Misplaced Pages

#221778

70-444: Paul Scarron (c. 1 July 1610 – 6 October 1660) (a.k.a. Monsieur Scarron ) was a French poet, dramatist , and novelist , born in Paris. Though his precise birth date is unknown, he was baptized on 4 July 1610. Scarron was the first husband of Françoise d'Aubigné , who later became Madame de Maintenon and secretly married King Louis XIV of France . Scarron was born and died in Paris. He

140-522: A literary technique or model than to the precise genre that the Spanish call picaresco . The English-language term can simply refer to an episodic recounting of the adventures of an anti-hero on the road. Laurence Sterne 's The Life and Opinions of Tristram Shandy, Gentleman (1761–1767) and A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy (1768) each have strong picaresque elements. Voltaire 's satirical novel Candide (1759) contains elements of

210-475: A murder mystery play which is the longest-running West End show , it has by far the longest run of any play in the world, with its 29,500th performance having taken place as of February 2024. Contemporary playwrights in the United States are affected by recent declines in theatre attendance. No longer the only outlet for serious drama or entertaining comedies, theatrical productions must use ticket sales as

280-652: A Cloud (1950) by Denton Welch , Two Serious Ladies (1943) by Jane Bowles , Death on Credit (1936) by Louis-Ferdinand Céline , and even himself. In contemporary Latin American literature, there are Manuel Rojas ' Hijo de ladrón (1951), Joaquín Edwards ' El roto (1968), Elena Poniatowska 's Hasta no verte Jesús mío (1969), Luis Zapata 's Las aventuras, desventuras y sueños de Adonis García, el vampiro de la colonia Roma (1978) and José Baroja 's Un hijo de perra (2017), among others. In 1987 an Italian comedy film written and directed by Mario Monicelli

350-418: A Foundling (1749), though Fielding attributed his style to an "imitation of the manner of Cervantes , author of Don Quixote ". William Makepeace Thackeray is the master of the 19th-century English picaresque. His best-known work, Vanity Fair: A Novel Without a Hero (1847–1848) — a title ironically derived from John Bunyan 's Puritan allegory of redemption The Pilgrim's Progress (1678) — follows

420-590: A different meaning than it has today—has been called into question. There is unresolved debate within Hispanic studies about what the term means, or meant, and which works were, or should be, so called. The only work clearly called "picaresque" by its contemporaries was Mateo Alemán 's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599–1604), which they considered "El libro del pícaro" (English: "The Book of the Pícaro"). While elements of literature by Geoffrey Chaucer and Giovanni Boccaccio have

490-507: A form of playwright. Outside of the Western world there is Indian classical drama , with one of the oldest known playwrights being Śudraka , whose attributed plays can be dated to the second century BC. The Nāṭya Shāstra , a text on the performing arts from between 500BC-500AD, categorizes playwrights as being among the members of a theatre company, although playwrights were generally the highest in social status, with some being kings. In

560-457: A literary tradition with similar themes, is thus another possible influence on the picaresque style. Al-Hamadhani (d.1008) of Hamadhan (Iran) is credited with inventing the literary genre of maqāmāt in which a wandering vagabond makes his living on the gifts his listeners give him following his extemporaneous displays of rhetoric, erudition, or verse, often done with a trickster 's touch. Ibn al-Astarkuwi or al-Ashtarkuni (d.1134) also wrote in

630-553: A pejorative sense by Ben Jonson to suggest a mere tradesman fashioning works for the theatre. Jonson uses the word in his Epigram 49, which is thought to refer to John Marston or Thomas Dekker : Jonson described himself as a poet, not a playwright, since plays during that time were written in meter and so were regarded as the province of poets. This view was held as late as the early 19th century. The term "playwright" later again lost this negative connotation. The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are

700-613: A picaresque feel and may have contributed to the style, the modern picaresque begins with Lazarillo de Tormes , which was published anonymously in 1554 in Burgos , Medina del Campo , and Alcalá de Henares in Spain, and also in Antwerp , which at the time was under Spanish rule as a major city in the Spanish Netherlands . It is variously considered either the first picaresque novel or at least

