The Lazarillo Phenomenon: Essays on the Adventures of a Classic Text (review)

Abstract

Reviewed by: The Lazarillo Phenomenon: Essays on the Adventures of a Classic Text Shannon Polchow Coll-Tellechea, Reyes, and Sean McDaniel, eds. The Lazarillo Phenomenon: Essays on the Adventures of a Classic Text. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2010. Pp. 202. ISBN 978-0-8387-5760-4. According to editors Reyes Coll-Tellechea and Sean McDaniel, The Lazarillo Phenomenon was conceived under the belief that the Lazarillo de Tormes field has grown stagnant. Although publications about the text abound, few truly impact the discipline. One main hindrance to its advancement, and one that is reiterated by the majority of the essays in the volume, is the work’s connection to the picaresque tradition. Too many blindly accept the text’s role as precursor to or the first of the picaresque, for that is what literary history has taught us to do. Since no one can agree on the characteristics of the picaresque and the sheer amount of terminology that surrounds the genre, the editors encourage us to cast aside the label when examining the Lazarillo. It is only once we move past this line of thinking that the field will advance. After Óscar Pereira Zazo examines the different denotations of public and private and how the interplay between the two are manifested in his “La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes: Publicity and Fictionality,” the tome focuses on the reception of the Lazarillo through the publication of later editions. In “Galateo español, Destierro de ignorancia and Lazarillo castigado: The Importance of Post-publication History,” Sean McDaniel echoes another tenet presented in the introductory study, as he challenges some aspects of Harry Sieber’s work with the Lazarillo. According to Sieber, we must consider the text from the perspective of the audience and not the author. To do this, Seiber suggests that we look at the edition familiar to the audience, and that would be the Lazarillo castigado published with the Galateo español in 1603, a volume [End Page 166] geared toward the court. Due to the themes presented in the two courtly manuals mentioned in his article title, McDaniel disagrees, insisting that the 1603 publication was geared more toward an urban audience. One of the highlights of the collection is Reyes Coll-Tellechea’s “The Spanish Inquisition and the Battle for Lazarillo: 1554–1555–1573.” As also suggested by McDaniel, this author thinks that it is imperative to study the sequels to the 1554 Lazarillo. In her opinion, the dialogue created between the 1554 Lazarillo and its 1555 sequel raises the suspicions of the Inquisition since the sequel “alerted the inquisitors to the political heterodoxies present already in the popular first part of the novel” (78). And, it is in the 1573 Lazarillo castigado where we can examine how Juan López de Velasco edited the 1554 original to create an Inquisition-friendly version. Theresa Ann Sears provides another highlight in her essay “Beyond Hunger: The Alimentary Cultural Code in Lazarillo de Tormes.” She traces the dynamics of food, and shows how Lazarillo’s search for sustenance tapers off after the first three tratados, as he becomes focused on attaining status. The next two essays in the volume have potential, but bring little new insight to the study of the Lazarillo. In “Hiding in the Wall: Lazarillo’s Bedfellows: The Secret Library of Barcarrota,” Benjamín Torrico promises to examine the contents of the hidden library discovered in Barcarrota in 1992 by studying the library from the inside. However, his lengthy recounting of the potential owner of this library seems to contradict one of the editors’ established tenets. Just as the study of the Lazarillo should stay away from the discussion of a potential author, the examination of a library should be independent of possible owners. Positing about the potential owner of a library does not bring us closer to understanding the Lazarillo. While María V. Jordán Arroyo studies female characters in “‘Has Charity gone to Heaven?’: The Women in La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes,” the essay reads more as a treatise on poverty during the time period than an analysis of women in Lazarillo de Tormes. Jordán Arroyo does highlight the charity of the women that...