Ideas that impress character: narration, portraiture and other distracting maneuvers in the story of the heterodox

Abstract

This article carries out an analysis of the work Historia de los heterodoxos españoles by Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo, with the aim of unraveling the narrative process of it. It is intended to interpret the way in which the Santanderino polygraph characterized the personality of the authors treated and constructed a narrative structure of heterodoxy, focusing on the negative aspects. Menéndez Pelayo analyzes, among other points, the intellectual sins of the heterodox as pride, as well as the moral ones as greed or lust, as well as sins of power. The academic foundation of La Historia de los heterodoxos, well documented, well structured and written, made this indispensable reference for supporters and detractors. However, it is also a deceptive process of «literaturization» of ideological and historical study.