THE POPULAR REALISM OF HISTOIRE DE GIL BLAS DE SANTILLANE

Abstract

Santillane’s Histoire de Gil Blas, by Alain-Réné Lesage, is a fictional autobiography that came up between 1715-1747, in France. In Histoire de Gil Blas, it is noted Lesage’s preference for an art that turned to critical observation of reality, so that his literature, confirming the tendency for realism, is a panel of 18th Century reality, not only of Spain, where the action of the novel takes place, but in all European societies of that period. Comparing this realism of 18th Century to the realist esthetic purpose of 19th Century, we can notice some significant differences. First of all it is noticed that Histoire de Gil Blas is a behaviors observation novel, particularly the behaviors of low

social classes, as the servants, the decadent lords, and the comedians. This "behaviors painting" is done trough the satirical view, so that Lesage throws, trough his characters voice, a critical, strong and incisive view upon 18th Century society. In Lesage’s novel these behaviors are presented through a group of flat characters that represent determined social groups. In this sense, there is not in the novel any kind of psychological characterization or another kind of artifice that individualizes the characters. What we know about them is the characteristic they have from the groups they represent. When Lesage describes the types, he throws a critical view over the failings and comic behavior of determined social classes, revealing the defects of a society that wanted to be polished and refined, but that hid behaviors worthy of mockery.