ID - 833403 TI - Reading and fiction in golden-age Spain : a Platonist critique and some picaresque replies PY - 1985 SN - 0521303753 0521121205 0511897928 9780511897924 PB - Cambridge : Cambridge University Press, DB - UniCat KW - Fiction KW - Spanish literature KW - anno 1600-1699 KW - anno 1500-1599 KW - 860 "15/16" KW - 930.85.44 <46> KW - Picaresque literature, Spanish KW - -Books and reading KW - -Literature and morals KW - Literature KW - Morals and literature KW - Ethics KW - Appraisal of books KW - Books KW - Choice of books KW - Evaluation of literature KW - Reading, Choice of KW - Reading and books KW - Reading habits KW - Reading public KW - Reading KW - Reading interests KW - Reading promotion KW - Spanish picaresque literature KW - Spanish fiction KW - Spaanse literatuur--?"15/16" KW - Cultuurgeschiedenis: Renaissance--Staten van het Iberische Schiereiland KW - History and criticism KW - History KW - Influence KW - Moral and ethical aspects KW - Appraisal KW - Evaluation KW - Aleman, Mateo KW - Quevedo, Francisco de KW - Books and reading KW - Literature and morals KW - History and criticism. KW - Alemán, Mateo, KW - Quevedo, Francisco de, KW - Lazarillo de Tormes. KW - 930.85.44 <46> Cultuurgeschiedenis: Renaissance--Staten van het Iberische Schiereiland KW - 860 "15/16" Spaanse literatuur--?"15/16" KW - Alemán, Mateo, KW - Lazarillo KW - Lázaro de Tormes KW - Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes KW - Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades KW - Vida de Lorenzillo de Tormes KW - Vida del Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades KW - Segunda parte de Lazarillo de Tormes KW - Arts and Humanities UR - https://www.unicat.be/uniCat?func=search&query=sysid:833403 AB - In the Spanish Golden Age, the new literary mode of vernacular prose fiction was deplored by many authorities for setting bad examples, undermining reality by deceiving with lies, and persuading in the face of rational disbelief. Dr Ife here examines the connection between the objections posed to this fiction and those raised two thousand years earlier by Plato. This book shows how the aims and results of 'picaresque' novel writing in fact counter such objections. In a study of three sixteenth- and early seventeenth-century Spanish novels Dr Ife demonstrates that the authors consciously exploited their readers' response to a narrative in order to bring them to a clearer understanding of their own experience. In this way the very process of representation deplored by the Platonist critics may be regarded as having a moral validity of its own. Additional English translations are provided of all the key extracts studied. ER -