Reality and Fiction in Spanish Literature

Abstract

In this article I deal with the concepts of reality and fiction in Spanish literature from a comparative standpoint. I highlight the role of fiction as a means of apprehending the world through a symbolic language which does not exclude truth. By means of narrative devices such as the narrator’s involvement in fiction, the baroque metaphors of life as a dream and the great theatre of the world, as well as metaliterature, literary works attack the Manichaean vision opposing reality and fiction whose origins could be traced back to Aristotle’s Poetics. These reflections are accompanied by fragments of Don Quixote and other key works in the Spanish literary production from all times.