770-635: A playwright, winning awards for his play The Phoenix at both the New York International Fringe Festival in 1999 and the Route 66 American Playwriting Competition in 2000. Today, theatre companies have new play development programs meant to develop new American voices in playwriting. Many regional theatres have hired dramaturges and literary managers in an effort to showcase various festivals for new work, or bring in playwrights for residencies. Funding through national organizations, such as

SECTION 10

#1732855371222

840-499: A series of lectures involving the topic in 1979 at Naropa University in Colorado. He says it is impossible to separate the anti-hero from the picaresque novel, that most of these are funny, and they all have protagonists who are outsiders by their nature. His list of picaresque novels includes Petronius' novel Satyricon (54–68 AD), The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) by Thomas Nashe, both Maiden Voyage (1943) and A Voice Through

910-525: A source of income, which has caused many of them to reduce the number of new works being produced. For example, Playwrights Horizons produced only six plays in the 2002–03 seasons, compared with thirty-one in 1973–74. Playwrights commonly encounter difficulties in getting their shows produced and often cannot earn a living through their plays alone, leading them to take up other jobs to supplement their incomes. Many playwrights are also film makers . For instance, filmmaker Morgan Spurlock began his career as

980-558: A stricter interpretation of Aristotle, as this long-lost work came to light in the late 15th century. The neoclassical ideal, which was to reach its apogee in France during the 17th century, dwelled upon the unities , of action, place, and time. This meant that the playwright had to construct the play so that its "virtual" time would not exceed 24 hours, that it would be restricted to a single setting, and that there would be no subplots. Other terms, such as verisimilitude and decorum, circumscribed

1050-572: A swamp. According to this story, Scarron, while residing at Le Mans , once tarred and feathered himself as a carnival freak and was obliged to hide in a swamp to escape the wrath of the townspeople. Another story has Scarron falling into an ice-water bath during the Carnival season. It seems more likely, seeing the connection with water, that he was disabled by polio . Whatever the cause, Scarron began to suffer from hardships and pain. His upper body became permanently twisted and his legs were paralyzed; he

1120-615: Is Hans Sachs (1494–1576) who wrote 198 dramatic works. In England, The Second Shepherds' Play of the Wakefield Cycle is the best known early farce. However, farce did not appear independently in England until the 16th century with the work of John Heywood (1497–1580). Playwright William Shakespeare remains arguably the most influential writer in the English language, and his works continue to be studied and reinterpreted. Most playwrights of

1190-409: Is a character in the D'Artagnan romance Twenty Years After by Alexandre Dumas . The Roman Comique tells the adventures of a company of strolling players in a realistic setting, thus providing much information concerning the customs of these companies of actors. The main plot tells the misadventures of Destin's acting company and presents us with an intrusive narrator who disappears when some of

1260-421: Is a genre of prose fiction . It depicts the adventures of a roguish but "appealing hero", usually of low social class , who lives by his wits in a corrupt society. Picaresque novels typically adopt the form of "an episodic prose narrative " with a realistic style. There are often some elements of comedy and satire . Although the term "picaresque novel" was coined in 1810, the picaresque genre began with

1330-438: Is an archaic English term for a craftsperson or builder (as in a wheelwright or cartwright ). The words combine to indicate a person who has "wrought" words, themes, and other elements into a dramatic form—a play. (The homophone with "write" is coincidental.) The first recorded use of the term "playwright" is from 1605, 73 years before the first written record of the term "dramatist". It appears to have been first used in

1400-534: Is still useful to playwrights today is the " French scene ", which is a scene in a play where the beginning and end are marked by a change in the makeup of the group of characters onstage rather than by the lights going up or down or the set being changed. Notable playwrights: Greek theater was alive and flourishing on the island of Crete. During the Cretan Renaissance two notable Greek playwrights Georgios Chortatzis and Vitsentzos Kornaros were present in

1470-406: Is the novella of the "Invisible Mistress," a comic adaptation of the more serious tale by Alonso de Castillo Solorzano. This tale, which includes a number of comic narrative intrusions, would be reworked by a number of English authors such as Thomas Otway and Eliza Haywood . The earliest English translation was in 1665 by John Bulteel , titled The Comical Romance . The "Brown-Savage" translation

