History of the Spanish Novel

"The origins of the Spanish novel date back to the early picaresque novels and Don Quixote, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the history of the genre in Spain presents the reader with such iconic works as Galdós's Fortunata and Jacinta, Clarín's La Regenta, or Unamuno's Mist. A History of the Spanish Novel traces the developments of Spanish prose fiction in order to offer a comprehensive and detailed account of this important literary tradition. It opens with an introductory chapter that examines the evolution of the novel in Spain, with particular attention to the rise and emergence of the novel as a genre, during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the bearing of Golden-Age fiction in later novelists of all periods. The introduction contextualizes the Spanish novel in the circumstances and milestones of Spain's history, and in the wider setting of European literature. The volume is comprised of chapters presented diachronically, from the sixteenth to the twenty-first century and others concerned with specific traditions (the chivalric romance, the picaresque, the modernist novel, the avant-gardist novel) and with some of the most salient authors (Cervantes, Zayas, Pardo Bazán Galdós, and Baroja). A History of the Spanish Novel takes the reader across the centuries to reveal the captivating life of the Spanish novel tradition, in all its splendour, and its phenomenal contribution to Western literature"--Back cover of book jacket.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Fiction, Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.