The literature of renaissance Spain

Abstract

The Historia y crítica de la literatura española dates the chronological limits of the Renaissance in Spanish literature with Celestina (1499) and Don Quixote (Part I, 1605).1 Spanish literary historians have often tended to periodize Renaissance literature by turning to the chronological boundaries of broader artistic movements that developed in the 16th century. Yet the term preferred by literary scholars and educators today in Spain is ‘Siglo de Oro’ (the Golden Age), which was originally applied to the Renaissance, and later came to define the period encompassing the Renaissance and the Baroque. Literary scholars in Spain have not adopted the denomination ‘Early Modern’ because ‘Golden Age’ has proven itself to be a more meaningful one, denoting that during those two centuries Spain produced her most influential literature.