SECTION 20

#1732855371222

1540-462: The Ancient Greeks . These early plays were for annual Athenian competitions among play writers held around the 5th century BC. Such notables as Aeschylus , Sophocles , Euripides , and Aristophanes established forms still relied on by their modern counterparts. We have complete texts extant by Aeschylus, Sophocles, and Euripides . The origins of Athenian tragedy remain obscure, though by

1610-643: The Fronde by writing a violent anti-Mazarin pamphlet, and lost his pensions due to this. In his early years, Scarron was something of a libertine. In 1649 a penniless lady of good family, Céleste de Palaiseau, kept his house in the Rue d'Enfer, and tried to reform the habits of Scarron and his circle. In 1652, he married the impoverished but beautiful Françoise d'Aubigné , afterwards famous as Madame de Maintenon, second wife of Louis XIV . He died in Paris on 6 October 1660. Scarron wrote his own epitaph , which makes reference to

1680-600: The National Endowment for the Arts and the Theatre Communications Group , encouraged the partnerships of professional theatre companies and emerging playwrights. Playwrights will often have a cold reading of a script in an informal sitdown setting, which allows them to evaluate their own plays and the actors performing them. Cold reading means that the actors haven't rehearsed the work, or may be seeing it for

1750-978: The Roman comique (1651–1657) is Scarron's best work: "This history of a troupe of strolling actors... is almost the first French novel...which shows real power of painting manners and character, and is singularly vivid. It is in the style of the Spanish picaresque romance, and furnished Théophile Gautier with the idea and with some of the details of his Capitaine Fracasse ." Scarron also wrote some shorter novellas, including La Precaution inutile , which inspired Sedaine's Gageure imprévue; Les Hypocrites and may also have inspired Molière 's Tartuffe . His plays include Jodelet (1645), Don Japhet d'Arménie (1653), L'Écolier de Salamanque (1654), Le Marquis ridicule ou la comtesse faite à la hâte (1655), La Fausse Apparence (1657), Le Prince corsaire (1658). Most of his works were adapted from Spanish sources, particularly Tirso de Molina and Francisco de Rojas Zorrilla . Scarron

1820-606: The ' Protestant work ethic '. So too is Thomas Mann 's Confessions of Felix Krull (1954), which like many novels emphasizes the theme of a charmingly roguish ascent in the social order. Under the Net (1954) by Iris Murdoch , Günter Grass 's The Tin Drum (1959) is a German picaresque novel. John Barth 's The Sot-Weed Factor (1960) is a picaresque novel that parodies the historical novel and uses black humor by intentionally incorrectly using literary devices . Other examples from

1890-461: The 16th and 17th centuries, it is essential to take into consideration the circumstances surrounding the lives of conversos , whose ancestors had been Jewish, and whose New Christian faith was subjected to close scrutiny and mistrust. The Spanish novels were read and imitated in other European countries where their influence can be found. In Germany, Hans Jakob Christoffel von Grimmelshausen wrote Simplicius Simplicissimus (1669), considered

1960-446: The 1960s and 1970s include Jerzy Kosinski 's The Painted Bird (1965), Vladimir Voinovich 's The Life and Extraordinary Adventures of Private Ivan Chonkin (1969), and Arto Paasilinna 's The Year of the Hare (1975). Examples from the 1980s include John Kennedy Toole 's novel A Confederacy of Dunces , which was published in 1980, eleven years after the author's suicide, and won

2030-491: The 1981 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction . It follows the adventures of Ignatius J. Reilly, a well-educated but lazy and obese slob, as he attempts to find stable employment in New Orleans and meets many colorful characters along the way. Later examples include Umberto Eco 's Baudolino (2000), and Aravind Adiga 's The White Tiger (Booker Prize 2008). William S. Burroughs was a devoted fan of picaresque novels, and gave

