Article/section’s main juice
-
Historical framework (section header)
o
Colonization under Philip II
o
Spanish imperial power is broken and the
momentum of the conquest begins to lose its vitality
o
Social institutions are consolidated
-
Cultural tendencies (section header)
o
Second Renaissance and Counter Reformation
o
Chronicles tend toward verse forms
o
Traditional and Italianate poetry
o
European-patterned theater
o
First writers born in America
-
Distinction between Spaniards born in Indies
(Creoles & mestizos) and Spaniards of Spain
o
Different physical and spiritual qualities
o
Original Spaniards seemed more refined and
polished; they were often arrogant and thought themselves superior
o
Creoles and mestizos had less respect for the Spanish
authorities
-
Religious influence
o
Idea that the conquest was God’s will (Inca
Garcilaso de la Vega)
o
Influence of Inquisition in what was written in
theatre
-
Influence of Renaissance
o
Epic poetry, fondness for verse/poetry
o
Concern with morality
-
Ercilla’s epic poem La Araucana was very important
-
Spanish literature influenced heavily on
colonial literature
Comps writers discussed
-
Inca
Garcilaso de la Vega (pg. 68-74)
-
Alonso
de Ercilla y Zúñiga (pg. 75-78)
General notes (both pulp and juice…)
Introduction
-
The writers of the colonies borrow lots of
literature stuff from other areas and other writers – all sorts of literature
circulated throughout colonial America (62)
-
Different origins of literature between mother
country and colonial America (Spain had much more experienced writers and more
resources than New World-ers) (62-63)
-
Later on in the
colonial period, it was the creoles and mestizos that had influence in the
development of the literature of the New World, rather than the original
Spanish conquistadors (63)
Chroniclers
-
New group of conquistadors and missionaries =
new group of chronicles (63)
o
Mix of repetition of old information and addition
of new info
o
Mix of quality of writing
-
Chronicles sprang up along the travel routes of
the New World (63)
-
Father José de Acosta (1539-1616)
o
History that deals with the “natural” and “moral”
aspects of the Indies (64)
o
Anti-historical attitude – no longer amazed at
man’s diversity in New World; Indian was not so different from the European
(64)
-
Juan de Cárdenas
o
“Sees differences
between Spaniards born in the Indies and the Spaniards of Spain, the former
appearing to him to be more refined, discreet, and polished” (65)
-
Spaniard born in the
Indies is called a “Creole” (65)
o
Different physical
and spiritual qualities
o
Idea that the
Creoles and Mestizos have less respect for the Spanish authorities
-
Juan
Suárez de Peralta (not on list)
o
Mexican-born Creole, one of the first to write
in México (65)
o
Idea of how a conquistador’s son differs in
spirit from a conquistador, and how a Creole differs from a Spaniard (66)
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Friar
Pedro de Aguado (not on list)
o
Chronicler of Colombia and Venezuela (66)
-
Friar
Reginaldo de Lizárraga (Peru)
o
“His point of view is that of the Spaniard – as he
speaks of Creoles, Mestizos, and Indians his scorn increases in degree” (67)
o
Difference between
old conquistadors, who had to fight and work hard, and new conquistadors, who
had everything handed to them (67)
-
Inca
Garcilaso de la Vega (Peru, 1539-1616)
o
He was the most gifted of the mestizo writers
(68)
o
Descended from Inca and Castilian nobility –
mother was Indian princess, father a Spanish captain (68)
o
He went to Spain when he was twenty-one and
never returned to New World [he died at the age of 77] (68)
o
He clung to his identity as a mestizo with pride
– wrote for both Indian and Spanish nations (68)
o
Use of rhetoric of humility in the introductions
to his works (68)
o
Called himself “Inca” because of the idea of the
“natural, innocent man” – fanciful Renaissance
thinking; he avoided the discrimination based on “purity of blood” this way
[the same type of discrimination that the Jewish/Moorish converts faced] (68)
o
“God was making use
of Spain [and the conquest of the New World] to conquer and Christianize” (69)
o
A good deal of
imagination enters into Inca’s history; he’s not always very historically
accurate (69)
o
Influences from both
Renaissance and books of chivalry in his literature (69)
§
Influences of epic
poetry
§
Sense of “imagined adventure”
