Picturesque - picaresque

Be careful not to confuse picturesque and picaresque: both words are adjectives, but they have very different meanings.

• Picturesque - pronounced pik-cher-ESK, IPA: /ˌpɪk tjə ˈrɛsk/ - means: visually attractive, especially in a charming or striking way. So we might say that Burford is a picturesque village in the Cotswolds or that the scenery in the Wye Valley is very picturesque. The word picturesque also has some secondary uses: we may use it of a person with a colourful character or a flamboyant style of dress - such a person might sometimes be said to be a picturesque figure; and we may use it of language which is striking or vivid - a description might sometimes be said to be picturesque.

• Picaresque - pronounced pik-er-ESK, IPA: /ˌpɪk a ˈrɛsk/ - comes from the Spanish word picaro, which means: rogue, rascal, or scoundrel. The adjective picaresque, which is used primarily in the context of literary criticism, means: relating to a type of fiction which describes the adventures of a scoundrel or rogue or, more generally, of an anti-hero.

"Nowadays the term is commonly, and loosely, applied to episodic novels ... which describe the adventures of a lively and resourceful hero on a journey" (Birch, 2010). This hero often comes from a low social class and lives by his wits, and his adventures are recounted in a humorous and/or satirical way. Thus we may speak of a picaresque hero or a picaresque novel.

Although there is some picaresque writing to be found in the literature of the classical world of Greece and Rome - e.g., in Petronius' Satyricon or Apuleius' Metamorphoses (more commonly known as The Golden Ass) - the first picaresque novels appeared in Spain in the sixteenth century.

English picaresque novels include:

Daniel Defoe (c1660-1731), Moll Flanders (1722);

Tobias Smollett (1721-1771), Roderick Random (1748), and Humphry Clinker (1771); and

Henry Fielding (1707-1754), The History of Tom Jones, A Foundling (1749);

and, from the twentieth century:

J.B. Priestley (1894-1984), The Good Companions (1939), and

Kingsley Amis (1922-1995), Lucky Jim (1954).