An Early Bourgeois Literature in Golden Age Spain: Lazarillo de Tormes, Guzman de Alfarache and Baltasar Gracian
Tracing the beginnings of a bourgeois literature in Golden Age Spain, Francisco Sanchez examines works by Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658), major picaresque texts—particularly Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) and Mateo Aleman's Guzman de Alfarache (1599-1604)—and contemporary writings in which political economists and jurists look at new economic and political circumstances. Using the term república to describe an economic sphere of social life under the constrictions of both the monarchy and the...
Search in google:
Tracing the beginnings of a bourgeois literature in Golden Age Spain, Francisco Sanchez examines works by Baltasar Gracian (1601-1658), major picaresque texts--particularly Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) and Mateo Aleman's Guzman de Alfarache (1599-1604)--and contemporary writings in which political economists and jurists look at new economic and political circumstances. Using the term rep£blica to describe an economic sphere of social life under the constrictions of both the monarchy and the privileges of the seignorial system, Sanchez investigates notions of person, culture, and life in these texts. He also analyzes the formation of a private sphere of social action and the emergence of a literary sphere to represent early bourgeois values and sensibilities. Sanchez argues that this literature represents culture as intellectual and verbal skills for the social and economic advancement (life) of a Christian but secularized person.
Preface11Ch. 1The wealth and the literature of the Republica15Ch. 2A bourgeois self : the Christian person in the world70Ch. 3A literary society within the seigniorial society : culture and life in Gracian99Ch. 4A mercantile consciousness : Guzman de Alfarache and Gracian on wealth123Conclusion151Bibliography153
\ From the Publisher"Sanchez challenges the reader to consider new 'economic' readings of old texts from Spain's Golden Age. . . . [A] thought-provoking style."\ — South Atlantic Review\ \
