Introduction : transnational picaresque

Abstract

The anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes, the first picaresque novel, was written in the mid-sixteenth century. No copies of the editio princeps have survived; the four oldest extant editions all date from 1554, and were printed in the Spanish towns of Medina del Campo, Burgos, Alcalá, and in the Belgian city of Antwerp. The editio princeps was probably printed sometime between 1550 and 1552. Although in 1559 it was included in the first Spanish index, the vast popularity of this book is attested by those four editions. Lazarillo was a narrative solidly grounded on the principle of verisimilitude, a parody of chivalric romances, a literary monument that combined humorous folkloric elements with the genre of the carte messaggiere and legal issues pertaining to members of the clergy and their married lovers. All its innovations are the result of a long line of Spanish low-life literature that begins with Fernando de Rojas’s Celestina (1499) and includes Francisco Delicado’s Retrato de la Lozana andaluza (1528).