Editing Picaresque novel (section)

==Defined==
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:<ref>Thrall, William and Addison Hibbard. ''A Handbook to Literature''. The Odyssey Press, New York. 1960.</ref>

* A picaresque narrative is usually written in [[First-person narrative|first person]] as an autobiographical account. 
* The main character is often of low character or social class. They get by with wits and rarely deign to hold a job. 
* There is little or no [[plot (narrative)|plot]]. The story is told in a series of loosely connected adventures or episodes. 
* There is little if any [[Character arc|character development]] in the main character. Once a pícaro, always a pícaro. Their circumstances may change but these rarely result in a change of heart. 
* The pícaro's story is told with a plainness of language or [[Literary realism|realism]]. 
* [[Satire]] is sometimes a prominent element. 
* The behavior of a picaresque protagonist stops just short of [[criminality]]. Carefree or immoral rascality positions the picaresque hero as a sympathetic outsider, untouched by the false rules of society.

In 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.<ref>{{Cite web|title=picaresque|url=https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/picaresque|access-date=2021-06-03|website=dictionary.cambridge.org|language=en}}</ref> 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).

===Etymology===
The word ''[[Wikt:pícaro#Noun_2|pícaro]]'' first starts to appear in Spain with the current meaning in 1545, though at the time it had no association with literature.<ref>Best, O. F. [https://www.jstor.org/pss/40297681 "Para la etimología de pícaro".] IN: ''Nueva Revista de Filología Hispánica'', Vol. 17, No. 3/4 (1963/1964), pp. 352–357.</ref> 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.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=TAnheeIPcAEC&pg=PA936 ''Merriam-Webster's Collegiate Dictionary'', p. 936.] Merriam-Webster, Inc.</ref><ref>Rodríguez González, Félix (1996). [https://books.google.com/books?id=09NEuGHh2R8C&pg=PA36 ''Spanish Loanwords in the English Language: a tendency towards hegemony reversal'', p. 36. Walter de Gruyter.] ''Google Books''. </ref> Whether it has any validity at all as a generic label in the Spanish sixteenth and seventeenth centuries—Cervantes certainly used "picaresque" with 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").<ref>{{cite news
|first=Daniel
|last=Eisenberg
|author-link=:es:Daniel Eisenberg
|title=Does the Picaresque Novel Exist?
|magazine=Kentucky Romance Quarterly
|volume=26
|year=1979
|pages=203–219
|url=http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/Other_Hispanic_Topics/does_the_picaresque.pdf
|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190605211231/http://users.ipfw.edu/jehle/deisenbe/Other_Hispanic_Topics/does_the_picaresque.pdf
|archive-date=June 5, 2019}}</ref>