Public Lecture with Dr. Rachel Schmidt

Consensus is that Apuleius´s The Golden Ass served as a model for the anonymous Lazarillo de Tormes (1554). Although there are clear parallels between the protagonists of the two works, there are apparently no direct allusions to the interpolated Tale of Cupid and Psyche.  Through examining narratological constructions, rhetorical tropes, and character construction, the talk will show Psyche´s presence in the Spanish picaresque work. It will then contrast her apparent absence in the Lazarillo with the allegorization of the Psyche tale in 16^th-century poetry and painting.

Rachel Schmidt is Professor in the Department of Classics and Religion and Adjunct Professor in the Department of French, Italian and Spanish at the University of Calgary. She has published two monographs on the reception of Cervantes’ Don Quixote and more than thirty articles on various aspects of Golden Age Spanish literature.