2100-449: The 4th century BCE, Aristotle wrote his Poetics , in which he analyzed the principle of action or praxis as the basis for tragedy. He then considered elements of drama: plot ( μύθος mythos ), character ( ἔθος ethos ), thought ( dianoia ), diction ( lexis ), music ( melodia ), and spectacle ( opsis ). Since the myths on which Greek tragedy were based were widely known, plot had to do with

2170-536: The 5th century it was institutionalised in competitions ( agon ) held as part of festivities celebrating Dionysos (the god of wine and fertility ). As contestants in the City Dionysia's competition (the most prestigious of the festivals to stage drama), playwrights were required to present a tetralogy of plays (though the individual works were not necessarily connected by story or theme), which usually consisted of three tragedies and one satyr play. For

Paul Scarron - Misplaced Pages Continue

2240-650: The Devil, and the Grim Reaper so that he can sneak into Heaven to party forever. Aleko Konstantinov wrote the 1895 novel Bay Ganyo about the eponymous Bulgarian rogue . The character conducts business of uneven honesty around Europe before returning home to get into politics and newspaper publishing. Bay Ganyo is a well-known stereotype in Bulgaria. In the English-speaking world, the term "picaresque" has referred more to

2310-485: The Dogs")". "Cervantes also incorporated elements of the picaresque into his greatest novel, Don Quixote (1605, 1615)", the "single most important progenitor of the modern novel", that M. H. Abrams has described as a "quasi-picaresque narrative". Here the hero is not a rogue but a foolish knight. In order to understand the historical context that led to the development of these paradigmatic picaresque novels in Spain during

2380-469: The English-speaking world, the term "picaresque" is often used loosely to refer to novels that contain some elements of this genre; e.g. an episodic recounting of adventures on the road. The term is also sometimes used to describe works which only contain some of the genre's elements, such as Miguel de Cervantes ' Don Quixote (1605 and 1615), or Charles Dickens ' The Pickwick Papers (1836–1837). The word pícaro first starts to appear in Spain with

2450-550: The Middle Ages, the earliest of which is The Play of the Greenwood by Adam de la Halle in 1276. It contains satirical scenes and folk material such as faeries and other supernatural occurrences. Farces also rose dramatically in popularity after the 13th century. The majority of these plays come from France and Germany and are similar in tone and form, emphasizing sex and bodily excretions. The best known playwright of farces

2520-605: The Restoration of the monarchy in 1660 and the end of the 17th century, classical ideas were in vogue. As a result, critics of the time mostly rated Shakespeare below John Fletcher and Ben Jonson. This period saw the first professional woman playwright, Aphra Behn . As a reaction to the decadence of Charles II era productions, sentimental comedy grew in popularity. Playwrights like Colley Cibber and Richard Steele believed that humans were inherently good but capable of being led astray. The Italian Renaissance brought about

2590-490: The Spanish novel Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), which was published anonymously during the Spanish Golden Age because of its anticlerical content. Literary works from Imperial Rome published during the 1st–2nd century AD, such as Satyricon by Petronius and The Golden Ass by Apuleius had a relevant influence on the picaresque genre and are considered predecessors. Other notable early Spanish contributors to

2660-420: The ancient Greeks, playwriting involved poïesis , "the act of making". This is the source of the English word poet . Despite Chinese Theatre having performers dated back to the 6th century BC with You Meng , their perspective of theatre was such that plays had no other role than "performer" or "actor", but given that the performers were also the ones who invented their performances, they could be considered

2730-628: The antecedent of the genre. The protagonist, Lázaro, lives by his wits in an effort to survive and succeed in an impoverished country full of hypocrisy. As a pícaro character, he is an alienated outsider, whose ability to expose and ridicule individuals compromised within society gives him a revolutionary stance. Lázaro states that the motivation for his writing is to communicate his experiences of overcoming deception, hypocrisy, and falsehood ( engaño ). The character type draws on elements of characterization already present in Roman literature , especially Petronius ' Satyricon . Lázaro shares some of

2800-404: The arrangement and selection of existing material. Character was determined by choice and by action. Tragedy is mimesis —"the imitation of an action that is serious". He developed his notion of hamartia , or tragic flaw, an error in judgment by the main character or protagonist , which provides the basis for the "conflict-driven" play. There were also a number of secular performances staged in

