The double modernity and Golden Age literature: Toward a critical notion of modernity in the context of the Hispanic Golden Age

Abstract

This article is a study of the concept of modernity. On the one hand, it explores and critiques the idea that rationalism was its starting point. On the other hand, it incorporates Renaissance Humanism as its complementary component. It explores how literary phenomena from the 15th to the 17th centuries reflected an experience and an aesthetic that ultimately consolidated into what we know as modern art and literature,independent of Cartesianism and the scientific revolutions. Thus, the text proposes a counterpointed and paradoxical view of the phenomenon, oscillating between humanist indeterminism, with its focus on language, and Cartesian rationalism, committed to a universal and ahistorical knowledge. Finally, the article seeks to establish a notion of modernity that serves theoretically, conceptually, and methodologically as a foundation for literary and artistic studies of the Renaissance and Baroque periods, especially within the Hispanic world, given its importance during this period.