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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 02 December 2020
Lazarillo de Tormes cannot be considered simply as a story of the moral degeneration of a potentially good boy who, under the influence of his pitiless masters, becomes a selfish and cynical cuckold, utterly blind to his moral degradation. The episode with the Squire reveals that the mature Lazaro (as he declares it himself) still has deep feelings of pity and charity for the Squire and those like him, just as he did when he was still a boy. Thus, this most important of Christian virtues has not been lost in the adult picaro. The capacity for human compassion and sympathy which is clearly revealed in the style of the autobiography must also be assigned to Lazaro and not merely to the anonymous author. And it is Lazaro, in his own moral judgments, who tends to condemn those who are selfish and without charity but is sympathetic to those who are generous and weak, regardless of their social sins; e.g., Zaide steals for love, the priest and friar for lust and for themselves (“para sus devotas y para ayuda de otro tanto”). Lazaro's final situation contributes to the ironic twist: From an external or social point of view, he is at the bottom of the moral scale, but his capacity for charity elevates him when compared with his selfish and lecherous masters. It is this subtle irony, of which the author was probably conscious, both as an artist and as a satirist, that lends moral ambiguity, as well as artistic complexity, to the main character and to the total conception of the work.
1 Alfredo Morel-Fatio, “Recherches sur Lazarille de Tormes,” en Etudes sur I'Espagne (Paris, 1888, 2a ed. 1890–95; A. Rumeau, Le Lazarillo de Tormes: Essai d'interpretation: Essai d'attribution (Paris, 1964); Marcel Bataillon, El sentido del Lazarillo de Tormes (Paris, 1954).
2 Stephen Gilman, “The Death of Lazarillo de Tormes,” PMLA, LXXXI (June 1966), 153.
3 Asumen tal interpretation algunos estudios recientes que abordan directamente el tema del sentido moral del Lazarillo, tales como: Stephen Gilman, “The Death of Lazarillo de Tormes,” en el cual se establece un inmitigado contraste entre el nino y el adulto: “As against Lazarillo who is blameless and pitiable, the Lzaro who begins ‘Yo por bien tengo’ is cynical, ignorant, presumptuous, and adulatory” (p. 153). C. B. Morris, “Lazaro and the Squire: ‘Hombres de bien’,” BHS, XLI (1964), 238–241, tambien establece este contraste entre “the compassionate boy who supports the squire” y “the degenerate cuckold” del final de la obra. Segun Bruce W. Wardropper, “El trastorno de la moral en el Lazarillo,” NRFH, xv (1961), 441–447, “La novela nos ensena la co-rrupcion de un muchacho fundamentalmente bueno” (p. 447). Aunque reconoce que “Lazaro es egoista solo dentro de limites bien marcados: no quiere morirse de hambre,” y que “Fuera de estos limites es capaz de acciones altruistas,” al final nos afirma categoricamente que “El egoismo desbordante de los amos acabara por contagiar a Lazaro” (p. 447). Otros estudios, aunque no tratan directamente del sentido moral del Lazarillo, claramente presumen tambien esta interpretacion; por ejemplo: Francisco Ayala, “El Lazarillo: Nuevo examen de algunos aspectos,” CA, Ano xxvi (enero-febrero 1967), cxLv, 209–235; L. J. Woodward, “Author-Reader Relationship in the Lazarillo del [sic] Tormes,” y A. D. Deyermond, “The Corrupted Vision: Further Thoughts on Lazarillo de Tormes,” ambos en Forum for Modern Languages Studies, I (1965), 43–53 y 246–249, respectivamente; Norma Louise Hutman, “Universality and Unity in the Lazarillo de Tormes,” PMLA, LXXVI (Dec. 1961), 469–473.
