The captatio benevolentiae and the Picaresque features in the Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez

Abstract

This article reviews the critics’ discussion about the problematized generic classification of Infortunios de Alonso Ramírez because of its diversity in literary features. It does not pretend to propose any solution to the generic ambiguity, but specifies the rhetorical strategies that Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora use to help Alonso Ramírez’s narration. De Sigüenza y Góngora’s rhetorical strategies are summarized in the concept of captatio benevolentiae (of Latin origin), whose essential purpose is to appeal and captivate an authority’s aesthetic sensitivity and will, in this case, that of New Spain’s viceroy, sir Gaspar de Sandoval Cerca Silva y Mendoza. The illustrious Mexican writer acts as the getter (captatore) that catch the authority’s favor and benevolence in favor of Ramírez’s narration and creates the rhetorical hook of “pity request,” that is nourished of Picaresque features, of which self-pity, an innumerable vicissitudes and the imprisonment on the high seas stand out, and that reminds the characters Ginés de Pasamonte, Lazarillo de Tormes and Guzmán de Alfarache, respectively.