(Re)imagining Ramadan: The Significance of Festival Discourse in Pérez de Hita's Guerras civiles de Granada
Over the centuries, the Guerras civiles de Granada has experienced controversy in categorizing the work within a particular critical framework. Critics such as María Soledad de Carrasco-Urgoiti remarked, “it is a playful handling of facts and fiction” (120). Menendez y Pelayo claimed the first part of the the Guerras civiles to be a “novela histórica” (2, 134), and Diane Sieber noted that within the context of prescribed historiographical tradition the work was considered historically authoritative (291). Perhaps Rhona Zaid provides the most appropriate commentary by succinctly condensing over four centuries of criticism regarding the unique nature of this work by illustrating that, “literary authorities claim it is too historical, while historians allege it is too literary” (315). Indeed, Pérez de Hita’s work is a colorful merger of literary design, historical precedence, poetic sensibility, imagination, and an artful display of storytelling.