"The Picaro and Picaresque Fiction"
examines variations on theme of the picaro from its sixteenth-century Spanish origins to the present day. What does this recurring impish rapscallion have to offer readers in different political and historical contexts?
Acquiring a name and distinct identity in the 1554 narrative Lazarillo de Tormes, the picaro had many precursors in Roman and Slavic folk traditions and even links to the trickster gods of various polytheistic faiths. The emergence of this young outsider as a figure in the mid-sixteenth century coincided with radical innovations in narrative form anticipating Cervantes’s Don Quixote, which was published in 1605. And, of course, as prose narrative and travel narrative traditions evolved from this point forward, the picaro kept cropping up in overt and subtle incarnations, a figure who could be both an object of derision and derider of others, often simultaneously.
This panel welcomes examinations of the picaro’s origins and more recent variations on the theme. It will pay particular attention to challenging and creative arguments for how the picaro may present itself as a present-day figure. We seek considerations of picaros across various time periods and cultural contexts in topics such as:
· Trickster-god picaros in religious traditions and folklore
· Reconsiderations of Lazarillo de Tormes
· Childhood and mischief-making
· Picaresque and travel narratives
· Picaresque and the Bildungsroman
· Picaro and political satire
· Picaro and gender
· And, other topics along these lines