Universität zu Köln, Arbeitskreis Spanien - Portugal - Lateinamerika
Abstract
Scholars often confuse the terms tradition and literary history by thinking that the first one equals the second one. By means of the confrontation of anthropology, literature and other modern fields of scientific knowledge, this paper attempts to answer the following questions: 1 – What is identity, what is tradition and what is literary tradition in particular? 2 – What is the relationship between literary tradition/traditions and canon, within a vision of literary history faced with the theory of relativity proposed by Albert Einstein? Identity is a dynamic process and a field of intersections in which knowledges, experiences, various past cultural activities or
traditions meet and interconnect in the shape of a continuous spectrum of interacting meanings. A literary tradition establishes a relationship with the past and a nexus of vitality and continuity with the present and the future within the conflict between innovations and duration. On the basis of some examples, starting from
Cervantes' Don Quijote, this paper attempts to show how several traditions form literary or artistic systems in which literary experiences/memories of the past and the ways of perceiving and re-elaborating them flow into one another. Therefore, tradition involves interpretation and interpretation involves critique of all traditions founding a specific culture
