{"product_id":"picaresque-fiction-today-the-trickster-in-contemporary-anglophone-and-italian-literature-9789004311220","title":"Picaresque Fiction Today: The Trickster in Contemporary Anglophone and Italian Literature","description":"\u003cb\u003eBook Synopsis\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eIn Picaresque Fiction Today Luigi Gussago examines the development of the picaresque in contemporary Anglophone and Italian fiction. Far from being an extinct narrative form, confined to the pages of its original Spanish sources or their later British imitators, the tale of roguery has been revisited through the centuries from a host of disparate angles. Throughout their wanderings, picaresque antiheroes are dragged into debates on the credibility of historical facts, gender mystifications, rational thinking, or any simplistic definition of the outcast.  Referring to a corpus of eight contemporary novels, the author retraces a textual legacy linking the traditional picaresque to its recent descendants, with the main purpose of identifying the way picaresque novels offer a privileged insight into our sceptical times.   Cover illustration by Eugene Ivanov \"Night Airing\", 2007.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eTable of Contents\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003eAcknowledgements\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t  Introduction: A Journey around the Picaresque Novel\t\t\t\t\t\t   Chapter 1 History through Roguish Eyes\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t  Foreword\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t History and picaresque fiction\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Meaning and significance in historical fiction\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The pícaro and history\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tDual sign irony \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t‘Historical’ irony \t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tDeictic markers of time and space\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \t\tPolemical use of the allocutive pronoun ‘you’\t\t\t\t\t \t\tMetonymy\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tMarkers of ‘being’ and ‘seeming’\t\t\t\t\t Otto, Baudolino, Niketas: three portraits of the Emperor The death of two obsessions\t\t\t\t\t\t   Chapter 2 Alienation and Counter-Culture  Foreword\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The picaresque counter-culture\t\t\t\t\t\t \tWhat happens at the boundary?\t\t\t\t\t \t\tThe stranger, der Fremde, l’estraneo\t\t\t\t \tMirror symmetry and alienation\t\t\t\t Mythological and metadescriptive consciousness\t\t\t Homonyms\/synonyms\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tCircumlocution\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tEuphemism\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tSynecdoche\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tActing vs improvising\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tRhetorical questions\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Odilo’s private holocaust\t\t\t\t\t\t\t   Chapter 3 Women on the Edge: Sexuality and Gender Dissent   Foreword\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Platonic love and the pícara\t\t\t\t\t\t Cupid, Psyche and curiosity\t\t\t\t\t\t The constraints of nature\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Procreation\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Parenthood\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The constraints of society\t\t\t\t\t\t Demystified women\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Religion\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Sentimental love\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Primeval innocence\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Literature, ambition and transcendence in Vendita galline km 2\t\t\t\t King Lear’s pasteboard crown\t\t\t\t\t\t   Chapter 4 Humour and the Muffled Voice of Reason Foreword\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t Varieties of humour in the picaresque\t\t\t\t\t \tIrony\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tIrony in the picaresque: Benni and Doyle\t\t\t\t \tContradiction\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tSelf-irony\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tSummary\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tSatire\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tSelf-satire\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tParody\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t The enlightened grin\t\t\t\t\t\t\t \tThe Enlightenment watershed\t\t\t\t\t \tIndividualism, common good and general will\t\t \tExperience and causation\t\t\t\t\t\t \tThe question of happiness\t\t\t\t\t\t God’s laughter in Saltatempo\t\t\t\t\t   Concluding Remarks \t\t\t\t\t\t\t   Bibliography","brand":"Brill","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":53210681606487,"sku":"9789004311220","price":139.2,"currency_code":"GBP","in_stock":false}],"url":"https:\/\/bookcurl.com\/products\/picaresque-fiction-today-the-trickster-in-contemporary-anglophone-and-italian-literature-9789004311220","provider":"Book Curl","version":"1.0","type":"link"}