The Emergence of the Modern European Novel in Spain 1599-1605

Abstract

The melting pot in which the novel as a form is forged, and in which the earlier models are progressively deconstructed, is a complex space traversed by the tensions that habitually accompany every major historical process. Its emergence does coincide with a certain phase of expansion of the bourgeoisie, but the novel as a genre, from its very origins, presents itself as a conflict-ridden space and as a  vector of subversive values. as  a social practice it arises from the coming into relation of a certain number of social facts and from a series of constraints that give it its socio-historical coordinates, incorporating what is profoundly at stake in the history of a specific society.