2870-483: The basis for numerous film adaptations . Camilo José Cela 's The Family of Pascual Duarte (1942), Ralph Ellison 's Invisible Man (1952) and The Adventures of Augie March by Saul Bellow (1953) were also among mid-twentieth-century picaresque literature. John A. Lee 's Shining with the Shiner (1944) tells amusing tales about New Zealand folk hero Ned Slattery (1840–1927) surviving by his wits and beating

Paul Scarron - Misplaced Pages Continue

2940-406: The career of fortune-hunting adventuress Becky Sharp , her progress echoing the earlier Moll Flanders . His earlier novel The Luck of Barry Lyndon (1844) recounts the rise and fall of an Irish arriviste conniving his way into the 18th-century English aristocracy. The 1880 Romanian novella Ivan Turbincă tells the story of a kind, but hedonistic and scheming ex soldier who ends up tricking God,

3010-708: The characters tell their life stories such as Destin, La Caverne and La Garouffiere. These stories have a higher tone than the main plot since they tell of past loves among the nobility. In the end the reader is able to unveil many of the mysteries of the novel and the relationship between the heroic material from the past and the comic adventures of the present since L'Estoile is the noble Leonore in disguise. The novel also borrows some of its humor (partially embodied in Ragotin) from Miguel de Cervantes 's Don Quixote as well as from Menippean satire. It also contains four interpolated tales, taken mainly from Spanish sources. The most famous

3080-575: The classical world, and were revived and widely read in Renaissance Europe. The principal episodes of Lazarillo are based on Arabic folktales that were well known to the Moorish inhabitants of Spain. The Arabic influence may account for the negative portrayal of priests and other church officials in Lazarillo . Arabic literature , which was read widely in Spain in the time of Al-Andalus and possessed

3150-477: The current meaning in 1545, though at the time it had no association with literature. The word pícaro does not appear in Lazarillo de Tormes (1554), the novella credited by modern scholars with founding the genre. The expression picaresque novel was coined in 1810. Whether it has any validity at all as a generic label in the Spanish sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Cervantes certainly used "picaresque" with

3220-529: The emperor Charles V , these tales began to be read in Italian translations in the Iberian Peninsula . As narrator of his own adventures, Lázaro seeks to portray himself as the victim of both his ancestry and his circumstance. This means of appealing to the compassion of the reader would be directly challenged by later picaresque novels such as Guzmán de Alfarache (1599/1604) and El Buscón (composed in

3290-480: The exact date is uncertain, yet it was certainly a very early work) is considered the absolute masterpiece of the genre by A. A. Parker, because of his baroque style and the study of delinquent psychology. However, a different school of thought, led by Francisco Rico , rejects Parker's view, contending instead that the protagonist, Don Pablos, is a unrealistic character, simply a means for Quevedo to launch classist , racist and sexist attacks. Moreover, argues Rico,

3360-602: The first decade of the 17th century and first published in 1626) because the idea of determinism used to cast the pícaro as a victim clashed with the Catholic Revival doctrine of free will . An early example is Mateo Alemán 's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599), characterized by religiosity. Guzmán de Alfarache is a fictional character who lived in the city of San Juan de Aznalfarache , in Seville , Spain. Francisco de Quevedo 's El Buscón (1604 according to Francisco Rico;

3430-556: The first time, and usually, the technical requirements are minimal. The O'Neill Festival offers summer retreats for young playwrights to develop their work with directors and actors. Playwriting collectives like 13P and Orbiter 3 gather members together to produce, rather than develop, new works. The idea of the playwriting collective is in response to plays being stuck in the development process and never advancing to production. Picaresque The picaresque novel ( Spanish : picaresca , from pícaro , for ' rogue ' or 'rascal')

3500-402: The genre maqāmāt , comparable to later European picaresque. The curious presence of Russian loanwords in the text of the Lazarillo also suggests the influence of medieval Slavic tales of tricksters, thieves, itinerant prostitutes, and brigands, who were common figures in the impoverished areas bordering on Germany to the west. When diplomatic ties to Germany and Spain were established under

