English and Spanish picaresque novel as a reflection of the countries' modernization specificity of the 16 - early 17 centuries

The article is devoted to the comparative analysis of English and Spanish picaresque novels of late 16 - middle 17 centuries. It is aimed at emphasizing some specific features in perception of knavery and deceit themes by English society (mainly middle class townspeople). The author briefly reflects upon the popularity of rogue literature in Western Europe in 16-17 c and shows the process of its diffusion from Pyrenean countries all along the European region, marks national specificity of the genre. Then the author demonstrates some changes, made by English translators of Spanish picaresque novels and supposes these changes not to be occasional, but regular signs of a different national consciousness. The author tries to prove this suggestion using the detailed analysis of authentically English picaresque novels. These tend to demonstrate a deliberate orientation towards Spanish examples. Nevertheless, all text levels: lexical preferences, plotlines, social marking of the main character, intonations of laughter in comical situations, clearly expressed the author's moral position - they demonstrate significant differences in perception of knavery and deception, as compared to Spanish novels. The author focuses attention on two most famous examples of English picaresque novels of 16-17 c. They are Thomas Nashe's The Unfortunate Traveller or The Life of Jack Wilton, and a later work The English Rogue described in the life of Meriton Latroon, a Witty extravagant being a complete history of the most eminent cheats of both sexes, by Richard Head (1665). Nashe's protagonist, Jack Wilton, differs from a typical picaro both by his social positon and by an ideology proclaimed. Where Spanish picaros are people deprived of any clear social status changing masks of soldiers, rogues, students or servants, Jack never forgets his status of a noble and a king's page. Unlike Spanish knaves, he never speaks of the world ruled by deception; he prefers to position his tricks as merry jokes aimed rather at strengthening common ideas of honest and vicious deeds. He never lacks a feeling of fellowship and understanding of fine and noble acts. By the end of his epic, Jack reforms, leaves the wanton life and returns to his country. It is important to mention that a Spanish picaro sometimes comes to a well-off life but gains it not by reformation but by deception and falsehood. Meriton Latroon, Head's protagonist, is more like his Spanish colleagues; he is a man who was leaving a rogue's life from his youth. He is a professional knave and fraud who is proud of his own high art. But both he and Head clearly distance rogue's values and values of good society and do not try to proclaim their identity. R. Head, like T. Nash, significantly avoids depicting the world that has gone insane, the human society as chaotic and living according to the laws of knavery. English picaresque novels are also specific by their tendency to move protagonists away from England or by some other means to give their stories an exotic taste. Thus, they enlarge the distance between a locus with preserved, traditional ideals and moral values (England) and locus where dishonesty and vice reign. Summing up, English rogue literature lacks the marks of a deep crisis of social consciousness, manifested in the loss of basic moral values and in emphasis of disorder, chaos and amorality of life.

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