The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative

Rolena Adorno

• Publisher: Yale University Press
• Year: 2008
• eBook ISBN: 9780300144963
• Edition: 1
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: World History
• Index: History

In this book on early Latin American narrative, Rolena Adorno argues that the foundations of the Latin American literary tradition are located in the writings that debated the rights to Spanish dominion in the Americas and the treatment of its natives. Placing the works of canonical Spanish and Amerindian writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries - Bartolomé de las Casas in particular - within this larger polemic, she shows how their works sought credibility through reference to the narrative accounts they followed or contradicted, rather than the historical events they sought to defend or condemn. Demonstrating how these authors and their protagonists have been polemically reinvented in narrative form up to the present day, Adorno elucidates the role the "polemics of possession" played in the development of Latin American literary and political discourse.

Table of contents

• Contents
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Chapter 1. Overview: The Polemics of Possession in Spanish American Narrative
• Chapter 2. Felipe Guaman Poma De Ayala and the Polemics of Possession
• Chapter 3. Fray Bartolomé De Las Casas, Polemicist and Author
• Chapter 4. Councilors Warring at the Royal Court
• Chapter 5. Historians of War and Princely Warriors
• Chapter 6. The Encomendero and His Literary Interlocutors
• Chapter 7. The Conquistador-Chronicler and His Literary Authority
• Chapter 8. The Amerindian, Studied, Interpreted, and Imagined
• Chapter 9. The Narrative Invention of Gonzalo the Warrior
• Chapter 10. The Narrative Reinvention of the Conqueror-Captive
• Chapter 11. From Guancane to Macondo: Literary Places and Their Predecessors
• Chapter 12. Seeing Ghosts: The Longevity of ‘‘Serpents in Sandals’’
• Notes
• Bibliography
• Index