Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper Francisco de Quevedo (motivational novels txt) đ
- Author: Francisco de Quevedo
Book online «Pablo de Segovia, the Spanish Sharper Francisco de Quevedo (motivational novels txt) đ». Author Francisco de Quevedo
Of the picaresque novel, which is the special product of Spainâ ânever successfully acclimatized in any other country, and as entirely Spanish as the olla or the gazpachoâ âone of the purest specimens is Don Pablo de Segovia (Paul the Sharper), exemplo de Vagamundos y espejo de Tacañosâ âpattern of Vagabonds and mirror of rogues. The book is generally known as El BuscĂłn, or El Gran Tacaño. The latter title, which is not Quevedoâs, was made the leading designation of the book after the authorâs death, and is still that by which the book is most popular in Spain. BuscĂłn is from buscar, to seek, and means a pursuer of fortune, a searcher after the means of life, a cadger. Tacaño is ingeniously derived by old Covarrubias, in the earliest Spanish dictionary, from the Greek ÎșαÎșÏÏ, being a corruption of cacaño; or from the Hebrew tachach, which is said to mean fraud and deceit. Don Pablo, however his titles may be derived, is generally admitted to be the perfect type of an adventurer of the picaresque school. The book of his exploits, though left, like so many Spanish books, unfinished, is described by Quevedoâs best critic as âof all his writings the freest from affectation, the richest in lively and natural humours, the brightest, simplest, and most perspicuous; in which he comes nearest to the amenity, artlessness, and delightful and delicate style of Don Quixote.â These praises are not undeserved, although the knight of industry, in his quest of adventures, is very far from being of kin to the warrior of chivalry, the gentle and perfect knight of La Mancha. Disfigured as it is by all Quevedoâs faults of style and manner, Don Pablo deserves to be rescued from the fate to which its faults of language, rather than its defects of taste or its failure in the moral part, have hitherto consigned it, at least in England. As a picture of low, vagabond life, it necessarily deals with vice, but it cannot be said that the vice is rendered attractive. All the characters are bad, in the sense that they all belong to the class who have failed to achieve a decent life. The company is not select in which we move, but it can hardly be said that there is contamination in it any more than we get from looking at Hogarthâs Gin Lane, or the Borrachos of Velasquez. From beginning to end Don Pabloâs career is one of undisguised trickery, dissimulation, and lying. All his companions are thieves, or impostors, or rogues, patent or undetected. The scenes are laid almost entirely in the lowest placesâ âin the slums of Segovia, of Madrid, and of Seville, mostly in prison or in some refuge from the law. The manners of the people, men and women, are as repulsive as their morals; and they talk (which is not unusual) after their natures. When we concede all this we admit the worst which can be said of Quevedoâs work, and impute nothing against the author, either as artist or moralist. It is difficult to imagine any virtue of a texture so frail as to be injured by the reading of Paul the Sharper. There is no vice in the book, even though it deals exclusively with vicious people. There is nothing hurtful in the character of the complete rogue, nor is he painted in any but his natural colours, as a mean, sordid vagabond, who does or says nothing whatever to gild his trade or to embellish his calling. This is the crowning merit of Quevedoâs book, among those of its class, that there are no shabby tricks played upon the reader, such as other writers of even higher pretensions are guilty ofâ âno attempt to pass off a rogue as though he were a hero in distressâ âa creature deserving of sympathy, who is only treating the world as the world treated himâ âa victim of fortune, whose ill-usage by society justifies his attitude towards the social
Comments (0)