Discourses of poverty : social reform and the picaresque novel in early modern Spain / Anne J. Cruz.

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

Cruz examines the treatment of poverty, prostitution, war, and other social concerns in the cultural and literary discourses of early modern Spain.

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CHOICE Review

Cruz's operating premise is that commentary on picaresque narrative should engage the multiple discourses of early modern Spain. Key to the study--which covers picaros and picaras from Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) to Estebanillo Gonzalez (1646)--is the linking of the picaresque genre to issues of mendicancy, charity, and the welfare of the state. The debates on poverty during this period unite theology, political ideology, social reform, and economics. Cruz (Univ. of Illinois, Chicago) is adept at delineating ways in which the picaresque both textualizes and interacts with the tensions and conflicts within society. She demonstrates that questions of poverty are simultaneously questions of morality, power, and subjectivity. Her examination of alterity focuses not only on beggars, vagabonds, and rogues, but also on prostitutes (and other marginalized women) and soldiers. The "richness" of this volume lies in the convincing juxtaposition, alternately parallel and dialectical, of fictional and nonfictional documents. Other scholars, influenced by the wide-ranging models of cultural studies, have read picaresque narrative against its sociohistorical backdrop, but Cruz's work is especially comprehensive and well documented. Her selections are judicious, and her readings of the novels are subtle, insightful, elegantly written, and, one must note, backed by--and part of--history. Highly recommended for all research libraries and for committed upper-division undergraduates. E. H. Friedman; Indiana University-Bloomington