Picaresque novel

Literary works from Imperial Rome published during the 1st–2nd century AD, such as Satyricon[3] by Petronius and The Golden Ass by Apuleius had a relevant influence on the picaresque genre and are considered predecessors.

[15] The Golden Ass and Satyricon are rare surviving samples of the "Milesian tale", a popular genre in the classical world, and were revived and widely read in Renaissance Europe.

[18] Arabic literature, which was read widely in Spain in the time of Al-Andalus and possessed a literary tradition with similar themes, is thus another possible influence on the picaresque style.

Al-Hamadhani (d.1008) of Hamadhan (Iran) is credited with inventing the literary genre of maqāmāt in which a wandering vagabond makes his living on the gifts his listeners give him following his extemporaneous displays of rhetoric, erudition, or verse, often done with a trickster's touch.

[20] The curious presence of Russian loanwords in the text of the Lazarillo also suggests the influence of medieval Slavic tales of tricksters, thieves, itinerant prostitutes, and brigands, who were common figures in the impoverished areas bordering on Germany to the west.

This means of appealing to the compassion of the reader would be directly challenged by later picaresque novels such as Guzmán de Alfarache (1599/1604) and El Buscón (composed in the first decade of the 17th century and first published in 1626) because the idea of determinism used to cast the pícaro as a victim clashed with the Catholic Revival doctrine of free will.

However, a different school of thought, led by Francisco Rico, rejects Parker's view, contending instead that the protagonist is an unrealistic character and that—as the structure of the novel is radically different from previous works in the picaresque genre—Quevedo is using the form as a mere vehicle to show off his abilities with conceit and rhetoric (rather than to actually construct a satirical critique of Spanish Golden Age society).

In order to understand the historical context that led to the development of these paradigmatic picaresque novels in Spain during the 16th and 17th centuries, it is essential to take into consideration the circumstances surrounding the lives of conversos, whose ancestors had been Jewish, and whose New Christian faith was subjected to close scrutiny and mistrust.

In Germany, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen wrote Simplicius Simplicissimus[25] (1669), considered the most important of non-Spanish picaresque novels.

[citation needed] In Britain, the first example is Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) in which a court page, Jack Wilson, exposes the underclass life in a string of European cities through lively, often brutal descriptions.

[28] The body of Tobias Smollett's work, and Daniel Defoe's Moll Flanders (1722) are considered picaresque, but they lack the sense of religious redemption of delinquency that was very important in Spanish and German novels.

The 1880 Romanian novella Ivan Turbincă tells the story of a kind, but hedonistic and scheming ex soldier who ends up tricking God, the Devil, and the Grim Reaper so that he can sneak into Heaven to party forever.

An interesting variation on the tradition of the picaresque is The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824), a satirical view on early 19th-century Persia, written by James Morier.

This is, in brief, the story of a swindler, a Georgian Felix Krull, or perhaps a cynical Don Quixote, named Kvachi Kvachantiradze: womanizer, cheat, perpetrator of insurance fraud, bank-robber, associate of Rasputin, filmmaker, revolutionary, and pimp.

Camilo José Cela's The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942),[31] Ralph Ellison's Invisible Man (1952) and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953) were also among mid-twentieth-century picaresque literature.

[32] John A. Lee's Shining with the Shiner (1944) tells amusing tales about New Zealand folk hero Ned Slattery (1840–1927) surviving by his wits and beating the 'Protestant work ethic'.

[26] Other examples from the 1960s and 1970s include Jerzy Kosinski's The Painted Bird (1965), Vladimir Voinovich's The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (1969), and Arto Paasilinna's The Year of the Hare (1975).

Examples from the 1980s include John Kennedy Toole's novel A Confederacy of Dunces, which was published in 1980, eleven years after the author's suicide, and won the 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction.

It follows the adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a well-educated but lazy and obese slob, as he attempts to find stable employment in New Orleans and meets many colorful characters along the way.