Critical Study and Text of Quevedo's Buscon

FAIN: FT-10826-70

Harry Sieber
Johns Hopkins University (Baltimore, MD 21218-2608)

Annotated edition and literary study of Quevedo's Buscon, a major Spanish novel in the picaresque tradition (i.e., focused on a "half-outsider," an isolated, alienated narrator-hero who is part of but never fully assimilated into the society in which he lives). Last edition, published in 1927, was planned as a two-volume set; second volume to contain explanatory notes and criticism but never published. Quevedo had profound influence outside Spain (his works were tranlated into all European languages before his death in 1645), particularly on the development of satire and the picaresque genre in England, France and Germany. Especially important since many modern novelists (Ralph Ellison, Kerouac, John Barth, etc.) drawn on the picaresque tradition.