Informe de Seminario para optar al grado de Licenciado en Historia.

In this dissertation I offer an analysis of the ideological significance of Juan de Castellanos' writings in light of the epic model provided by Alonso de Ercilla's La Araucana. My main goal is to demonstrate that, unlike Ercilla, Castellanos embraced and manipulated the resources at the disposal of epic poets not only to praise the deeds and defend the rights of the first wave of colonists, but also to challenge the policies of Hapsburg monarchs concerning the administration of the recently established Viceroyalties in the New World. Hence, this dissertation aims to foreground the complexities and ambiguities of a text that bears evidence of an internal ideological fissure that significantly shaped Spain’s political and territorial expansion and contributed to the emergence of a new type of literature. If epic, as has been persuasively argued by Elizabeth B. Davis "was invaluable to the ruling circles of the imperial monarchy, who used it to forge a sense of unity and to script cultural identities during the period of expansion and conquest" (10), then the heroic poems written by Castellanos on behalf of the conquistadors and encomenderos represent the boldest attempt to turn the most prestigious vehicle of Spanish imperial propaganda, epic poetry, into a tool for the expression of colonial political concerns, a project which included but was not limited to the deployment of aggressive practices of poetic imitation, the expression of a new sense of selfhood, and the demarcation of a new sense of patriotism. Nevertheless, from its inception Castellanos' project was also plagued by many contradictions, most of which are the result of his nostalgia for the values and practices commonly associated with the warrior nobility of the feudal era, and by the constraints imposed by simultaneously having to point to and erase the trace of Ercilla's text. / text

Peut-on lire l’épopée espagnole et l’épopée portugaise du seizième siècle indépendamment l’une de l’autre ? La présente étude montre qu’entre 1569 et 1589, l’Espagnol Alonso de Ercilla et le Portugais Jerónimo Corte-Real composèrent une série d’épopées au fil desquelles émerge une pratique commune et originale du genre. Étroitement liées aux Lusiades de Luís de Camões (1572), elles dessinent un modèle partagé de narration épique dans une étroite relation intertextuelle. Lues dans l’ensemble de la péninsule ibérique, ces épopées portugaises et espagnoles éveillèrent l’intérêt du public pour leurs sujets tirés de l’histoire récente. La comparaison avec les chroniques révèle une mimésis formelle, destinée à autoriser ces récits en vers en adoptant de certains traits de l’histoire en prose. Mais le choix de l’épopée les rattache au traitement de la guerre et des conflits dans la longue histoire du genre. À l’instar de la tradition épique depuis Homère, elles reflètent les profonds changements qui accompagnent l’expansion territoriale espagnole et portugaise et la réunion des deux couronnes en 1580. Cette convergence des poètes autour de l’actualité de l’Ibérie moderne les place en situation de concurrence. Il en résulte une émulation affichée dans l’imitation de modèles communs – latins, le plus souvent – et dans la reprise de motifs caractéristiques de l’épopée dans lesquelles est chiffrée cette concurrence. En travaillant ces mêmes motifs, en se répondant d’un texte à l’autre, Ercilla, Corte-Real et Camões, forgent sur deux décennies un patron narratif ibérique qui rompt avec le modèle du Roland furieux avant que celui du Tasse ne s’impose dans la péninsule. / Can we read Spanish and Portuguese epic poetry independently of each other? This study demonstrates that between 1569 and 1589 the Spaniard Alonso de Ercilla and the Portuguese Jerónimo Corte-Real published a series of epic poems through which emerged a common and original practice of the genre. Closely linked to Camões’ Lusiadas (1572), they form a shared epic model built on an intertextual poetic practice. Read throughout the Iberian peninsula, this Spanish and Portuguese epic demonstrates its readers’ interest for the subjects based on recent history. Compared to the chronicles it reveals a formal mimesis through which verse history is authorized by some formal imitations of prose history. Nevertheless, by choosing epic poetry, poets link these narratives to the treatment of war and military conflicts during the long history of the genre. As epic poets since Homer, these modern poets unveil the deep changes that occurred during the Spanish and Portuguese colonial expansion and the union of the two crowns in 1580. Because they deal with current events in modern Iberia, the poets are placed in a competitive situation, coded in the text, in the imitation of common poetic models –Latin, mostly– and in the use of some typical epic motives. Through working on the same motives and dialoguing from one text to another, Ercilla, Corte Real and Camões invent, over the course of two decades, a narrative Iberian pattern that breaks with the Orlando furioso tradition before Tasso’s model became preponderant in the peninsula.