The picaresque and the rise of the English novel: Bunyan's Mr Badman

In this paper I will contend that Mr Badman was published at the height of what Thomas Dangerfield called, in Don Tomazo (1680),5 gusmanry (i.e., the fashion of the Spanish picaresque novel Guzmán de Alfarache, translated into English by James Mabbe in 1622 with the title The Rogue) and that Bunyan borrowed some key narratological features from the picaresque genre. To acknowledge Mr Badman’s place in the picaresque tradition is important because it will help to understand better the development of the novel in English literature and also the international cultural exchanges of the time, particularly in the fascinating area of Anglo-Spanish relations.