Narrating Desire: Moral Consolation and Sentimental Fiction in Fifteenth-Century Spain by Sol Miguel-Prendes

Abstract

First paragraph: The existence and definition of a late medieval genre of ‘sentimental fiction’ in Iberia have been repeatedly contested. There have been numerous discussions regarding which texts comprise the genre, while its purportedly unifying characteristics—e.g. courtly love, pseudo-autobiography, metafiction, intertextuality, tragic endings— have failed to provide a definitive link between the texts in question. What scholars tend to agree on, however, is that there is something special about these works and that a common focus on internal psychology and subjectivity anticipates the modern novel.