Tracking the ring: forms of neomedievalism in El anillo encantado by María Teresa Andruetto

Abstract

This article examines the legend of Charlemagne and the enchanted ring through the lens of neomedievalism, focusing on two reworkings of the story: its evocation by Italo Calvino in Six Memos for the Next Millennium and its reinterpretation by the Argentine writer María Teresa Andruetto. The analysis seeks to trace in Andruetto’s version the presence of medieval traditions and their interaction with oral forms, popular sensibility, and fairy-tale motifs. Particular attention is paid to the ways in which these elements are reconfigured in contemporary children’s and young adult literature. By exploring both the sources and the transformations of the legend, the article highlights how Andruetto’s rewriting not only retrieves and reimagines medieval narrative patterns but also adapts them to new contexts of reception. Ultimately, the study argues that such narratives provide valuable material for the construction of individual reading trajectories while simultaneously fostering the development of a collective reading community. In doing so, it underscores the relevance of neomedievalist approaches for understanding the persistence and transformation of medieval imaginaries in modern literary production.

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