Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane

Alain-René Lesage

Description

The picaresque novel was an entertaining take on satire that came to prominence in early modern and Enlightenment-era Europe. Tales in this genre often features a dashing protagonist of humble origins who relies on his wit to make his way in life. To many critics, The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane represents the very pinnacle of the picaresque novel genre. Dive into this hilariously rollicking account and find out why!

Informations

• Publié par: The Floating Press
• Date de parution: 01 janvier 2011
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781775450702
• Langue: English

Extrait

THE ADVENTURES OF GIL BLAS OF SANTILLANE
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ALAIN-RENE LESAGE
Translated by
TOBIAS SMOLLETT
 
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The Adventures of Gil Blas of Santillane First published in 1715 ISBN 978-1-775450-70-2 © 2011 The Floating Press While every effort has been used to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the information contained in The Floating Press edition of this book, The Floating Press does not assume liability or responsibility for any errors or omissions in this book. The Floating Press does not accept responsibility for loss suffered as a result of reliance upon the accuracy or currency of information contained in this book. Do not use while operating a motor vehicle or heavy equipment. Many suitcases look alike. Visit www.thefloatingpress.com
Contents
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The Author's Declaration Gil Blas to the Reader Introduction BOOK THE FIRST Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI Chapter XVII BOOK THE SECOND Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX BOOK THE THIRD Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII BOOK THE FOURTH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI BOOK THE FIFTH Chapter I Chapter II BOOK THE SIXTH Chapter I Chapter II BOOK THE SEVENTH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Chapter XV Chapter XVI BOOK THE EIGHTH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII BOOK THE NINTH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X BOOK THE TENTH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII BOOK THE ELEVENTH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV BOOK THE TWELFTH Chapter I Chapter II Chapter III Chapter IV Chapter V Chapter VI Chapter VII Chapter VIII Chapter IX Chapter X Chapter XI Chapter XII Chapter XIII Chapter XIV Endnotes
The Author's Declaration
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THERE are some people in the world so mischievous as not to reada work without applying the vicious or ridiculous characters itmay happen to contain to eminent or popular individuals. Iprotest publicly against the pretended discovery of any suchlikenesses. My purpose was to represent human life historicallyas it exists: God forbid I should holdmyself out as a portrait-painter.Let not the reader then take to himself public property; for if hedoes, he may chance to throw an unlucky light on his own character:as Phaedrus expresses it, Stulte nudabit animi conscientiam.
Certain physicians of Castille, as well as of France, aresometimes a little too fond of trying the bleeding and loweringsystem on their patients. Vices, their patrons, and their dupes,are of every day's occurrence, To be sure, I have not alwaysadopted Spanish manners with scrupulous exactness; and in theinstance of the players at Madrid, those who know theirdisorderly modes of living may reproach me with softening downtheir coarser traits: but this I have been induced to do from asense of delicacy, and in conformity with the manners of my owncountry.
Gil Blas to the Reader
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READER! hark you, my friend! Do not begin the story of my lifetill I have told you a short tale.Two students travelled together from Penafiel to Salamanca.Finding themselves tired and thirsty, they stopped by the side ofa spring on the road. While they were resting there, after havingquenched their thirst, by chance they espied on a stone nearthem, even with the ground, part of an inscription, in somedegree effaced by time, and by the tread of flocks in the habitof watering at that spring. Having washed the stone, they wereable to trace these words in the dialect of Castille; Aqui estaencerrada el alma del licenciado Pedro Garcias. "Here liesinterred the soul of the licentiate Peter Garcias."
