Front Lines: Soldiers’ Writing in the Early Modern Hispanic World Available to Purchase

Latin American literature can trace its origins to narratives of exploration and conquest. Prominent within this body of early colonial writing is a learned epic on Spain’s protracted campaigns to subdue the native people of the Arauco region of Chile, Alonso de Ercilla’s La Araucana, initially published in three parts (1569–90) and widely distributed across the Hispanic world. Anchored in the canonical models of Latin epic, Ercilla’s poem attempts to construct a narrative of foundational martial conflicts for Spain’s overseas empire. Various aspects of this poem nonetheless mark its departures from an epic account of heroic origins in a distant past. Ercilla writes as a combatant, a direct participant in the conflict that he recounts; he praises the integrity and heroism of the indigenous warriors in defending their homeland; he stresses the challenges to imperial authority and military force that Spanish commanders and soldiers encountered during this long war...