Rogues in Dialogue: the Literature of Roguery in Spain And
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ROGUES IN DIALOGUE: THE LITERATURE OF ROGUERY IN SPAIN AND ENGLAND IN THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH CENTURIES By Anton Garcia-Fernandez Dissertation Submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of Vanderbilt University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY in Spanish December, 2011 Nashville, Tennessee Approved: Dr. Edward H. Friedman Dr. Cathy L. Jrade Dr. Andrés Zamora Juárez Dr. Mark L. Schoenfield Copyright © 2011 Anton Garcia-Fernandez All Rights Reserved ii To my wonderful wife Erin, who gives meaning to everything in life iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS From a very early age, while I was growing up in the northwest of Spain, I was drawn to the great recordings of the legendary crooner and jazz vocalist Bing Crosby. It was by listening to his old records that I learned to speak English, so I owe a great deal of my vocabulary and writing style to Der Bingle. In his 1953 as-told-to autobiography Call Me Lucky—the first autobiographical text I ever read—Crosby reflects upon his immensely successful career and states that he has always strived to do his best at anything he attempted in life (57). Like the Old Groaner, I believe that throughout the two and a half years that it has taken me to research and write this dissertation I have tried to do my best to deliver a manuscript that is, I hope, thorough, clear, and engaging. However, the completion of this work would never have been possible without the help and encouragement of a group of people to whom I remain eternally grateful. First of all, I would like to thank the members of my committee, Dr. Cathy L. Jrade, Dr. Mark L. Schoenfield, and Dr. Andrés Zamora, who read the manuscript and offered dozens of comments that made the dissertation a much more polished product. The committee was chaired by Dr. Edward H. Friedman, who is not only a noted scholar, but also one of the most caring people I have ever encountered. His guidance and expertise have been invaluable, lighting up the way in the darkest, most difficult moments, and his contributions to this dissertation are too numerous to mention. Like Bing Crosby, I believe that I can call myself lucky to have been able to count on Dr. Friedman’s help, and I think every graduate student out there deserves to have a dissertation director like him. iv I obviously owe an everlasting debt of gratitude to my parents, Mr. Antonio García Teijeiro and Mrs. María Jesús Fernández Domínguez, of Vigo, Spain. I was extremely fortunate to grow up in a home surrounded by literature, music, and art. Not only were they loving parents, but they encouraged me to read, listen to music, and appreciate art. Throughout our childhood and adolescence, my sister, Noa (who currently lives in Madrid, Spain, and with whom I remain in close and constant contact in spite of the physical distance between us) and I simply had to reach for one of the thousands of books in my parents’ collection if we felt inclined to read, and their record player always oozed great music, from Bob Dylan to the Beatles to Beethoven. Of course, children need to find their own way in life, but I am certain that I never would have been where I am now without the constant encouragement of my parents. I would also like to tip my hat to two very good friends that have been there way before the writing of this dissertation began. Dr. Jesús G. Maestro not only taught me Literary Theory when I was an undergraduate at the University of Vigo, but he was also instrumental in my applying to Graduate School at Vanderbilt University and establishing myself in the United States. I look up to him as a scholar, and in many ways I model my scholarly writing and my teaching on his, and I am proud to call him a friend. I met Pablo Martínez Diente, alias Paul D’Martin, from Valladolid, Spain, when we were both graduate students at Vanderbilt, and we quickly became friends. Our afternoon and late- night discussions on subjects such as literature, music, sports, politics, among many others, a beer and a basket of fries or onion rings in front of us, constitute some of the best memories of my years in the Music City. My wife excepted, there are very few people with whom I feel so much in tune. v And lastly, yet most importantly, this project would never have come to fruition without my beautiful, loving wife, Erin Garcia-Fernandez. The day we met, in a graduate class on British Romanticism at Vanderbilt, I knew instantly that she was, as the old song goes, “the girl in my mind . the one who is my ideal.” And every day she manages to prove those lyrics right. Writing a dissertation could be compared to a long-distance run, and Erin was there every step of the way. Like my father, I always