ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the key concepts discussed in the preceding chapters of this book. The book suggests that marginality is the root of contemporary writing and existence and the issue of post-modernity. It deals with the historical Spanish and Iberian-American vanguard. Iris Zavala's essay reverts to the nineteenth century, shedding light on the issues of urbanization, modernization, and industrialization. The culture of the modern world has revolved around the master concepts of modernization, modernity, and modernism. Modernization refers to the political, technological, and economic processes linked to the industrial revolution. The center of Western culture has been identified with religious Reformation, political liberalism, capitalism, the social contract, and the rights of the individual. Hispanic and Iberian-American literatures have been relegated to the margins by self-styled comparatists and European-oriented literary historians in general. The frame of modernism was the ordinary, the customary, the very habit of living, dying, writing, and inscribing the world around.
