La Araucana

La Araucana La Araucana is an epic poem by Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga that narrates the conflict between Spanish conquistadors and Mapuche warriors during the Arauco War in sixteenth-century Chile. The work combines eyewitness reportage, classical epic conventions, and Renaissance humanist learning to portray campaigns, sieges, and individual heroism. Composed in Ottava rima and divided into three parts published across two decades, it became one of the foundational texts of Spanish Golden Age literature and influenced later writers across Europe and Latin America.

Background and composition

Ercilla, a nobleman from Madrid and soldier in the retinue of Pedro de Valdivia, fought at engagements such as the Battle of Tucapel and witnessed the aftermath of the death of Pedro de Valdivia and the rise of Mapuche leaders like Lautaro and Caupolicán. During his service under governors including Garcia Hurtado de Mendoza and amid expeditions to Chiloé Archipelago, Ercilla began composing an epic blending personal experience with the philological models of Virgil, Homer, and Lucan. Influenced by patrons and correspondents in courts such as Madrid and Toledo, he adapted classical machinery—gods, omens, and speeches—to a New World theater where figures like Diego de Almagro, Diego de Rojas, and Francisco de Villagra appear alongside Mapuche leaders. The composition employed sources ranging from official reports by Pedro de Valdivia to oral testimony from participants like Alonso de Monroy and letters exchanged with officials in Seville.

Plot summary

The poem opens with depictions of voyages and landings along the Valdivia River and narrates key confrontations including the sieges of Concepción and ambushes in the Tierra del Fuego-adjacent forests. Ercilla recounts the capture and execution of Spanish leaders, the uprising led by Lautaro, and the stratagems of commanders such as García Hurtado de Mendoza and Diego de Almagro II. Episodes range from formal duels and council scenes—featuring Diego de Rojas and Pedro de Valdivia—to guerrilla actions by chiefs like Caupolicán and negotiations mediated by priests from orders including the Society of Jesus and the Order of Saint Augustine. The narrative interleaves set-piece speeches honoring valor—invoking exemplars like Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, and Hannibal—with battlefield tableaux such as the ambushes near the Itata River and the aftermath of the Battle of Tucapel.

Historical and cultural context

Written during the Spanish colonization of the Americas and the reigns of Philip II of Spain and Charles V, Holy Roman Emperor, the poem reflects tensions among encomenderos, conquistadors, and colonial authorities like the Council of the Indies and the viceroys of Peru. It engages with contemporary issues such as indigenous resistance epitomized by the Arauco War, ecclesiastical missions by clergy like Pedro de Valdivia (soldier) and debates arising in forums such as Seville and Santo Domingo. The text dialogues with chronicles by Pedro Mariño de Lobera, Alonso de Góngora Marmolejo, and Jerónimo de Vivar, and it resonated in contexts involving treaties like the Treaty of Tordesillas and legal discussions in courts influenced by jurists like Francisco de Vitoria. La Araucana also intersects with cultural movements including Renaissance humanism, the Counter-Reformation, and the diffusion of classical models through academies in Rome, Florence, and Paris.

Literary style and themes

Ercilla employs Ottava rima to fuse epic diction with episodic action, drawing on influences from Virgil’s Aeneid, Homer’s epics, and Renaissance epics by authors like Torquato Tasso and Ludovico Ariosto. Themes include heroism and honor embodied by figures such as Lautaro and Caupolicán, the ambiguity of conquest as seen in depictions of Pedro de Valdivia and Spanish captains, and the moral quandaries of warfare discussed in orations invoking Marcus Aurelius and Seneca. The poem stages encounters between European classical ideals and Mapuche cosmology, framing indigenous leaders through virtues akin to Stoicism while also using encomiastic tropes found in works by Garcilaso de la Vega and Fray Luis de León. Literary devices include ekphrasis, aristeia, and pastoral interludes that reference locales such as Araucanía Region and the coastal landscapes of Chile.

Publication history and reception

The three parts appeared in 1569, 1578, and 1589, printed in centers like Madrid and Seville and circulated among humanists in Italy and Flanders. Contemporary readers included courtiers of Philip II of Spain, scholars in Rome, and officials in Lima. Critics from the era—such as members of academies in Rome and commentators influenced by Cardinal Pietro Bembo—praised Ercilla’s melding of witness and epic form, while detractors challenged its portrayal of Spanish actions and the use of classical similes. Over subsequent centuries, commentators like Juan Ignacio Molina and Benito Jerónimo Feijoo reassessed the poem amid Enlightenment debates, and nineteenth-century nationalists in Chile and Argentina elevated its indigenous heroes during independence movements involving figures like José de San Martín and Bernardo O’Higgins.

Influence and legacy

La Araucana influenced writers across Europe and Latin America, inspiring translations and imitations by poets in France, England, and Portugal and shaping historiography by authors such as Diego Barros Arana and Benjamín Vicuña Mackenna. Its depiction of Mapuche resistance informed nineteenth-century narratives of nationhood in Chile and the iconography of leaders like Lautaro in public monuments and novels by Alberto Blest Gana and José Joaquín Vallejo. Modern scholarship in departments at Universidad de Chile, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, and universities in Madrid and Oxford treats the poem through lenses of postcolonial studies, literary theory, and ethnohistory, while translations continue in editions by presses in Santiago and Barcelona. Category:Spanish epic poems