write everything by hand, so Erin took the hundreds of handwritten pages that made up the original manuscript of this work, typed them up for me, and also offered her own very enlightening comments on style and content. I harbor no doubt that I would never have been able to complete this project without her love and encouragement, because without her, this dissertation, as well as everything else in life, would not really make any sense. Yes, she is, indeed, the main reason why you can call me lucky. Martin, Tennessee, September 2011. vi TABLE OF CONTENTS Page DEDICATION……………………………………………………………………………iii ACKNOWLEDGMENTS………………………………………………………………..iv Chapter I. THE SUNDRY FACES OF THE ROGUE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCEPT OF ROGUE LITERATURE........................................................1 II. WARNING MEETS ENTERTAINMENT: LAZARILLO DE TORMES (1554) AND SIXTEENTH-CENTURY ENGLISH JEST-BOOKS AND ROGUE PAMPHLETS.........................................................................................29 Jest-Books………………………………………………………………..30 A Hundred Merry Tales……………………………...…………………..36 Tales and Quick Answers………………………………………………...45 The Jest-Biography: Howleglas………………………………………….55 Rogue Pamphlets…………………………………………………….......60 Gilbert Walker’s Manifest Detection of Diceplay.....................................72 John Awdeley’s Fraternity of Vagabonds.................................................78 Thomas Harman’s A Caveat for Common Cursitors Vulgarly Called Vagabonds……………………………………………………......84 Robert Greene’s 1591-1592 Cony-Catching Pamphlets: A Notable Discovery of Cozenage.............................................................92 Sixteenth-Century English Rogue Literature and Lazarillo de Tormes.................................................................................................100 III. IMAGINING AN EXEMPLARY UNDERWORLD THROUGH FICTION:MIGUEL DE CERVANTES’S RINCONETE Y CORTADILLO (1613)..........................................................................................112 Containing Poverty: Vagrants, Beggars, and the Poor Laws in Sixteenth-Century Spain..........................................................................112 A Fraternity of Pícaros: Miguel de Cervantes’s Rinconete y Cortadillo and the English Rogue Pamphlet Tradition.........................123 IV. A PERSONAL INTERVIEW WITH THE UNDERWORLD: DR. CARLOS GARCÍA’S LA DESORDENADA CODICIA DE LOS BIENES AGENOS (1619)…….………………………………………………...158 Dr. Carlos García: The Mysterious Life of a Spanish vii Expatriate in France.................................................................................161 Thievery as One of the Noble Arts: Dr. Carlos García’s La desordenada codicia de los bienes agenos and the English Rogue Pamphlet Tradition.......................................................................170 CONCLUSIONS.............................................................................................................217 BIBLIOGRAPHY………………………………………………………………………224 viii CHAPTER I THE SUNDRY FACES OF THE ROGUE: AN INTRODUCTION TO THE CONCEPT OF ROGUE LITERATURE The sixteenth and seventeenth centuries were a period of literary experimentation throughout Europe, and a great number of these innovations came to fruition in the field of rogue literature. The rogue’s nomadic lifestyle and criminal practices captivated the imaginations of authors and readers, particularly in Spain and England, where an important body of works of this kind emerged in this time period. From Robert Greene’s A Notable Discovery of Cozenage (1591), which details “[t]he high-lawyer that challengeth a purse by the highway side” (121), to Carlos García’s La desordenada codicia de los bienes agenos (1619), which expounds on “[l]os salteadores [que] hurtan en los caminos y despoblados con grande impiedad y tyranía” (149), these texts depict the figure of the rogue that is foreboding in the threat of its sensational attacks. What is most intriguing about the developments in the Spanish and English rogue literature of this time, however, is not just that there are similarities in their representations of rogues. Rather, it is that these groups of texts from different geographic and linguistic backgrounds are able to harness an intertextual dialogue around the figure of the rogue, facilitating each tradition’s exchange and adaptation of conceptualizations of the rogue to suit their own cultural contexts. An examination of texts from both countries shows that, despite their common interest in the rogue as a dangerous villain, Spanish and English authors had very different understandings of criminality and the role of government. Pursued in depth, this exploration of Spanish and English rogue literature reveals that the 1 two traditions put forth strikingly different characterizations of the rogue. In English rogue