The Buscón in Context
2011; Routledge; Volume: 88; Issue: 7-8 Linguagem: Inglês
10.1080/14753820.2011.620303
ISSN1478-3428
Autores Tópico(s)Latin American history and culture
ResumoAbstract The Buscón has proved to be one of the most controversial Spanish texts in recent decades. A. A. Parker believed it to be a work of Quevedo's maturity and one that embodied a moral vision of life and society. By contrast, Fernando Lázaro Carreter considered it to be the product of a young writer that constituted a virtuoso linguistic performance rather than the promotion of an ethical viewpoint: an example of art for art's sake. This article probes this disagreement and by a close comparison with other works of Quevedo, in particular El mundo por de dentro (1612) and the Heráclito cristiano (1613), suggests that, despite later revisions, the work belongs essentially to the years preceding 1613. It has a sophistication of style that the earliest prose satires lack. Furthermore, the depiction of Pablos is complex. On occasions Quevedo sympathizes with him, and even identifies with him; at other times, he ridicules him and despises him. Such a psychological complexity connects the novel with the troubled experiences of those of Quevedo's works written in 1612 and 1613. Notes 1A. A. Parker, Literature and the Delinquent: The Picaresque Novel in Spain and Europe 1599–1753 (Edinburgh: Edinburgh U. P., 1967); Fernando Lázaro Carreter, ‘Originalidad del Buscón’, in Estilo barroco y personalidad creadora (Salamanca: Anaya, 1966), 109–41; and, as a response to the Spanish translation of Parker's book, ‘Glosas críticas a Los pícaros en la literatura de Alexander A. Parker’, Hispanic Review, 41:3 (1973), 469–97. Parker's study is substantially based on a much earlier essay, ‘The Psychology of the “Pícaro” in El Buscón’, Modern Language Review, 42 (1947), 58–69. See also Ronald Truman, ‘A. A. Parker and the Spanish Picaresque Novel’, in Golden-Age Essays in Commemoration of A. A. Parker, ed., with an intro., by Terence O'Reilly and Jeremy Robbins, BSS, LXXXV:6 (2008), 107–17. 2Antonio Gargano, ‘Introducción’, in Francisco de Quevedo, Historia de la vida del Buscón llamado don Pablos, ed. Antonio Gargano (Barcelona: Planeta, 1982), ix–li (p. xiv). 3Peter Dunn, ‘Problems of a Model for the Picaresque and the Case of Quevedo's Buscón’, BHS, LIX:2 (1982), 95–105 (p. 95). 4Lázaro Carreter, ‘Originalidad del Buscón’, 141. 5Support for Parker's approach is best seen in T. E. May, ‘Good and Evil in the Buscón: A Survey’, Modern Language Review, 45 (1950), 319–55; C. B. Morris, The Unity and Structure of Quevedo's ‘Buscón’, Occasional Papers in Modern Languages 1 (Hull: Univ. of Hull, 1965); Richard Bjornson, ‘Moral Blindness in Quevedo's El Buscón’, Romanic Review, 67 (1976), 50–59; Joseph V. Ricapito, ‘Quevedo's Buscón—“Libro de entretenimiento” or “Libro de desengaño”: An Overview’, Kentucky Romance Quarterly, 32:2 (1985), 153–64. 6 La vida del Buscón llamado don Pablos: Francisco de Quevedo, ed. Rosa Navarro Durán, Guías Laia de Literatura (Barcelona: Laia, 1983), 9. 7 La vida del Buscón, ed. Navarro Durán, 55, 93. 8Pablo Jauralde Pou, ‘Introducción biográfica y crítica’, in Francisco de Quevedo, El Buscón, ed. Pablo Jauralde Pou (Madrid: Castalia, 1990) 7–52. 11Domingo Ynduráin, ‘Introducción’ in Francisco de Quevedo, La vida del Buscón llamado Don Pablos, ed. Domingo Ynduráin (Madrid: Cátedra, 1980), 13–68 (p. 68). Further references to this edition are given parenthetically in the text. 9Lázaro Carreter, ‘Glosas críticas’, 479. 10Gargano, ‘Introducción’, in Quevedo, Historia de la vida del Buscón, xxxvi. 12Gargano, ‘Introducción’, in Quevedo, Historia de la vida del Buscón, xxxvi. The weakness of the case for an early date on the basis of internal allusions has been clearly outlined by Gonzalo Díaz Migoyo, ‘Las fechas en y de El Buscón de Quevedo’, Hispanic Review, 48:2 (1980), 171–93. 13‘The aim of all commentary on art should now be to make works of art—and by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means’ (‘Against Interpretation’, in A Susan Sontag Reader [London: Penguin Books, 1983], 95–104 [p. 104]). 14Paul Julian Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, Critical Guides to Spanish Texts 51 (London: Grant and Cutler in association with Tamesis Books, 1991). 15Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, 79. 17Francisco de Ayala, ‘Observaciones sobre el Buscón’, in Cervantes y Quevedo (Barcelona: Ariel, 1974), 219–33 (p. 223). 16See, for example, Dunn, ‘Problems of a Model for the Picaresque’, 104. 18Francisco de Quevedo, Obras festivas, ed. Pablo Jauralde Pou (Madrid: Castalia, 1981), 83. 19Quevedo, Obras festivas, 96. A similarly humorous and scathing reaction is that of the muleteer Barrabás in La ilustre fregona after listening to the performance by the love-struck Avendaño of a song that employs the conventional eulogies of love poetry: ‘Y ¿quién diablos te enseñó a cantar a una fregona cosas de esferas y de cielos, llamándola lunes y martes, y de ruedas de fortuna?’ The response of the onlookers is sympathetic: ‘Todos los que escucharon a Barrabás recibieron gran gusto, y tuvieron su censura y parecer por muy acertado’ (Miguel de Cervantes, Novelas ejemplares II, ed. Harry Sieber [Madrid: Cátedra, 1995], 173). 20Francisco de Quevedo, Sueños y discursos, ed. Felipe C. R. Maldonado (Madrid: Castalia, 1972), 75. 21His nose has become misshapen (like a grotesque Roman nose) as a result of cold sores, and not as a consequence of syphilis (the French disease). It only appears to be syphilitic as he would be too miserly to spend his money on prostitutes. 22Quevedo, Sueños y discursos, ed. Maldonado, 149. 23See for example Edwin Williamson, ‘The Conflict between Author and Protagonist in Quevedo's Buscón’, Journal of Hispanic Philology, 2 (1977), 45–60; James Iffland, ‘Pablos’ Voice: His Master's? A Freudian Approach to Wit in El Buscon’, Romanische Forschungen, 91 (1979), 215–43; William H. Clamurro, ‘Quevedo y el Buscón: texto huérfano, voces subversivas’, in Quevedo en Manhattan. Actas del Congreso Internacional, Nueva York, noviembre 2001, ed. Ignacio Arellano and Victoriano Roncero (Madrid: Visor, 2004), 71–80. 24Quevedo, Sueños y discursos, ed. Maldonado, 166. 25Quevedo, Sueños y discursos, ed. Maldonado, 165. 26Quevedo, Sueños y discursos, ed. Maldonado, 184. 27The full title is Heráclito cristiano y segunda arpa a imitación de David. Heraclitus’ ideas on time, in particular, would have attracted Quevedo. 28The Heráclito cristiano contains a number of Quevedo's best-known sonnets, compositions that have been regarded as among his most striking and bleak, such as ‘Miré los muros de la patria mía’, ‘Todo tras sí lo lleva el año breve’ and ‘¡Cómo de entre mis manos’. 29Henry Ettinghausen, Francisco de Quevedo and the Neostoic Movement (Oxford: Oxford U. P., 1972), 15. 30‘El año de 1613 es decisivo para la poesía metafísica española, puesto que en el retiro de la aldea, al cumplir los treinta y tres años, pasa por una tremenda crisis que se traduce en el Heráclito cristiano’ (J. M. Blecua ‘Introducción’, in Francisco de Quevedo, Obras completas I. Poesía original, ed. J. M. Blecua, 2nd ed. [Barcelona: Planeta, 1968], ix–xlvii [p. xxv]). 32Francisco de Quevedo, Poesía original completa, ed. J. M. Blecua (Barcelona: Planeta, 1981), 19. 31See Lía Schwarz Lerner and Ignacio Arellano, ‘Introducción a la poesía de Quevedo’, in Francisco de Quevedo, Poesía selecta, ed. Lía Schwarz Lerner and Ignacio Arellano (Barcelona: Promociones y Publicaciones Universitarias, 1989), 21–60 (p. 54). 33Quevedo, Poesía original completa, ed. Blecua, 32. 34Quevedo, Poesía original completa, ed. Blecua, 32. 35Quevedo, Poesía original completa, ed. Blecua, 22. 36B. W. Ife, ‘Introduction’, in Francisco de Quevedo, La vida del Buscón llamado Don Pablos, ed. B. W. Ife (Oxford: Pergamon Press, 1977), 1–14 (p. 1). 37Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, 63. 39Quevedo, Poesía original completa, ed. Blecua, 35. 38Quevedo, Poesía original completa, ed. Blecua, 20. 43For a comparable interpretation of a similar issue in Quevedo's poetry see my study Francisco de Quevedo: Love Poet (Washington D.C.: Catholic Univ. of America Press/Cardiff: Univ. of Wales Press, 1985), 160–70. I am happy to acknowledge that this reading also lacks something of the necessary finesse and qualification that a biographical understanding requires. 40Navarro Durán, La vida del Buscón, 59. 41Navarro Durán, La vida del Buscón, 60, 61. 42Ayala, ‘Observaciones sobre el Buscón’, 230. 46Quevedo, Sueños y discursos, ed. Maldonado, 163. 44Navarro Durán, La vida del Buscón, 60. 45Quevedo's portrayal of God in the Heráclito cristiano as an avenging figure tracking down the sinner is perhaps akin to the author's implacable determination to punish Pablos. In the fourth poem of the poetic collection we read: ‘¿Dónde podré esconderme de tu saña,/ sin que el rastro que deja mi pecado,/ por dondequiera que mis pasos llevo,/ no me descubra a tu rigor de nuevo?’ (Poesía original completa, ed. Blecua, 22). 47Clamurro, ‘Quevedo y el Buscón’, 71. 52Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, 80. 48Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, 17. 49Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, 17 (emphasis added). 50Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, 17. 51Smith, Quevedo: ‘El buscón’, 17. 53Alfonso Rey, ‘Más sobre la fecha del Buscón’, in Quevedo a nueva luz: escritura y política, ed. Lía Schwarz and Antonio Carreira (Málaga: Univ. de Málaga, 1997), 151–64. Rey suggests 1620 as a possible date of composition, which is similar to Parker's position, but he adduces different reasons.
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