La historia literaria en América Latina y el Caribe ha tenido que enfrentarse con los problemas teóricos heredados de la historia literaria europea: positivismo, periodos literarios, generaciones literarias, objeto de estudio, y otros. En las tres últimas décadas del siglo XX aparecen trabajos que, desde una perspectiva crítica y teórica literaria, a la par que aplicada, cuestionan la validez de la disciplina tal como había sido practicada hasta entonces. Las propuestas que se realizan son fundamentalmente dos: renovación de la historia literaria atendiendo a la variedad de literaturas existentes en este ámbito cultural y a la base histórica, radicalmente social, de estas literaturas, o renovación de la historiografía literaria recurriendo a elementos procedentes de la literatura comparada que son los que, a juicio de muchos autores, pueden dar cuenta de una variedad que ha de contemplar no tanto la Literatura entendida en sentido culto y tradicional como la enorme pluralidad de culturas literarias que conviven en estos países.Latin American and Caribbean literary history has had to face the theoretical problems inherited from European literary history: positivism, literary periods, literary generations, objects of study, and many others. In the last three decades of the twentieth century, works have appeared which from a theoretical and critical, as well as an applied, literary perspective have questioned the validity of the discipline as it had been practiced up until that moment. The proposals offered are basically two. On the one hand, a renewal of literary history accounting both for the variety of existing literatures in this cultural domain and for the radically social historical basis of these literatures; on the other hand, a renewal of literary historiography, resorting to elements coming from comparative literature. These elements,, in the opinion of many authors, are the ones which may account for a variety which has to be considered as, not so much literature in its learned and traditional sense, but rather as the huge plurality of literary cultures which coexist in these countries
