SOURCE: Longhurst, C. A. “The Problem of Conversion and Repentance in Guzmán de Alfarache.” In A Face Not Turned to the Wall: Essays on Hispanic Themes for Gareth Alban Davies, pp. 85-110. Leeds: University of Leeds, 1987.

In the following essay, Longhurst surveys critical reactions regarding Guzmán's authentic conversion.

Interpretations of Guzmán de Alfarache have undergone a drastic change of direction over the last ten years or so, thanks largely to the efforts of American scholars. I am thinking mainly, though not exclusively, of the recent books of Joan Arias, Carroll Johnson and Benito Brancaforte.¹

What these books have in common (and they have a great deal in common) is above all that they have called into question the general assumption found not only in the religiously-orientated interpretation of Moreno Báez and A. A. Parker but also in the much more ideologically neutral studies of...