picaresque
Language: English
Part of speech: adj
Pronunciation: ipa: /pɪkəˈɹɛsk/
Forms: form: more picaresque
form: most picaresque
Etymology: From picaro (“adventurer, rogue”) + -esque (suffix meaning ‘in the style or manner of’ forming adjectives), modelled after Spanish picaresco (“in the style or manner of a picaro; picaresque”), from pícaro (“rogue”) + -esco (suffix forming adjectives indicating a relation). Compare French picaresque (attested later than the English word), Italian picaresco, Portuguese picaresco.
Senses: examples: text: The blue and white of the Murano background and the frankly picaresque tramp seem to form strange bed-fellows for the supper-party below stairs into which any gentleman's gentleman of the siècle de Dr. [Samuel] Johnson might have walked at any moment. [Describing an adaptation of Carlo Goldoni's The Servant of Two Masters (1746).]
ref: 1919 July 9, “Without Prejudice”, in Bruce Ingram, editor, The Sketch, volume CVII, number 1380, London: Illustrated London News & Sketch, →OCLC, page 54, column 2:
synonyms: roguish
glosses: Of or pertaining to adventurers or rogues.
examples: text: A mere piece of roguery told in the abstract, without the proper picaresque ornaments, its manifold sinuosities and dexterities, has no interest for the reader; it may recommend the executor of it to the administration of a cat-o-nine-tails, or to an honourable post in the gallies: but there is no music in it without the proper accompaniments.
ref: 1822, “Art. I.—Primera, y Segunda Parte de Guzman de Alfarache, por Matheo Aleman, Criado del Rey nuestro Senor, Natural, y Vezino de Sevilla. Madrid, 1723. 4to. The Rogue; or, The Life of Guzman de Alfarache. Written in the Spanish by Matheo Aleman, Servant to His Catholic Majestie, and Borne in Sevill. London, printed for Edward Blount, 1623.”, in The Retrospective Review, volume V, part II, London: Charles Baldwyn, […], →OCLC, pages 189–190:
text: Spain became celebrated about the end of this century for her novels in the picaresque style, of which Lazarillo de Tormes is the oldest extant specimen.
ref: 1839, Henry Hallam, “Section III. On Works of Fiction.”, in Introduction to the Literature of Europe, in the Fifteenth, Sixteenth, and Seventeenth Centuries, volume II, London: John Murray, […], →OCLC, paragraph 41, pages 435–436:
text: He [Daniel Defoe] produced an amazing variety of wares: newspapers, magazines, ghost stories, biographies, journals, memoirs, satires, picaresque romances, essays on religion, reform, trade, projects, – in all more than two hundred works.
ref: 1923, William J[oseph] Long, “Eighteenth-century Literature”, in Outlines of English Literature: […], Boston, Mass.; New York, N.Y.: Ginn and Company, →OCLC, page 189:
text: Opening in France just before the Revolution and concluding just after the attack on the Tuileries, [Rafael] Sabatini's novel deftly combines historical romance, picaresque novel and revenge tragedy.
ref: 2009 November 1, Neil McDonald, “Scaramouche and the Swashbuckler”, in Quadrant, volume LIII, number 11 (number 461 overall), Sydney, N.S.W.: Quadrant Magazine Limited, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original on 15 Apr 2018, page 103:
text: The picaresque novel finds its origins in the humanist search for an expansion of the historiographical genre. [...] The protagonist of the picaresque novel is the pícaro, a character of lowly descent who, by passing through a wide array of professions, attempts to rise in social standing.
ref: 2014, Konstantin Mierau, Binne de Haan, “Introduction: Bringing together Microhistory and the Picaresque Novel: Studying Menocchio, Guzmán de Alfarache, and Kin”, in Binne de Haan, Konstantin Mierau, editors, Microhistory and the Picaresque Novel: A First Exploration into Commensurable Perspectives, Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, →ISBN, page 2:
topics: literature
media
publishing
glosses: Characteristic of a genre of Spanish satiric novel dealing with the adventures of a roguish hero.
Derived terms: picaresquely
picaresqueness
unpicaresque
Related terms: picaro
picaroon