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Alonso de Ercilla
Alonso de Ercilla | |
|---|---|
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| Born | Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga August 7, 1533 |
| Died | November 29, 1594 (aged 61) |
Resting place | Convent of San José |
| Occupations | Poet and soldier |
| Writing career | |
| Language | Spanish |
| Genre | Poetry |
| Signature | |
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Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (Madrid, August 7, 1533 – Ocaña, Toledo, November 29, 1594) was a Spanish poet and soldier, known chiefly as the author of La Araucana.
Biography
Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga was born on August 7, 1533, in Madrid, the son of parents originally from Bermeo (Basque Country): Fortún García de Ercilla, doctor of both laws, member of the Council of Orders before being promoted on his merits to the Royal Council,[1] and Leonor de Zúñiga. He had five siblings, two boys and three girls; he was the youngest. The eldest son and heir to the entailed estate died early, and the middle son entered a seminary. At one year of age he lost his father.
As the family had been left practically ruined after losing a lawsuit over the lordship of Bobadilla, the Emperor Charles V, in consideration of their noble origin, brought the family to his court, where the mother was admitted as a lady-in-waiting to the Empress Isabella of Portugal, so that Alonso was raised there with his three sisters and served as a page to Prince Philip. At his side, he acquired a solid Renaissance education, which included the study of Latin, French, Italian and German.[2] He recounted the conquest of Chile in the celebrated epic poem La Araucana. Between the ages of 21 and 29, Don Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga, a young poet, making use of leather hides, scraps of letters and bark, documented the epic of the conquest of Chile.[3]
From London he set out for Chile in 1555, where the Mapuche people, called "Araucanian" by the Spaniards, had risen in revolt. He took part in various battles and began to write La Araucana, an epic poem of military exaltation in 37 cantos, in which he narrates the most significant events of the expedition.
After taking part in some campaigns in Lima and Panama, he returned to Spain in 1563, and in 1569 published the first part of his great work, dedicated to Philip II. He was named gentleman of the court and Knight of Santiago, after which he took part in various diplomatic missions.
In 1570 he married Doña María de Bazán, who brought as a dowry more than eight million maravedís. Settled in Madrid, he lived, so it is said, a happy existence free of material worries, which allowed him to finish the second and third parts of his poem.
Genesis of La Araucana
In 1556 he arrived in Peru and accompanied García Hurtado de Mendoza, the newly appointed Governor and Captain General of Chile, where the Araucanians had risen in revolt. He was in Chile for seventeen months, between 1557 and 1559, and met Don Francisco Pérez de Valenzuela. He took part in the battles of Lagunillas, Quiapo and Millarapue, witnessing the death of Caupolicán, protagonist of his poem: La Araucana, an epic poem of military exaltation in 37 cantos, in which he narrates the most significant events of the Arauco War against the Araucanians (Mapuche) and which he began to write while on campaign.
In March 1558 Don García founded the city of Osorno and, while a festival was being held in the new city with the participation of all its residents, Don García came out through a back door of his house, his face covered with a closed-visor helmet, accompanied by Alonso de Ercilla and Pedro Olmos de Aguilera. Unexpectedly Juan de Pineda joined them; he was at odds with Alonso de Ercilla over earlier quarrels, and at a certain moment both drew their swords, giving rise to a confused incident. Don García noticed the situation and charged at the more agitated of the two, who was Alonso de Ercilla, and knocked him down with a blow of his mace. Badly wounded, Alonso de Ercilla ran to a church and sought sanctuary. The Governor ordered both contenders to be imprisoned and beheaded the following day. The residents and many influential persons, considering the sentence unjust, tried to persuade García Hurtado de Mendoza, but the preparations for the execution went ahead and the hope of saving them was lost. Then two women, one Spanish and the other Indian, approached Don García's house, entered through the window and by means of their pleas managed to move the hard heart of the Governor, who spared the lives of the condemned men. Alonso de Ercilla remained imprisoned for three more months and was then banished to Peru. Don Alonso would write in his epic poem La Araucana regarding this serious incident:
Ni digo cómo al fin por accidente
del mozo capitán acelerado
a plaza fui sacado injustamente
a ser públicamente degollado;
ni la larga prisión impertinente
do estuve tan sin culpa molestado
ni mil otras miserias de otra suerte,
de comportar más grave que la muerte.
