Abstract

When relating his journey, Friar Diego de Ocaña describes two festivities celebrated in Villa de Potosí, both dedicated to the enthronement of images of the Virgin painted by himself. The festivities included processions as well as literary pieces to honor the Virgin. Ocaña notes that among the poetic texts composed in veneration and praise of the Virgin, there were also prayer-like compositions that were sung during the processions, at the end of the Eucharistic celebration, during the Salve Regina, or during those moments when the image was placed upon the altar. In the present article particular attention is given to various texts, specifically to those which accompanied the festivities that took place with the same pomp and circumstance as those ceremonies celebrated for the feast of Corpus Christ.

Abstract

Jornadas náuticas (1647). Carvajal was a dominic friar and he was integrated in the expedition leaded by captain Ochagavía with the objective of discovering the union between Apure and Orinoco rivers. His chronicle brings a very rich information about animals, flora and customs of the natives. Animal world is described with rethorical strategies which are habitually learned at universities and seminars of Spain and America. Besides, I suggest that Carvajal writes for an implied reader living in America.

Abstract

In the context of the Relación, by Francisco de Borja y Aragón, this paper will report on the exploratory travels —named Arrival and Conquests— of Spanish encomenderos and soldiers between 1615 and 1621. In this context, the present study highlights some of the difficulties Esquilache faced in the exercise of power as head of the Viceroyalty of Peru. We focus our attention on the specific event named Spanish Government. The reasons discussed this time, are closely related to the battle between soldiers and trustees to obtain personal profit. The latter was a current struggle, dating from the origins of the viceroyalty. However, at the time of the events, such conflicts had worsened due to a complex political and economic situation.

Abstract

This  paper  poses  that,  in  order  to  represent  the  first  Spanish  conquests  in  the Antilles, Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, within his Historia General y Natural de las Indias, takes certain official legal documents as models to guide and structure his account. Such documents are the royal ordinances and Palacios Rubios’ Requerimiento.  Consequently,  the  character’s speech  and  actions  are  marked  with  the  ideals  of  XVIth  century  humanist, Renaissance, and erasmist thought —peace, love-friendship  and the model of the prudent, moderate leaders— while a speech which seeks to legitimize the Spanish rules in the New World —while presenting it in terms of «pacification»— is being simultaneously unfolded. This whole discursive compound results in a plural, diverse and at times contradictory account, influenced and influential, and, above all, founding of some of the Utopian-imperial speech and imagery that were projected over the Americas and that constituted it.

Abstract

In this paper we propose a re-reading of three types of texts in which the 17th and 18th century Jesuit missionaries in the New World described their experiences as missionaries as well as explorers, but also their personal views and feelings. We expect that such re-readings of their testimonies of the work and life in the missions would help build a richer and more complex image of the missionary life than that based on the grand narrative.

Abstract

This study examines textual evidence in Titu Cusi's Instrucción in order to review the mediation that fray Marcos Garcia had in the production of this document. From a critical analysis of certain textual marks, the author attempts to reflect on the translation process and measure the level of intervention that the European thought —that of the translator’s Marcos García— has over the native point of view (i.e., the author’s Titu Cusi). The analysis focuses on the study of the select group of quechua words that were maintained in the text and the reasons why they were not translated into Spanish. To frame the translation strategy used by Marcos García, historical aspects and current theory on the art of translation are considered. Also, the concept of monologism introduced by Bakhtin is reviewed in order to understand the ideology that prevails over the translator’s discourse.

Abstract

This paper studies the influence of sceptic philosophy in the formation of the myth of the «good savage». The first part analizes the importance of scepticism in the XVIth, XVIIth and XVIIIth centuries. The second part shows how the sceptic stamp of authors as Erasmus and Montaigne (XVIth century), Bayle and La Mothe Le Vayer (XVIIth century) or Diderot and Voltaire (XVIIIth century) influenced in the way that Europe treated the matter of the American indigenous.