Novelas de caballerías

At the beginning of the 20th century, Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo pointed out the profound renewal that literary history had undergone, "a creation of the 19th century" that had "very qualified precedents" (Studies, I: 79)3. He himself had drawn up the main guidelines for these changes, which will serve as a guide for my presentation, selecting, interpreting and expanding some of his data. In the Spanish sphere, the modifications had been more pronounced starting in the 1940s, after the approval on September 17, 1845 of a general study plan (known as the Pidal plan), which tried to secularize, centralize, standardize and professionalize teaching, including university education.