The Life and Adventures of Guzman d'Alfarache, or the Spanish Rogue, vol. 2.3

Mateo AlemánProject Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.8
Word count
300K words
Chapters
30

Tags

Foreign Language Books Foreign Literature UnderclassAdventure JourneyTrickery and SurvivalSocial VicissitudesHuman NatureMoral DilemmaClassic NarrativePicaresque NovelSatirical StyleSpanish Literature

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.The Life and Adventures of Guzman D'Alfarache, or the Spanish Rogue, vol. 2/3Author: Alemán, Mateo, 1547-1614?,Language: English, Class: PQ: Language and Literatures: Romance literatures: French, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese, Release Date: Aug 30, 2016

Editor's review

The Life and Adventures of Guzman D'Alfarache is a picaresque novel by Mateo Alemán, a writer of the Spanish Golden Age, and this volume is the second of the work's three volumes. The picaresque novel recounts in the first person the wanderings, deceptions, and struggles for survival of a low-born protagonist, who continually changes masters and moves among different social classes, thereby stringing together a panorama of street life and society. This volume continues that structure; the narration is ingenious and the satire biting, with both a moralizing bent and vivid details of everyday life. For readers studying the Spanish Golden Age, the evolution of the picaresque genre, or the urban lower classes of early modern Europe, this is an indispensable primary text. As a public-domain electronic text, it suits comparative reading and close textual study, but note that this volume is not a self-contained story; the protagonist's fate can be fully grasped only in conjunction with the preceding and following volumes.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read volume one or a summary of prior events before entering this volume, so that character relationships do not feel disconnected.
  2. Track the social class corresponding to each change of master, and make a brief table for easy reference.
  3. Note the narrator's self-justifications and satirical tone, and consider the question of his reliability.
  4. Read alongside background material on Spanish Golden Age society to understand the targets of the satire.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12
  13. 13
  14. 14
  15. 15
  16. 16
  17. 17
  18. 18
  19. 19
  20. 20
  21. 21
  22. 22
  23. 23
  24. 24
  25. 25
  26. 26
  27. 27
  28. 28
  29. 29
  30. 30

FAQ

Can I skip volume one and read this volume directly? Not really advisable. This is the second of the work's three volumes, and the protagonist's experiences and narrative threads carry over from what precedes it; reading it directly can make the plot and relationships feel disconnected, so it is best to know volume one first.
What genre does this book belong to? It belongs to the picaresque novel of the Spanish Golden Age, narrated in the first person and recounting the wanderings and struggles of a low-born character, interwoven with satire and social observation and colored by moral exhortation.
Why does it read with so much discussion and commentary? Picaresque novels often have the narrator insert moral judgments and self-defense; this is part of the genre and reflects the didactic tradition of the time. The commentary and the plot can be viewed separately.

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About the author

Mateo Alemán Author · Spanish · 1547–1614

Mateo Alemán (1547–1614), a Spanish novelist, was born in Seville, held a post in the royal treasury, and later moved to Mexico. His masterpiece, The Life and Adventures of Guzman d'Alfarache, is a representative work of the Spanish picaresque novel; its first part, published in 1599, won wide popularity across Europe and brought him fame. Narrated in the first person, the book follows the observations and struggles of a low-born rogue, with a cold, satirical tone that deeply influenced later European picaresque fiction. Three English volumes of the work are held in this collection. Public information on his early education and later years is limited, so no speculation is offered here.