La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades [Paperback]

Everett W. Hesse (Editor), Harry F. Williams (Editor), Americo Castro (Introduction)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 15, 1961

    First published in 1554 and banned by the Inquisition, the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes begat a whole new genre—the picaresque novel. This classic has had enduring popularity as a literary expression of Spanish identity and emotion. Through its daring autobiographical form the reader observes the magnificent, conquering Spain of Charles the Fifth through the inner consciousness of the humble Lazarillo.
    This editon includes the annotated Spanish-language text and prologue (with modernized and regularized spelling) , a full vocabulary, and concise footnotes explaining allusions and translating phrases of varying difficulty.

Spanish-language with introductions in English

Product Details

• Paperback: 104 pages
• Publisher: University of Wisconsin Press; Revised edition (August 15, 1961)
• Language: Spanish
• ISBN-10: 0299005453
• ISBN-13: 978-0299005450
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.5 x 0.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12.3 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (2 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #509,101 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #31 in Books > Libros en español > Literatura y ficción > Historia y Crítica > Europea
  • #43 in Books > Literature & Fiction > World Literature > Untranslated > Spanish

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Still out there? Amazing., September 13, 2005

By 

bukhtan (Chicago, Illinois, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (Paperback)

This edition, stemming from the time when learning a modern foreign language was still modeled after the traditional procedures employed by dons and thwackum-style masters in beating Latin or Greek into their charges' heads, presents a full and fair text of Lazaro, modernizing and regularizing the spelling, but changing the original in no other way that I can detect. The editors added a FULL vocabulary of the work, including even the most basic words, so that a beginner with a basic knowledge of the grammar could conceivably get through it, though it seems to me that any student should become reasonably comfortable with modern standard Spanish before they tackle something like Lazaro, direct as the Castillian literary style may have been in those days.
My criticism of this edition relates to confusion of the function of notes and vocabulary. There are lines and lines of notes at the bottom of each page, but the student will find that a very large part of this material is nothing more than the schoolmaster's instructions to the little brigands, who would really rather be carving up the desks, as to the elegant phraseology they should employ in manufacturing a finished translation: "translate as pluperfect", " 'since he had gotten a cold deal on a cold turnip'" etc etc etc. Explanations of historical and cultural information, giving the student something of the background the Spanish contemporary would have brought to the text would have been more helpful. And in fact, the editors do include some of this sort of stuff, but it's back in the vocabulary, along with entries such as "cumplir - to obey, comply with, behoove etc", and extremely limited.
So if you're looking for a mass of annotations that will explain what went into each episode and line of Lazaro, this isn't it. But at least it's an unadulterated text of a book that was terribly important in Spain, and, by some extension, the world. And people still read it. Both scholars and schoolchildren, when they aren't carving on desks (or whatever they do these days).

1 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars La gran Novela Picaresca, February 15, 2001

By 

Pablo Ramirez (Bogota, Colombia) - See all my reviews

This review is from: La vida de Lazarillo de Tormes y de sus fortunas y adversidades (Paperback)

Esta gran novela que inicio la litaratura picaresca es un excelente libro el cual pienso que todos los jovenes deberian leerlo, trata de un muchacho llamado Lazaro el cual fue criado cerca al rio Tormes (DE alli su nombre) y que durante sus aventuras con diferentes amos aprende nuevas e importantes enseñanzas, es muy interesante ver como lazaro reflexiona sobre sus actos. Recomiendo muchisimo este libro