Cuadernos de Ilustración y Romanticismo (Jun 2016)
«Viva el señor San Antonio, pues que tanto nos ampara»: los santos y su representación en la literatura popular de los siglos XVIII y XIX
Abstract
In the Early Modern Age, religion covered everyday life events, and saints were common characters to appeal for in case of necessity. Hagiographies, from an official sphere, spread their fame, but there was also an important circulation (oral and written) of religious popular literature (specially chapbooks and gozos) that made these characters famous among all the social spheres. First, we will present general sainthood features through valencian popular literature from the 18th century, and then we will focus into the case of Blessed Inés of Benigànim, with a local devotion that extends for a long period of time (from the 17th to the 20th centuries). Thanks to these texts we will be able to understand the conception people had of holy characters, an image that needn’t have to be exactly the same as the representation the Church tried to transmit.
