The Poetics of Empire in the Indies: Prophecy and Imitation in La Araucana and Os Lusíadas by James Nicolopulos (review)

R E V I E W S Nicolopulos, James. The Poetics of Empire in the Indies: Prophecy and Imitation in La Araucana and Os Lusiadas. Perm State Studies in Romance Literatures. University Park: Perm State UP, 2000. xvi + 332 pp. HB. ISBN 0-271-01990-5. In The Poetics ofEmpire, James Nicolopulos (U. Texas-Austin) takes as his point of departure what he terms an "intensification of imitatio in Part II of the Araucana, inextricably bound up with issues of both poetic and imperial rivalry" (12), noting a "sea change" in which Ercilla begins to signal more clearly and consistently his models, both classical and contemporary , and in which, moreover, the scope of the poem moves beyond the colonial periphery of part 1 and begins to implicate the "destiny of the metropolitan center" (28), that is, the axis of Spain's Mediterranean power. The investigation into these seemingly straightforward questions fills Nicolopulos's 300-page monograph, which, the author clarifies , is intended not as "an exhaustive study of either the Araucana or the Lusiadas, but rather a demonstration of the utility of a coherent theoretical approach to imitation in the study of colonial epic poetry" (19). Chapter 1, "'Con que ilustrar pudiese mas su historia': The Crisis of Imitation in the Araucana," defines the research problem mentioned above. What happened between parts 1 and 2 to influence Ercilla's approach to imitation, Nicolopulos suggests, was the appearance in 1572 of Camoens' rival imperial epic Os Lusiadas, which, in an allegedly conscious borrowing of elements from part 1 of the Araucana, "could only have been read by Ercilla in 1572 as a gauntlet flung into the field of poetic and imperial contention and honor" (42). The rest of the chapter (43-64) elaborates a critical approach to imitation that will guide the readings that follow. Drawing upon Renaissance commentators as well as twentieth-century critics, Nicolopulos critiques different classificatory schema of imitatio, defined as "the imitation of models produced by art rather than nature" (43). The principal models examined are Bartolomeo Ricti's following [sequi], imitating [imitari], and emulating [aemulari] (43); G.W Pigman's transformative, dissimulative, and eristic imitation (44); and Thomas Greene's reproductive (sacramental), eclectic (exploitative), heuristic, and dialectical imitation, the last two of which are in turn considered examples of "necromantic" imitation, defined as "the revival of the dead to make them speak prophetically" (56). As an example of the latter, Nicolopulos examines Garcilaso's "En tanto que de rosa y d'acucena," insisting on the sonnet as "the most ambitious type of imitation that Ercilla would have held before his eyes" (59). CALIOPE Vol. 7, No. 2 (2001): pages 81-102 82 «S Reviews Chapter 2, "Ercilla's Eclectic Web of Epic Prophecy" studies the prophetic architecture of part 2 of LaAraucana, which Nicolopulos views as a unifying structure and an example of "eclectic" imitation. As evidence, he leads the reader through a lengthy survey of the topos in Virgil (6672 ), Ariosto, and sixteenth-century Spain (72-83) Juan de Mena (85-97), and Garcilaso (106-114) to show how Ercilla borrows from each in his rendering of his narrator's encounters with the demigoddess Bellona (canto 17) and with the wizard Fitdn (canto 23). The conclusion is that Ercilla conceals his debt to non-Castilian writers such as Virgil and Ariosto and foregrounds his imitation of the peninsular poets Lucan (although the main discussion of him is reserved for chapter 3), Mena, and Garcilaso "because Ercilla is constructing an encomium to the Spanish empire of his sovereign Philip II" (117). In chapter 3, "Ercilla's Literary Necromancy: Shades of Lucan and Juan de Mena in Fitdn's Cave," Nicolopulos proposes to examine Ercilla's most pronounced case of "necromantic" imitation by focusing in considerable detail on a central element of the narrator's encounter with Fitdn: the list of magical substances encountered in the wizard's vials (canto 23.49ff). The discussion, which again takes the reader through the standard models of the topos that would have been available to Ercilla (Virgil, Ovid, Lucan, and Juan de Mena) is long and detailed and requires the reader's scrupulous attention (and, ideally, a knowledge of Latin...