4 Homero Castillo, “El comportamiento de Lazaro de Tormes,” Hispania, XXXIII (1950), 304–310, y Joseph L. Laurenti, Vida de Lazarillo de Tormes. Estudio critico de la segunda parte de Juan de Luna (Mexico, 1965). Ambos fallan en su intencion, me parece, porque pretenden salvar la per-sonalidad moral de Lazaro ignorando el claro sentido ironico y satirico de la obra. No asi Claudio Guillen, en su introduccion a Lazarillo de Tormes and El Abencerraje (New York: Dell, 1966), quien capta lucidamente la complejidad y am-bigiiedad del caracter moral de Lazaro: “Lazaro … never ceases to grasp the superior status of selflessness or pity. He does not simply espouse ‘evil’ in the end, for his judgment does not surrender to such simplifications. His conduct may become corrupted but not his mind. He shows us actually (with few exceptions …) that any individual moral judgment is necessarily composite or ambiguous” (p. 27). Aunque, como afirma Guillen, las ambiguedades en el estilo y contenido del Lazarillo han sido a menudo notadas y subrayadas por la critica, este aspecto de la ambigiiedad moral requiere ciertas aclaraciones.
5 Las citas del Lazarillo se refieren a la edici6n de Clasicos Castellanos, 1959.
6 H. R. Jauss llama la atenci6n a la misma tecnica en referenda a otro pasaje, el del jarro de vino, en “Ursprung und Bedeutung der Ich-Form im Lazarillo de Tormes,” Romanis-tisches Jahrbttck, viii (1957), 293.
7 Raymond S. Willis, “Lazarillo and the Pardoner: The Artistic Necessity of the Fifth Tractado,” HR, xxvii (1959), 267–279, afirma lo siguiente: “We can safely assume that the ironic ending was early envisaged by the author, an ending in which Lazaro's position was to be the polar opposite of his state during his service with the Squire. This inversion is of the very essence of the book” (p. 273). Para reforzar su in-terpretacion, Willis trae una cita de Arturo Marasso que refleja igualmente la interpretaci6n tradicional del Lazarillo: “La diferencia en Lazaro del simpatico nifio y del adulto re-pulsivo en que se convierte, esti. perfectamente establecida,” en “Aspectos del Lazarillo de Tonnes,” en Estudios de litera-tura castellana (Buenos Aires, 1955), p. 184. Ambas interpre-taciones asumen que la personalidad moral del personaje es iinica e indivisible: que su degradaci6n moral exterior (es decir, como un individuo dentro del engranaje de las institu-ciones sociales) es equivalente a su degeneraci6n moral interior. Sin embargo, vemos que esto no ocurre, al menos, no en un sentido total. La diferencia entre el nifio y el adulto no me parece estar “perfectamente establecida.”
8 Asi mismo interpreta Bataillon la actitud de Lazaro ante la. superstition del honor (El sentido, p. 25).
9 Vease, por ejemplo, el verso de la Farsa del Colmenero citado por Americo Castro: Fraile: Las mujeriles beldades
ha mofado el boquirroto.
Pastor: Vos debeis selles devoto;
en fin, fin, frailes y abades
(Hacia Cervantes, Madrid, 1960, p. 124, subrayado mio).
“Otro tanto,” quiere decir “Lo mismo, cosa igual.”
10 Introduction a la ed. de E. W. Hesse y H. F. Williams del Lazarillo de Tormes (Madison, Wis., 1948), p. xi.
11 Esta conclusion de Bataillon podria aparecer trivial a primera vista: Si aceptamos el postulado de que la intencion de toda obra de merito literario es lograr un efecto artistico (sin Iograrlo, la obra careceria de merito literario) y si aceptamos que el Lazarillo es una obra de merito literario, estaremos de acuerdo con que el sentido (la intencion) del Lazarilloes artistico. Sin embargo, tal demostracion se hacia necesaria pues es facil olvidar el valor literario (artistico) del Lazarillo para asignarle un valor meramente satfrico o moral, es decir, didactico (p. ej. Morel-Fatio, “Recherches”). Se trataba, pues, de demostrar la validez de la segunda premisa. Mas re-cientemente, M. J. Asensio, “La intenci6n religiosa del Lazarillo de Tormes y Juan de Valdes,” HR, xxvii (1959), 78–102, no niega, necesariamente, la intencion artistica.
12 La novela picaresca en Espana (Madrid, sin fecba).
13 Bataillon, El sentido, p. 29.
