Alemán, Mateo | Hilary S. D. Smith (essay date 1978)
Hilary S. D. Smith (essay date 1978)
SOURCE: Smith, Hilary S. D. “The Pícaro Turns Preacher: Guzmán's de Alfarache's Missed Vocation.” Forum for Modern Language Studies 14, no. 4 (October 1978): 387-97.
[In the following essay, Smith examines the sermons in Guzmán de Alfarache, concentrating on Guzmán's role as a preacher.]
It must become apparent to even the most casual reader of Mateo Alemán's picaresque novel Guzmán de Alfarache that the work is full of sermons; that not only the digressive discursos (a favourite term applied to contemporary printed sermons) but also complete chapters are cast in a homiletic mould.1 Whereas Unamuno expressed his dislike for this novel by calling it “una sarta de sermones enfadosos y pedestres de la más ramplona filosofía y de la exposición más difusa y adormiladora que cabe”,2 Herrero García was not being intentionally disparaging when he...
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