LITERARY PÍCAROS AND PÍCARAS AND THEIR TRAVELS IN EARLY MODERN SPAIN

Seminar Structure and Goals

Our seminar will study several classic examples of the Spanish picaresque—not only the anonymous Lazarillo, but those written by the Spanish Golden Age’s most renowned writers: Francisco de Quevedo’s Buscón; Miguel de Cervantes’s Rinconete y Cortadillo, and María de Zayas’s El castigo de la miseria. We will also read chapters of Fernando de Rojas’s La Celestina and Mateo Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache. Participants will be assigned the picaresque novels before the seminar to facilitate discussion while we trace the trajectory of the fictional pícaros through the very towns and cities where the novels were set. Participants will be asked to purchase paperback editions of the Lazarillo, Quevedo’s Buscón, and Cervantes’s Rinconete y Cortadillo. These may be ordered from Spain or Amazon.com. Several months before our trip, we will mail you a free reading packet with copies of the chapters from La Celestina, Alemán’s Guzmán de Alfarache and Zayas’s El castigo de la miseria, along with brief reading guides.

Mornings in Madrid and other cities will be dedicated to lectures given by the seminar directors, Dr. Anne J. Cruz and Dr. Adrienne L. Martín. The lectures will alternate between discussions of the novels’ historical context, and close readings and analyses of the literary aspects of the picaresque genre. They will be held four mornings a week, for a period of three hours each morning, with ample room for discussion and preparation of appropriate didactic materials for teachers. Before our departure to the various cities, participants will be asked to prepare several questions and themes on the novels discussed at each town that will be developed later in a Course Project (see below).

Afternoons will be dedicated to tours of libraries, museums, hospitals, and churches, institutions that either hold early modern collections or were themselves historically a part of the picaresque novels. Because Spanish cities have retained much of their medieval and early modern architecture in their cascos viejos or historical centers, seminar participants will have the opportunity to wander the streets where the pícaros walked, stole, tricked, rested and, occasionally, labored. As we move from city to city and from novel to novel, we will note the chronological and the topographical developments, and the concomitant changes in the picaresque genre, from Celestina’s Salamanca and Lazarillo’s Toledo, to Guzmán’s bustling seaport in Seville, on to the Buscón’s Madrid court.

In addition to the class discussions and group activities, the participants will prepare a final Course Project based on their readings and their travels. High school teachers will recognize in the pícaro some of the characteristic traits of adolescence, such as a sharp wit, a desire to please, and the need to survive in difficult surroundings. Because students respond enthusiastically to these narratives, creating a course or course module based on several of the novels is an excellent means to teach Spanish history and literature, as well as cultural differences. The 4-6-page Course Project will be comprised of a substantive rational, a syllabus underscoring one or more aspects of the picaresque that the teacher wishes to develop, and detailed pedagogical activities appropriate to the level taught by the individual teacher. Teachers will be encouraged to keep a journal throughout the seminar to document their travel experiences and their reactions. Integrated with the intellectual enrichment provided by the seminar, the purpose of this Course Project is that the teachers have a concrete product that they can utilize in the classroom. These projects may be prepared in teams.

Seminar participants are required to attend all meetings and to engage fully in the work of the seminar. They may not undertake teaching assignments or any other professional activities unrelated to their participation in the seminar. Participants who, for any reason, do not complete the full tenure of the seminar must refund a pro-rata portion of the stipend.