Entre sucesos y ortografías. (De un Mateo Alemán americano) / Between life incidents and grammar (of an American Mateo Alemán)

Abstract

This essay presents the unexpected adventures of Mateo Alemán in Spain and America. This Spanish writer, known mainly for his picaresque novel Guzmán de Alfarache, published in two parts, established and consolidated the characteristic aspects of the Golden Age genre. He conjectures a new way of narrating. In 1604 he published the first edition of the Life of San Antonio de Padua in Seville, the authentic second part of Guzmán de Alfarache. In 1608 he travelled to Mexico city where he arrived old and tired and worked in service of Archbishop Fray García Guerra. On the American continent he wrote Spanish Grammar (1609), where he surprisingly proposed a reformation of writing by defending a preference for phonetics instead of etymology. He also published the chronicles: The Incidents of Fray García Guerra (1613).