Este libro presenta un estudio y edición crítica del poema Obra nuevamente compues- ta... (1571) de Bartolomé de Flores, considerado el primer poema en español sobre Norteamérica y el único testimonio poético de la victoria de Pedro... more
Este libro presenta un estudio y edición crítica del poema Obra nuevamente compues- ta... (1571) de Bartolomé de Flores, considerado el primer poema en español sobre Norteamérica y el único testimonio poético de la victoria de Pedro Menéndez de Avilés sobre los hugonotes franceses en la Florida en 1565. El poema ofrece una de las primeras descripciones poéticas de la naturaleza y los indígenas norteamericanos en el siglo XVI. Se estudian las características formales de la obra, que pertenece al género literario de las relaciones de sucesos en verso impresas en pliegos de cordel. También se realiza una lectura detenida del poema para entender su importancia en la historia de la poesía colonial del siglo XVI. En fin, se incluye la reproducción facsímil del único ejemplar conocido de la obra, conservado en la John Carter Brown Library.
In this article, I analyze the so-called ‘discovery of the Pacific’ and its implications for Spanish understanding of global geography, in two of the most important early histories of the early encounter with the New World: the works of... more
In this article, I analyze the so-called ‘discovery of the Pacific’ and its implications for Spanish understanding of global geography, in two of the most important early histories of the early encounter with the New World: the works of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo and Francisco López de Gómara. Their general histories of the Indies tackle the Pacific in their accounts of the various expeditions that Spain sent to the Moluccas and Philippines between 1519 and 1542. There we see how both historians struggle to contain the discovery that the Pacific was much broader and emptier than anyone had expected it to be, and thereby prevent it from becoming, in the Spanish imagination, an insurmountable barrier that decisively separated America from Asia. Oviedo is committed to the idea that the Indies are a single tropical expanse that can be successfully spanned by Spanish military might and navigational skill, no matter how large an ocean it contains. Gómara gives up on the unified Indies, embraces the ‘invention of America,’ but miniaturizes the Pacific in order to keep Spain's South Sea ambitions alive. Each in his own way thereby articulates the New World with broader geographies and expansive horizons.
