Mateo Alemán is a Middle Age Spanish writer of  Hebrew origin who received a curated and excellent education. He graduated with a bachelor's degree in arts and philosophy and enrolled in the first course of medicine at the University of Seville. He then continues these same studies at other various universities in Spain and, although he sometimes used the title of a medical doctor, he never practiced such a profession.

His main work is Guzmán el Alfarache. The first part of Guzmán ends at the end of 1597 and goes on sale in 1599. As soon as it appears, the editions multiply and sell very quickly. The book-style contains a marked alternation between the narrative of actions and the moral commentary, along with a pedagogical digression, among many other rhetorical formulations and literary devices.  In 1604  was published the Second Part of Guzmán de Alfarache, which it is stressed even more the conflict between the known moral rules that are nevertheless not obeyed. That intimate tear is where lies the most defining aspect of the protagonist's personality. The central story contains many folkloric materials, short stories, and anecdotes from various sources which are integrated to give unity to the book, such as repertoires of scholarship, and ancient history stories, to name a few.

In addition to personal experiences, such as his time spent in prison in the Almadén mine, the novel is inspired by literary models such as El Lazarillo de Tormes, the religious Confessions of San Agustín, and the morality of the stories of Apuleyo's Golden Ass. Guzmán's diverse style responds to a variety of elaboration techniques, which range from apparent aphoristic simplicity to the amplification of complexly constructed sentences and reflective training, signalized by verbal exuberance and lexical integration.

A general pessimism dominates Alemán's work, an aspect that critics have related to his condition as a Jew converts to Catholicism,  apart from family misfortunes such as his matrimonial failure and extended financial distress. The knowledge of the prison environment and the marginal world could have left him with bitter experiences difficult to forget. All of this guides him to a vital attitude of skepticism concerning the hope of human evolution towards virtue and goodness. The burden of denunciation and moral reflection that is noticed in Guzmán de Alfarache utterly responds to a vision of Christian morality, in its severe and pessimistic aspect, perhaps related to the circumstance of the marginalized convert, always confronted with the social system.

Guzmán de Alfarache

Ortografía castellana

The book is a novel in autobiographical form, in which the author selects the episodes that determine his attitude to life. Guzmán, the fruit of adultery, is left an orphan and poor. Loneliness, mistrust,  and the continued mistreatment of his many masters lead him to learn to steal and cheat to get ahead.

Autobiography

During the 16th century, the medieval vision of the world enters into crisis. The Renaissance was defined by a substantial and absolute division between Nature and Spirituality. The world of the senses and the world of the spirit was intimately fused in the man of the Middle Ages, to the point that there was one and the same thing. The Renaissance, with its radical individualism, signified a revolutionary change of position that separated the human being from the omniscient spirituality of the Middle Ages. The Renaissance proclaimed that the Middle Age was only a dark period between Antiquity and its time. In this sense, the Renaissance is not a mere cultural period, but a new conception of life that manifests itself in aspects such as politics and science, as well as literature. There is a conscious search for a language full of natural elegance, with a predominance of the novel in different types, chivalry, pastoral, Moorish, and the picaresque among the most popular ones.

During the Renaissance, an enormous effort was made to clearly delimit the world of the individual, separated from the spiritual realm. The independence of the human being was proclaimed on the basis that God and man are two incommunicable entities.  Following Calvin's thought, the creature could not influence the behavior nor the inscrutable decisions of the Creator, the first one predestined from birth.  It was the task of the Spanish theologians at the Council of Trent who fought such a doctrine, proclaiming an intimate connection between God and man. The consequences of Trento were incalculable for the world of culture in Spain, the country exempt from heresy by the council but its cultural future was also determined by it. As the sixteenth century progressed towards its end, the natural and the supernatural world tended to draw closer together for the Spaniards, with the scientific pursuit, and the mere intent of rational thinking viewed with deep suspicion.

Notwithstanding, there is also in Spain an advance in science and discoveries are made, accompanied by a development of urban life and incipient capitalism. The reign of the Catholic Monarchs and later during the  Empire there was a development of humanism, man becoming the center of the universe, with the courtier as the ideal Renaissance man, and a renewed interest in the study of the authors of Antiquity.  The discovery of the printing press in Europe triggered movements of reform, propitiating in Spain a response with the development of particular religious literature known as mysticism. 

Renaissance

Cancionero musical de palacio

Cancionero General, by Hernando del Castillo

Propaplladia, by Bartolomé de Torres Naharro

Retrato de la Lozana andaluza, by Francisco Delicado

Diálogo de la doctrina cristiana, by Jan de Valdés

Relox de príncipes, by Fray Antonio de Guevara

Menosprecio de corte y alabanza de aldea, by Fray Antonio de Guevara

Obras from Boscán and Garcilaso de la Vega

Vida del lazarillo de Tormes (anonimous)

Publication of Indice de libros prohibidos by the Spanish Inquisition

First edition of Diana, by Jorge de Montemayor (Abencerraje include)

First part of Araucana, by Alonso de Ercilla

The  Inquisition jails fray Luis de León for translating The Song of Songs into Spanish

Obras, by Cristobal de Castilejo

La vida es sueño, by Calderón de la Barca

Soledades, by Góngora

Empresas políticas, by Saavedra Fajardo

Civil wars of Granada (first part), by Ginés Pérez de Hita

El Parnaso español, by Quevedo

Las Meninas by Velazquez

Edition of the first French encyclopedia. Diderot's work, although widely criticized, can be considered the first modern encyclopedia.

Samuel Johnson publishes the Dictionary of the English language, with uses, customs and definitions of the words that make up the English language. Includes terms that appear in Shakespeare and other great authors of British literature.

The Tempest, by William Shakespeare

Aminta, by Tasso

The Merchant of Venice, by William Shakespeare

Spanish Bites

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Guzmán de Alfarache (1604)

By Mateo Alemán

Time Period: Renaissance

Genre: Autobiography

Spanish Bites

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