Hey-day! roars out the younger, a lively, heedless fellow, whocould not get on with his deciphering for laughter: This is agood joke indeed: "Here lies interred the soul." . . . . A soulinterred! . . . . I should like to know the whimsical author ofthis ludicrous epitaph. With this sneer he got up to go away. Hiscompanion, who had more sense, said within himself: Underneaththis stone lies some mystery; I will stay, and see the end of it.Accordingly, he let his comrade depart, and without loss of timebegan digging round about the stone with his knife till he got itup. Under it he found a purse of leather, containing an hundredducats with a card on which was written these words in Latin:"Whoever thou art who hast wit enough to discover the meaning ofthe inscription, I appoint thee my heir, in the hope thou wiltmake a better use of my fortune than I have done!" The student,out of his wits at the discovery, replaced the stone in itsformer position, and set out again on the Salamanca road with thesoul of the licentiate in his pocket.
Now, my good friend and reader, no matter who you are, you mustbe like one or the other of these two students. If you cast youreye over my adventures without fixing it on the moral concealedunder them, you will derive very little benefit from the perusal:but if you read with attention you will find that mixture of theuseful with the agreeable, so successfully prescribed by Horace.
Introduction
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By WM. Morton Fullerton
WALTER SCOTT, who craved the beatitude — the word is his own —that would attend the perusal of another book as entrancing asGil Blas, was on the side of the untutored public which knowsnothing of technical classifications or of M. Brunetière's theoryof the "evolution des genres." Lesage's great book, thoughscarcely answering to the exact technical definition of apicaresque novel — the biography of a picaro or rogue —belongs, nevertheless, by its external form, to the picaresquetype of fiction; and Scott would certainly have admitted that itspicaresqueness was very good of its kind; that it was in fact aspicaresque as could be expected of a Frenchman who wasconspicuously an "honnête homme" and who signed himself"bourgeois de Paris." But In all likelihood he would haveinstantly added that it was not the "picaresqueness" of Gil Blaswhich has given that production its fame; and that, if Lesage'smasterpiece has lived so long, and if it lives to-day with such afresh and abundant life, this constant appeal has been made inspite of its resemblance to the Spanish picaresque prototype.The application of the scientific method to literary criticismduring the last generation has steadily tended to define works ofart as "documents" of their epoch, and at the same time toclassify them according to their structural variations ratherthan to accept them wholly as sources of human pleasure. Thenovel of Lesage for the purposes of classification, may be viewedas a picaresque novel, and it is interesting and legitimate tonote that it is no doubt the best of its kind; yet there isequally little doubt that thousands of readers who do not knowwhat the word "picaresque" means have for several generationsregarded Gil Blas as simply the best of all novels, and thattheir reasons have been based on qualities quite independent ofthe mould into which it happened to be run. This is, in fact, thetruth which these brief remarks are meant to set forth. In orderto become a classic, and in order to hold its own among the booksof the world, Gil Blas has had to live down its picaresqueness.The book has survived, and become one of the great books,notwithstanding the characteristics which seemed destined toconfine it to the museum of antique literary forms.
I
Walter Scott's recognition of the supreme delightfulness of GilBlas has not been general among the critics; indeed, the sense ofits intrinsic value as a definition of life must rather be placedto the credit of the uncritical public. Voltaire, referring toLesage in his "Siècle de Louis XIV," limits his praise to theremark: "His novel Gil Blas has survived because of thenaturalness of the style." The curtness and inadequacy of thisremark are probably due rather to the fact that Voltaire did notsee beyond the superficial traits of this novel, its generalpicaresque atmosphere, than, as has so often been asserted, toany malicious intent to decry a book in which he supposed himselfto have been held up to ridicule. (The traditional view is,however, plausible enough, as Mr. James Fitzmaurice-Kelly hasshown in his introduction to the edition of Gil Blas published inthe "World's Classics." There can be no doubt as to Lesage havingridiculed Voltaire in two of his plays.) Joubert, whose delicacywas a hothouse fruit grown in the thin subsoil and thedevitalised air in which he was compelled to live, corroboratesVoltaire, while revealing his own prejudices —after all, is notthe main interest of criticism the light it throws upon thecritic? — in a characteristic utterance: "Lesage's novels wouldappear to have been written in a café by a domino-player, afterspending the evening at the play." Evidently this is a long wayfrom the "beatitude" of Walter Scott, but it is nearer the pointof view of Mr. Warner Allen, who, while he notes in hisremarkable General Introduction to his edition of Celestine inthe Picaresque Section of the "Library of Early Novelists," towhich this volume belongs, that Gil Blas "has a conscience," isingeniously effective in arguing that the spirit of Gil Blas isessentially picaresque — by which he means t