| Repenting Roguery: Penance in the Spanish Picaresque Novel and the Arabic and Hebrew Maqama, investigates the significance of conversion narratives and penitential elements in the Spanish picaresque novels Vida de Guzman de Alfarache (1599 and 1604) by Mateo Aleman and El guiton Onofre (circa 1606) by Gregorio Gonzalez as well as Juan Ruiz's Libro de buen amor (1330 and 1343) and El lazarillo de Tormes (1554), the Arabic maqamat of al-H&dotbelow;ariri of Basra (circa 1100), and Ibn al-Ashtarkuwi al-Saraqust&dotbelow;i (1126-1138), and the Hebrew maqamat of Yehudah al-H&dotbelow;arizi (circa 1220) and Isaac Ibn Sahula (1281-1284). In exploring the ways in which Christian, Muslim, and Jewish authors from medieval and early modern Iberia represent the repentance of a rogue, my study not only sheds light on the important commonalities that these religious and literary traditions share, but also illuminates the particular questions that these picaresque and proto-picaresque texts raise within their respective religious, political and cultural milieux. The ambiguity that characterizes the conversion narrative of a seemingly irredeemable rogue, I argue, provides these medieval and early modern writers with an ideal framework to address pressing problems such as controversies regarding free will and predestination, the legitimacy of claims to religious and political authority, and the understanding of social and religious marginality. |