3570-425: The genre included Mateo Alemán 's Guzmán de Alfarache (1599–1604) and Francisco de Quevedo 's El Buscón (1626). Some other ancient influences of the picaresque genre include Roman playwrights such as Plautus and Terence . The Golden Ass by Apuleius nevertheless remains, according to different scholars such as F. W. Chandler, A. Marasso, T. Somerville and T. Bodenmüller, the primary antecedent influence for

SECTION 50

#1732855371222

3640-486: The latter part of the 16th century. The plays of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing , Johann Wolfgang von Goethe , Friedrich Schiller , and other Sturm und Drang playwrights inspired a growing faith in feeling and instinct as guides to moral behavior and were part of the German romanticism movement. Aleksandr Ostrovsky was Russia's first professional playwright). Author and playwright Agatha Christie wrote The Moustrap ,

3710-513: The most important of non-Spanish picaresque novels. It describes the devastation caused by the Thirty Years' War . Grimmelshausen's novel has been called an example of the German abenteuerroman (which literally means "adventure novel"). An abenteuerroman is Germany's version of the picaresque novel; it is an "entertaining story of the adventures of the hero, but there is also often a serious aspect to

3780-454: The next year published Typhon ou la gigantomachie . At Le Mans he had conceived the idea of his Roman comique ("Comic Novel"), the first part of which was printed in 1651. In 1645, his comedy Jodelet, ou le maître valet ("Jodelet, or the Valet as Master") – the actor who played the leading role was also called Jodelet. Jodelet was the first of many French comedies about a servant who takes on

3850-407: The period typically collaborated with others at some point, as critics agree Shakespeare did, mostly early and late in his career. His plays have been translated into every major living language and are performed more often than those of any other playwright. In England, after the interregnum , and Restoration of the monarchy in 1660, there was a move toward neoclassical dramaturgy. Between

3920-426: The picaresque genre. Subsequently, following the example of Spanish writers, the genre flourished throughout Europe for more than 200 years and it continues to have an influence on modern literature and fiction. According to the traditional view of Thrall and Hibbard (first published in 1936), seven qualities distinguish the picaresque novel or narrative form, all or some of which an author may employ for effect: In

3990-640: The picaresque. The classic Chinese novel Journey to the West is considered to have considerable picaresque elements. Having been published in 1590, it is contemporary with much of the above—but is unlikely to have been directly influenced by the European genre. Henry Fielding proved his mastery of the form in Joseph Andrews (1742), The Life and Death of Jonathan Wild, the Great (1743) and The History of Tom Jones,

4060-483: The picaresque. An interesting variation on the tradition of the picaresque is The Adventures of Hajji Baba of Ispahan (1824), a satirical view on early 19th-century Persia , written by James Morier . Another novel on the same theme is A Rogue's Life (1857) by Wilkie Collins . Elements of the picaresque novel are found in Charles Dickens ' The Pickwick Papers (1836–37). Nikolai Gogol occasionally used

4130-418: The role of master, an idea that Scarron borrowed from the Spanish. Scarron became employed by the bookseller Quinet and called his works his "marquisat de Quinet." He had also a pension from Nicolas Fouquet , and one from the queen. Scarron had initially dedicated Typhon to Mazarin , who was not impressed with the work; Scarron then changed it to a burlesque on Mazarin. In 1651 he expressed his allegiance to

4200-491: The sense of religious redemption of delinquency that was very important in Spanish and German novels. The triumph of Moll Flanders is more economic than moral. While the mores of the early 18th century wouldn't permit Moll to be a heroine per se , Defoe hardly disguises his admiration for her resilience and resourcefulness. The autobiography of Benvenuto Cellini , written in Florence beginning in 1558, also has much in common with

4270-504: The story." Alain-René Le Sage 's Gil Blas (1715) is a classic example of the genre, which in France had declined into an aristocratic adventure. In Britain, the first example is Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller (1594) in which a court page, Jack Wilson, exposes the underclass life in a string of European cities through lively, often brutal descriptions. The body of Tobias Smollett 's work, and Daniel Defoe 's Moll Flanders (1722) are considered picaresque, but they lack

