La tradition espagnole et italienne de la nouvelle en France

Abstract

This article focuses on the influence of Spanish novels written in the 17th century on French authors like Rosset, Camus, Sorel, and Scarron. These writers profit from Spanish narrative models that allow them to renew their particular narrative imagery. In time, this imagery is adapted to the taste of the French readers. It is important to notice how the Italian model for novel writing —which prevails in the Histoires tragiques— is replaced by a narrative system resembling that of Miguel de Cervantes. We explore here the manners in which authors like Maria de Zayas, Diego Agrega y Vargas, Juan Pérez de Montalbán, José Camerino, and Alonso Castillo Solórzano, among others, actually enrich the aforementioned model. Their narrative and thematic innovations add to the French model without compromising a certain specificity inherent in each cultural environment.