Rogue  

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"How many more tricks will the rogues play on these innocent people!"--Lazarillo de Tormes (1554) by anonymous


"The literature of roguery occupies a peculiar place in the history of letters. Determined by subject-matter rather than by form, and depending upon observed actuality rather than ideals, it presents low life in lieu of heroic, and manners rather than conscience and emotion. It prefers prose to verse, descriptive narrative to the drama, and is therefore primarily associated with the novel."--The Literature of Roguery (1907) by Frank Wadleigh Chandler

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A rogue is a vagrant person who wanders from place to place. Like a drifter, a rogue is an independent person who rejects conventional rules of society in favor of following their own personal goals and values.

In modern English language, the term rogue is used pejoratively to describe a dishonest or unprincipled person whose behavior one disapproves of, but who is nonetheless likeable or attractive.

Contents

History

The word rogue was first recorded in print in John Awdely's Fraternity of Vagabonds (1561), and then in Thomas Harman's Caveat for Common Cursitors (1566).

In England, the 1572 Vagabonds Act defined a rogue as a person who has no land, no master, and no legitimate trade or source of income; it included rogues in the class of idle vagrants or vagabonds. If a person were apprehended as a rogue, he would be stripped to the waist, whipped until bleeding, and a hole, about the compass of an inch about, would be burned through the cartilage of his right ear with a hot iron. A rogue who was charged with a second offense, unless taken in by someone who would give him work for one year, could face execution as a felony. A rogue charged with a third-offense would only escape death if someone hired him for two years.

The 1598 Vagabonds Act banished and transplanted "incorrigible and dangerous rogues" overseas, and the 1604 Act commanded that rogues be branded with the letter "R" on their bodies.

Rogue literature

Rogue literature is literature in which rogues are featured as protagonists. They are a stock character in fiction everywhere. These novels are called picaresque in Spain and schelmenroman in Germanic languages. A German example is Simplicius Simplicissimus by von Grimmelshausen.

The genre tells stories from the world of thieves and other criminals and was popular in England in the 16th and 17th centuries. The stories were mostly in a confessional form and full of vivid descriptions. Rogue literature is an important source in understanding the everyday life of the ordinary people and their language, and the language of thieves and beggars. This genre can be related to the stories of Robin Hood and jest book literature, as well as early examples of the first voice in fiction and autobiography.

The principal authors of such stories were Thomas Harman, Robert Copland, Robert Greene and Thomas Dekker.

The field of rogue literature has been studied in the 1907 book The Literature of Roguery.

Influence in contemporary entertainment

Film

In the 2010 Jonah Hex film, Josh Brolin plays the protagonist Jonah Hex, who turns rogue and effectively becomes an outlaw after his general officer, Quentin Turnbull (played by John Malkovich), orders him to burn down a hospital. When Hex refuses to follow Turnbull's orders, Turnbull burns down Hex's house with his family inside.

Similarly to the enactment of the 1604 Vagabonds Act, Quentin Turnbull brands his initials "QT" on Jonah Hex's face with a hot iron.

Gaming

In many role-playing games, such as Dungeons & Dragons and other fantasy franchises, rogues may be player characters. The characters vary widely but are commonplace in the genre, and are considered a vital part of a balanced party. Rogues are typically dexterous and possess many skills, allowing them to excel in many areas of expertise. The rogue character's focus is often on finesse over raw strength, making them use wit and traps before direct confrontation in a fight, adept at picking locks, disarming and laying traps, use stealth and other unconventional approaches to accomplishing their goals.

Though many rogue characters are made to be thieves and con artists, they can also be scouts, archers, and many other professions.

See also

In fiction

References




Unless indicated otherwise, the text in this article is either based on Wikipedia article "Rogue" or another language Wikipedia page thereof used under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License; or on research by Jahsonic and friends. See Art and Popular Culture's copyright notice.

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