— Alonso de Ercilla
La Araucana was considered by Cervantes to be one of the best epic works in Castilian verse that Spain has produced, and in his novel he saves it from the fire to which Don Quixote's library was subjected.
Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo noted that "There is no literature in the world with so noble a beginning as that of Chile, which begins with nothing less than La Araucana, a work of Spanish genius, certainly, but so bound to the soil that its author trod as a conqueror, and to the peoples whom he there defeated, admired and pitied at once, that it would be a grave omission not to salute in passing the grave figure of Ercilla".[4]
Death
After residing in Peru, he returned to Spain in 1562, where he published his great work (1569), dedicated to Philip II. He was named gentleman of the court and Knight of Santiago in the town of Uclés, after which he took part in various diplomatic missions. In 1570 he married María de Bazán and settled in Madrid, where he finished the second (1578) and third (1589) parts of his poem. Ercilla uses the word araucano as the demonym derived from the Mapudungun word rauko (clayey land).
He died in Madrid at the age of 61 in 1594. His remains rest in the Convent of San José, located in the city of Ocaña in Toledo. The convent is inhabited by Discalced Carmelite nuns. His remains lay for several centuries beneath the altar in a crypt where the nuns themselves were buried, but they were moved to the church adjoining the monastery so that they could be visited more easily.
Bibliography
- La Araucana, preliminary study and edition by Isaías Lerner; Editorial Cátedra.
Notes and references
- ↑ Doctor Fortún García de Ercilla was appointed member of the Council of Orders by the Emperor in Toledo on June 17, 1525, with a salary of 100,000 mrs., remaining in that post until April 22, 1528, when he was raised to the Royal Council (Pedro Andrés Potras Arboledas, «El Origen del Real Consejo de Órdenes de José López de Agurleta», Cuadernos de Historia del Derecho, XVI, 2009, appendix II, pp. 345-346 and AHT, file 78.138. According to the biography by José Toribio Medina, he died in Becerril on September 30, 1534, when Alonso was barely one year old.
- ↑ "Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (1533-1594)" (in español).
- ↑ Lihn, Enrique. "Ercilla, poeta joven" (in español).
{{cite journal}}: Cite journal requires|journal=(help) - ↑ Eva Valero Juan. "Reconstruyendo el camino de Ercilla... Bello, Mistral y Neruda" (in español).
- ↑ The text reads as follows:
«Francisco de Figueroa y Fernando de Herrera, que entrambos han merecido nombres de divinos; Pedro Padilla, el doctor Campuzano, López Maldonado, Miguel Cervantes, el jurado Rufos, el doctor Soto, don Alonso de Ercilla, Liñán de Riaza, don Luis de Vargas Manrique, don Francisco de la Cueva y el Licenciado Berrio, y este Lope de Vega que comienza agora.
LUD.— ¿Esos son todos los que hay ahora en España?
CÉS.— Déstos tengo noticia, y de Bautista de Vivar, monstro de naturaleza en decir versos de improviso con admirable impulso de las musas, y aquel furor poético que en su Platón divide Marsilio Ficino en cuatro partes.»
- Ficino translated into Latin the Dialogues of Plato, and wrote a Commentary on Plato's Symposium and a work called Platonic Theology.
External links
- Portal dedicated to Ercilla at the Centro Virtual Cervantes
- Biography of Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga
- Collection of representative poems by this renowned Spanish poet
- Alonso de Ercilla at the Biblioteca Virtual Miguel de Cervantes
- Digitized works by Alonso de Ercilla in the Biblioteca Digital Hispánica of the National Library of Spain
