Between Epic and History: European epic poems of the XVIth - XVIIth centuries on Lepanto and the Reconquista

The present work is devoted to the investigation of the new category of the epic genre that appeared and evolved in the period between the end of the Cinquecento - the second half of the Seicento †" the one comprising epic poems treating facts of contemporary historical reality. The thesis concerns itself namely with the epic texts dedicated to the culminating military conflicts of the Oriental war (notably, the Battle of Lepanto, 1571) and such crucial events of the Reconquista as the Conquest of Granada (1492) and the Rebellion of the Alpujarras (1568-1571). The selected texts belong to the Italian, Spanish and French epic traditions, the main objectives of the research being the ones of providing a thorough analysis of the texts in question with special emphasis upon the relationship of the marvellous and the historical elements, as well as the allegorical dichotomy of absolute good and absolute evil, the final chapter being entirely devoted to the issue of the †˜demonic' figure of the †˜Other' seen through the prism of the age-long struggle of the Christian and the Islamic civilisations.