similar to that of books of chivalry
o
Comentarios
reales
§
His most outstanding work (70)
§
First part was published in 1609, second part
was published posthumously in 1617 under different title (70)
§
Criticism has called this work a “fairy tale” or
“a Utopian novel” rather than a historical text (70)
o
Inca based his work on historical texts he read,
what he saw, and what was passed on to him verbally [and also his fanciful
imagination] (71)
o
Idea that Spaniards misunderstood the Indian
culture because of their ignorance of the Quechua language (71)
-
Prosperous Lands and Poor Lands
o
Mexico and Peru were
two of the richer colonies in the late sixteenth century, while Santo Domingo
was in decline, and the colonies of Paraguay and the Río de la Plata were
rather poor (74)
o
Ruiz Díaz de Guzmán (Paraguay) – a mestizo who
chronicled the stories of others with a constantly fantastical tone that made
it hard to tell the difference between truth and fiction (74)
Epic Literature
-
Some chronicles became literature, and some literature
had value as a chronicle (75)
-
Bloodiest episodes in Peru were not between
Spaniard and Indian, but between Spaniard and Spaniard (75)
-
Alonso
de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1534-1594)
o
One of Philip II’s courtiers, with a good
literary education (75)
o
Idea that the Indian was an enemy to him – not because
of greed, but because the Indian was an enemy of his faith (76)
o
La Araucana
§
First epic poem of America (75)
§
Based on a group of Spaniards from Peru who came
to Chile and clashed with the warrior tribes of the Araucanians (75)
§
Influence of Renaissance, during which there
were several variations on epic poems (75)
§
This poem is a type of chronicle, valued most
for its esthetic nature (75)
§
“First work in which the author appears as an
actor in the epic he describes” (75)
§
“first work that lent epic dignity to events
still in process” (75)
§
“first work that immortalized with an epic the
founding of a modern nation” (75)
§
“first work of real poetic quality that centered
around America” (76)
§
Author “laments the poverty of the Indian theme
and the monotony of the warrior theme” (76)
§
Chose not to describe the Chilean landscape (76)
§
Describes combats with detail (76)
§
Gives character to Indians – generous Lautaro,
savages Tucapel and Rengo, heroic Galvarino, courageous Caupolicán (76)
§
When author tired of New World he would go into
other themes (love scenes, supernatural apparitions/prophecies, dreams,
mythological stories, etc.), which made the poem one of the most complex of
Golden Age literature (77)
§
The poem was published in three parts in 1569,
1578, and 1589 (77)
§
With the publication of the poem, Spain felt for
the first time that America had a literature (77)
§
The influence of the poem was deep and
long-lasting, especially in America – other epic poems with New World as theme
appeared (77)
The State of
Literature
-
There was lots of ignorance in the New World /
Indies, and those who wanted to write had to move past their discouragement and
be very determined to do so (78)
-
New World was
constantly exposed to the evolution of Spanish literature due to the steady arrival
of more of the Spanish population in America up through the eighteenth century
(79)
-
There was Creole resentment against the
Spaniard, who seemed (and thought himself to be) superior (79)
-
The colonial writers
were inspired by Spain’s literature and mimicked it (79)
Satire
-
Example:
Mateo Rosas de Oquendo (not on list)
(80-81)
-
Violent satire against “women of doubtful morals”
and “impostors” (81)
Theatre
-
Mexico City and Lima (Peru) were centers of two
of most advanced colonial civilizations and both cities had a theatre (81)
-
The first missionary theatre was disappearing in
the second half of the sixteenth century (81)
-
Gradual development
of a European-patterned theatre (82)
o
Latinist tradition of Church colleges was
brought in by Jesuits
o
Both Spanish and local plays were represented
-
“in 1565 publishing
houses in Spain began producing collections of plays that were quickly sent to
America” (82)
-
The political and religious rules (enforced by
the Inquisition) limited creative production somewhat (83)
-
Plays were sometimes composed in a combination
of Spanish and indigenous languages (84)
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