Mith, literature and reality in José María Merino's "Trilogía americana"

Abstract

Mith, literature and reality in José María Merino s Trilogía americana is a brief paper that, as it is said in the title, attempts to analyse in the stories protagonized by Miguel VilIacé Yolotl the relationships between these elements, bearing always in mind both the spirit of the age (discovery and conquest of the New World) and the literary reelaboration carried out (José María Merino's recreation). For this reason, the chief intention of this approach to El oro de los sueños, La tierra del tiempo perdido and Las lágrimas del sol concentrates on a focusing based on the documents of that time as first and main way of trustworthiness for observing the subsequent fictional dimension. That is, to penetrate into that dificult conjunction, so evident in the trilogy, of exploration/reverie, knowledge/fancy, reality/dream... or similar oppositions that characterized an epoch of our past. At the same time, this paper allows to observe how acts the stimulating power of the history and how much owes literature to recreated reality.