V.V. (1) Picaresque novel

[Ron Meiners]

The first novels, per my info, were The Golden Ass and Satyricon, both 
picaresque in a much more richly developed sense than the spanish- one that 
seems to have resurfaced in Pynchon, lots of Burgess, and others.

Sort of tried to raise this as a topic once and failed- the patterns and 
implications of the earliest novels are much closer to the later works, or 
vice versa.

rm

At 08:36 AM 10/11/00 +1100, jbor wrote:

>The medieval courtly romances were generally verse though prose variations
>did develop (Malory's *Le Morte D'Arthur*, for example). But the readership
>was obviously very restricted. I think that in the mid-sixteenth century you
>are also looking at other factors such as the rise of the printing press and
>increasing literacy amongst the middle classes, all of which contributed to
>the popularisation of the novel form in Europe, and it just so happened that
>the Spanish picaresque novels, and *Don Quixote* in particular, were
>Johnny-on-the-spot. There were "novels" in Dynastic Egypt, pre-medieval
>Japan (eg. the tale of *Genji*, which was written by a woman) of course, and
>Scheherezade's tales were told from about the 10th century. But *The
>Thousand and One Nights* did not become known in Europe until the 18th
>century.
>
>The housebound woman living vicariously through pulp romances is a
>gratuitous and patronising (male) stereotype which doesn't have much
>significance for historical actuality in any era, I would imagine, Emma
>Bovary notwithstanding.
>
>
>
>----------
> >From: jporter <jp4321 at IDT.NET>
> >
>
> >> From: "jbor" <jbor at bigpond.com>
> >
> >>
> >> Yes, I think that perhaps the larger point that I was trying to get at 
> (and
> >> I'm not sure that Eco would disagree either) is that "the novel" as a
> >> discrete and marketable literary form directly derives from the Spanish
> >> picaresque (through *Don Quixote*). In a sense all novels are picaresque,
> >> (meta-)representing as they do the *author's* journey through a (real or
> >> imagined) social setting. Thus is the author of novelistic fiction 
> (like) a
> >> pícaro; and postmodern fictions are very self-conscious about this 
> aspect of
> >> their genesis. Think too of Pynchon's comment at the end of the *Slow
> >> Learner* 'Intro' about the "picaresque life" the Beats "seemed to us to be
> >> leading" and his consciousness of his own corollary transition from
> >> 'apprentice' to 'journeyman'. (21-22)
> >>
> >> best
> >
> > I wouldn't think so, except maybe from the masculine point of view. Surely
> > the first readers were women, and the first novels love stories, not the
> > bizarre repressed homoerotic longings of Don Quijote and gilligan, er,
> > sancho.