El apólogo y el cuento oriental en España

After having dedicated the first chapter of his Origins to the "Novel in Antiquity", Menéndez Pelayo next addresses an overview of the "Apologist and the Oriental Tale in Spain." Given his consideration of the history of Spanish literature as something linked to the national territory, the inclusion of Hispano-Roman literature has not posed excessive problems, as can be deduced from the numerous reasons set out in the introduction to his "Spanish Literature Program." ». He confesses, however, that he has greatly hesitated when it comes to inserting Jewish and Muslim writers into it, since they do not present any of the two defining elements of the Spanish genius: "the Latin substratum and Catholicism."