Authority, Piracy, and Captivity in Colonial Spanish American Writing: Juan de Castellanos's Elegies of Illustrious Men of the Indies by Emiro Martínez-Osorio (review)

Alonso de Ercilla's Araucana has dominated perceptions and conceptions of early modern Hispanic epic poetry since the publication of its first part in 1569. Its early appearance relative to other epics and its enthusiastic reception, as demonstrated by the many subsequent editions, generated imitations and continuations. Most importantly, it set influential precedents for how and what epic poetry written in the Spanish Empire could and should be. Likewise, the Araucana has historically drawn much of the critical attention devoted to sixteenth- and seventeenth-century epic poetry. Authority, Piracy and Captivity in Colonial Spanish American Writing studies the response to Ercilla's overwhelming legacy in a very different kind of epic, Juan de Castellanos's Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias. Martínez-Osorio's book represents a major contribution to our understanding of Castellanos's perception of and reaction to the historical, social and political contexts in which he wrote.

One of the central arguments that Martínez-Osorio makes early in the book is that both Ercilla and Castellanos supported Spain's imperial expansion into the New World and both were, in their own ways, reformers, but the problems they perceived and their relations to the Spanish monarch were decidedly different. The author writes, "Ercilla demonstrates familiarity with the reformist program outlined by Bartolomé de las Casas and makes evident that the execution of the enterprise of conquest could be improved. Castellanos, on the other hand, seeks reforms to limit the reach of the Crown's representatives, to end the policy of appointing members of the nobility to the highest posts in the administration of the American colonies, and to overturn legislation detrimental to the interests of the encomenderos" (2). Martínez-Osorio contends that Castellanos wrote from the perspective of the explorers and conquistadors, many of whom became encomenderos, which is interesting given that Castellanos himself appears not to have performed any significant military service during his life. Instead, he was a priest in Tunja, in what was to become the New Kingdom of Granada, and it was especially from that geographical position that he viewed and wrote about the New World.

Martínez-Osorio argues that, in addition to calling for these reforms, Castellanos's poem also highlights the inadequate compensation of those soldiers who fought for the Spanish crown. But rather than portraying the old guard as resentful and disloyal, Castellanos represents them as models of faithfulness to both the monarchy and the Church. The poem is also critical of what Castellanos considered the bungled response to pirate attacks, such as Francis Drake's raid of Santo Domingo in 1586. But Castellanos claims that the colonists have more to fear than just pirates. The Amerindians themselves are also portrayed as a menace to the flourishing of the Christian religion and European civilization in the New World. In fact, Martínez-Osorio shows that Castellanos mocks the Lascasian paradigm as naïve and dangerous to the establishment and development of the Spanish American colonies.

Authority, Piracy, and Captivity begins with a preface and introduction, includes five chapters and ends with a brief coda. It also contains an appendix of the exordium to the "Elegía I" accompanied by an English translation.

The preface sets Castellanos's biography and the overriding concerns of the Elegías against the general sociopolitical backdrop of Colonial Spanish America. It also contends that many previous interpretations of the poem failed to appreciate the importance of Castellanos's ideological affiliations with the encomendero class, thereby resulting in an inaccurate view of the poem. Building incrementally on these ideas, the introduction introduces the counterexample of Araucana and argues that Castellanos critiques both Ercilla's view of the Amerindians and the language he uses to elaborate that vision. Another major difference is that whereas...