Gil Blas  

From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia

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Gil Blas (French: L'Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane) is a picaresque novel by Lesage from 1715 to 1735. It is considered to be the last masterpiece of the picaresque genre.

Plot summary

Born in misery to a stablehand and a chambermaid of Santillane in the Asturies, Gil Blas is educated by his uncle. He leaves Oviedo at the age of seventeen to attend the University of Salamanque. His bright future is suddenly interupted when he is forced to help robbers along the route and is faced with jail. He becomes a valet and over the course of several years is able to observe many different classes of society both lay and clerical. Because of his occupation, he meets many disreputable people and is able to adapt to many situtions thanks to his adaptability and quick wit.

He finally finds himself at the court as a favorite of the king and secretary to the prime minister. Working his way up though hard work and intelligence, Gil is able to retire to a castle to enjoy a fortune and a hard-earned honest life.

Literary significance and reception

Gil Blas is related to Lesage's play Turcaret (1709). In both works, Lesage uses witty valets in the service of theiving masters, women of questionable morals, cuckolded yet happy husbands, gourmands, ridiculous poets, false savants, and dangerously ignorant doctors to make his point. Each class and each occupation becomes an archetype.

This work is both universal and French within a Spanish context. However, it's originality was questioned. Voltaire was among the first to point out similarities between Gil Blas and Marcos de Obregon by Espinel, from which Lesage had borrowed several details. Considering Gil Blas essentially Spanish, Father Jose de Isla claimed to translate the work from French into Spanish in order to return it to its natural state. Llorente suggested that Gil Blas was written by the historian Solis, arguing that no contemporary writer could have possibly written a work of such detail and accuracy.

Publication history

• Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, Books 1-6 (1715)
• Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, Books 7-9 (1724)
• Histoire de Gil Blas de Santillane, Books 10-12 (1735)