Breves reflexiones sobre Amadís de Gaula y la literatura caballeresca

Abstract

The chivalresque novel appears in Western Europe in the twelfth to fourteenth centuries with roman courtois, in the atmosphere of the radical change operated in the political, socioeconomic and cultural life, identified like the Renaissance. In Spain, the Renaissance is delayed, due to particular conditions (the Reconquest) and, consequently the chivalresque novel, like genre, appears hardly at the beginning of the sixteenth century, although there are several works known with chivalric elements considered antecedent of the chivalresque romance. Amadis of Gaul is the most representative and fi xes the model of the genre in the Iberian Peninsula. Inspired by the Breton cycle, the novel has, undoubtedly, its own identity and personality, that individualizes it and confer it a separate place in the European chivalresque literature panorama.