Stories of Knights and Lords. Two Examples of Medievalism in Contemporary Spanish Fiction

Abstract

This article proposes a comparative reading of two Spanish novels of contemporary medievalist fiction: La cuadratura del círculo (1999), by Álvaro Pombo, and La tierra fértil (1999), by Paloma Díaz-Mas. La cuadratura del círculo places us in 12^th century France –and, more explicitly, in the context of the crusades that took place in those years– while closely following the life of a young man called Acardo. La tierra fértil, alternatively, moves the narrative to the setting of Catalonia in the second half of the 13^th century –during the reigns of King James i and his son, King Peter ii– and follows the rise and fall of the lordship of the family of the young protagonist, Arnau Bonastre. The analysis of these two works of medievalist fiction aims to, on the one hand, identify the intertextual mechanisms and the literary and historiographical references that allow the authors to recreate the medieval setting and spirit in a truthful way. On the other hand, it also seeks to understand and interpret how this fictional universe is re-signified through the incorporation of new subjects and discourses that –in the light of contemporary paradigms– multiply the fictional possibilities of representing and thinking about the Middle Ages.