida del Buscón, llamado Don Pablos (Barcelona: Editorial Juventud, 1968), 43-4.
- ^ in the picaresque novel Historía de la vida del Buscón (c. 1604), the great master of satire, Francisco Quevedo, offers a critical portrait of an arbitrista who is derided as effectively insane precisely because of his concern with the question of crusade: I was going along keeping myself busy thinking about these things when, having passed Torote, I came upon a man on a saddled mule who was talking to himself with such speed, and so absorbed, that even being next to him, he didn’t see me. I greeted him and he greeted me; I asked him where he was a going, and after we had exchanged responses, we started to talk about whether the Turk was coming down, and about the King’s forces. He started to talk about how the Holy Land could be won, and how Algiers would be won; in which discourses I figured out that he was a Republic and governance crazy-person. Compare: Edited by Ken Tully, Chad Leahy,Jerusalem Afflicted Quaresmius, Spain, and the Idea of a 17th-century Crusade, [1]
- ^ Henry Ettinghausen, "Quevedo's Converso Picaro," MLN, Vol. 102, No. 2, Hispanic Issue (Mar., 1987), 241.
- ^ Daniel Vierge Biography
- ^ Some sources, such as http://www.hoycinema.com/buscon-1974.htm Archived 2007-12-17 at the Wayback Machine, give the film's release date as 1974, others as 1975 and 1976. IMdB says 1979.
- ^ Buscón, El (1979)
- ^ "Kalipedia". Archived from the original on 2012-02-09. Retrieved 2008-01-08.
References
- Abad, F., Literatura e historia de las mentalidades, Cátedra, 1987. ISBN 84-376-0715-9.
- Abreu, M.ª F. De y otros, Lengua y literatura española Santillana, 1976. ISBN 84-294-1359-6.
- Crosby, J.O., edición de “Poesía varia” de Quevedo, Cátedra, Letras Hispánicas, n.º 134, Madrid, 1994. ISBN 84-376-0266-1.
- Ettinghausen, H., “Introducción” a Los sueños, Planeta, Barcelona, 1990. ISBN 84-320-6949-3
- García López, J., Literatura Española e Historia de la literatura, Teide.
- Llamazares, M., Grandes escritores, Ed. Nebrija, Madrid, 1979. ISBN 84-391-2156-3
- López Castellón, E., “Introducción” a El Buscón. Edimat Libros, 1999. ISBN 84-8403-415-1
- Rico, Francisco: La novela picaresca y el punto de vista, Barcelona, Seix Barral, 2000. ISBN 978-84-322-0850-8.
- Zamora Vicente, A. Qué es la novela picaresca, edición digital en la Biblioteca Virtual Cervantes
External links
- (in English) Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper at Standard Ebooks
- (in Spanish) Historia de la vida del Buscón llamado Don Pablos
- (in Spanish) Full Cybertext of LA HISTORIA DE LA VIDA DEL BUSCON Archived 2008-12-10 at the Wayback Machine
- (in Spanish) Chapter-by-chapter summary
- (in Spanish) Facsimile 1626 edition
- (in Spanish) Commentary on work’s intent
- (in Spanish) Censorship in Quevedo and El Buscón Archived 2007-05-23 at the Wayback Machine
- (in Spanish) Page on Quevedo, Universidad de Santiago de Compostela