La Guzmán de Alfarache's homosexuality: a diatribe to the elites

Abstract

This essay reviews a controversy about the character Guzmán de Alfarache from a “Spanish Golden Century” novel, with a homonymous title, published in two parts in 1599 and 1604. The essay is about some decades of disagreement about this character’s homosexuality, according to Brancaforte’s, Johnson’s, Rodríguez’s and Maravall’s analyzes. After further study, that homosexuality is finally acknowledged, and the question is asked about what role it might play in the work. If simply adding one more vice to the rogue (and the converted Jew) in order to mock him and marginalize him completely, Guzmán de Alfarache would deserve to be forgotten for promoting the worst discrimination. However, due to its picaresque form, this novel rather makes homosexuality and other vices of Guzmán defining features of the institutions and elites of his time.