SECTION 60

#1732855371222

4340-458: The structure of the novel is radically different from previous works of the picaresque genre: Quevedo uses the conventions of the picaresque as a mere vehicle to show off his abilities with conceit and rhetoric, rather than to construct a satirical critique of Spanish Golden Age society. Miguel de Cervantes wrote several works "in the picaresque manner, notably Rinconete y Cortadillo (1613) and El coloquio de los perros (1613; "Colloquy of

4410-553: The subject matter significantly. For example, verisimilitude limits of the unities. Decorum fitted proper protocols for behavior and language on stage. In France, contained too many events and actions, thus, violating the 24-hour restriction of the unity of time. Neoclassicism never had as much traction in England, and Shakespeare 's plays are directly opposed to these models, while in Italy, improvised and bawdy commedia dell'arte and opera were more popular forms. One structural unit that

4480-753: The technique, as in Dead Souls (1842–52). Mark Twain 's Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1884) also has some elements of the picaresque novel. Kvachi Kvachantiradze is a novel by Mikheil Javakhishvili published in 1924. This is, in brief, the story of a swindler, a Georgian Felix Krull , or perhaps a cynical Don Quixote , named Kvachi Kvachantiradze: womanizer, cheat, perpetrator of insurance fraud, bank-robber, associate of Rasputin, filmmaker, revolutionary, and pimp. The Twelve Chairs (1928) and its sequel, The Little Golden Calf (1931), by Ilya Ilf and Yevgeni Petrov (together known as Ilf and Petrov ) became classics of 20th-century Russian satire and

4550-614: The terrible physical pain he suffered during the last years of his life: Scarron was very prolific as an author. The piece most famous in his own day was his Virgile travesti (1648–1653), a parody of the Aeneid , but the reputation of this work later declined. According to the Encyclopædia Britannica Eleventh Edition , the Virgile travesti "is now thought a somewhat ignoble waste of singular powers for burlesque" and

4620-407: The traits of the central figure of Encolpius , a former gladiator, though it is unlikely that the author had access to Petronius' work. From the comedies of Plautus , Lazarillo borrows the figure of the parasite and the supple slave. Other traits are taken from Apuleius ' The Golden Ass . The Golden Ass and Satyricon are rare surviving samples of the " Milesian tale ", a popular genre in

4690-420: Was obliged to use a wheelchair, and began taking copious amounts of opium to relieve his pain. Adding to his misfortunes, he became involved in a series of lawsuits with his stepmother over his father's property, as well as being obliged to support his sisters financially. Scarron returned to Paris in 1640. In 1643, he published Recueil de quelques vers burlesques ("A Collection of Some Burlesque Verses"), and

4760-541: Was published in 1700. In 2012, it was newly translated by Jacques Houis as The Comic Romance . Playwright The earliest playwrights in Western literature with surviving works are the Ancient Greeks . William Shakespeare is amongst the most famous playwrights in literature, both in England and across the world. The word "play" is from Middle English pleye , from Old English plæġ, pleġa, plæġa ("play, exercise; sport, game; drama, applause"). The word wright

4830-436: Was released under the Italian title I picari . It was co-produced with Spain, where it was released as Los alegres pícaros , and internationally as The Rogues . Starring Vittorio Gassman , Nino Manfredi , Enrico Montesano , Giuliana De Sio and Giancarlo Giannini , the film is freely inspired by the Spanish novels Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzman de Alfarache . The Disney film Aladdin (1992) can be considered

4900-796: Was the seventh child of Paul Scarron, a noble of the robe and member of the Parlement of Paris, and Gabrielle Goguet. Paul became an abbé when he was nineteen. He lived in Le Mans from 1632 to 1640, and in 1635 traveled to Rome with his patron, Charles de Beaumanoir, the bishop of Le Mans. Finding a patron in Marie de Hautefort , maîtresse-en-titre of Louis XIII , he became a well-known figure in literary and fashionable society. In 1638, Scarron became disabled. One source ( Laurent Angliviel de la Beaumelle , Memoires... de Mme de Maintenon ) attributed Scarron's deformities to rheumatism contracted from spending time in

#221778