Forms of Existence of Literary History and Criticism in Spanish Literature of 15–16th Centuries

About the author:

Irina V. Ershova, DSc in Philology, Leading Research Fellow, 1) A.M. Gorky Institute of World Literature of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Povarskaya 25 a, 121069 Moscow, Russia; Director of the Center for Historical Literary Studies of School for Advanced Studies in the Humanities, 2) The Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration, Vernadskogo prosp., 82, 119571 Moscow, Russia.

E-mail: This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.

ORCID ID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7319-2945

Abstract:

The insights into consistency of literary traditions, ancient authors of authority, and so-called “role models” rather frequently appeared in the prologues and texts of the late Middle Ages and Renaissance. All of them are associated with development of poetological thought: the first national poetics and rhetoric are emerging and a whole host of other forms of systemizing the past and existing literary processes come into being. This paper is devoted to some forms and examples of such a kind of classifications (prologue, literary catalogue) and, in particular, we are interested in the attempts of grouping the names by these or other criteria and contemplate consistency in various kinds of traditions rather than simply giving the assessment of the talent and properties of the literary figures. These are the constructions that enable us to consider Marqués de Santillana, Cervantes, and Lope de Vega the first “literature historians”.