Literature and Religion Encounters in the Latin American Context

Abstract

What is literature? What is religion? How are they related? Where do they meet? From where do human beings build the sense of transcendence, of that which is mythical? How has the “religious” element been built in Latin America, and how has this historic development survived to this day? These are typical questions from the history of humanity, and they are addressed in this article in order to enable a dialogue in which the mythical and aesthetic elements are found in the human element. In this sense, the idea is to identify the relationships established between religion and literature, and the way in which said relationship has validated and legitimized discourses, practices, as well as human and historical experiences. Thus, a conceptual definition of what is understood by religion and literature is presented first, in order to find theoretical relationships, followed by some cultural expressions in the context the Conquest and the colonization of our continent, which explain the critical and performative correlation between religion and literature.