Research Paper on:
Comparison of Juan Cortes de Tolosa's El Lazarillo de Manzanares and Miguel de Cervantes' El Lazarillo de Tormes

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at a breakneck pace, the Spanish Empire and Roman Catholic Church were at their peak of power and influence, and there appeared to be an ever growing aristocracy, at least  judging by the number of titled gentlemen and their fair ladies. Therefore, it should come as no surprise that literature was undergoing changes that reflected the evolving Spanish society.  While the previous works had been characterized as entertaining fantasies that borrowed heavily from the English medieval tales of chivalry, the literary works of the sixteenth century charted a  uniquely Spanish course. Early in the century, a trend toward realism began with a new style of fiction known as Celestina (Brenan 169). While this enjoyed a brief  period of popularity, by mid-century, it was replaced by an even more "original genre" that could have only been invented by the passionate Spanish, "the picaresque novel" (Brenan 169).  What exactly does it mean to be picaresque? The goal of these novelists was, as one critic bluntly observed, was "to make us look at the world without our  usual rose-tinted spectacles" (Brenan 170). The society these books reflected wasnt always pretty, but it was real and exposed the carefully cultivated veneer that the monarchy and the church  did not want the general public to see. These works, which also incorporated folk traditions, could appeal to a wide audience and provided greater satisfaction than the limited idealized  literature of the past (Myers 156). The novel which seemed to personify the picaresque novel was El Lazarillo de Tormes (Lazarillo of Tormes), which when it was first published in  1554, was "like a breath of fresh air among hundreds of insipidly sentimental novels of chivalry" (Reid). Because the author was not revealed, for years his identity remained a