The Epic of America: An Introduction to Rafael Landivar and the Rusticatio Mexicana

Professor Andrew Laird (Brown University, USA)

The Epic of America: An Introduction to Rafael Landivar and the Rusticatio Mexicana
Format
Paperback
Publisher
Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Country
United Kingdom
Published
24 December 2020
Pages
322
ISBN
9781350197398

The Epic of America: An Introduction to Rafael Landivar and the Rusticatio Mexicana

Professor Andrew Laird (Brown University, USA)

A lively introduction to the rich and complex tradition of Latin literature from colonial Spanish America, and to its best known author, the poet Rafael Landivar. Rafael Landivar is the best known of all the poets from the Americas to write in Latin. In the 15 books of his Rusticatio Mexicana (1782), he described - in vivid epic verse - the lakes, volcanoes, and wildlife of Mexico and his native Guatemala, as well as the livelihoods and recreations of the people of the region. This panorama of nature, culture and production in colonial New Spain took classical didactic poetry into a new world of political conflict. But Landivar also writes with a strongly personal voice: elegiac and pastoral modes convey the pathos of displacement and the poet’s overwhelming nostalgia for his American homeland. Andrew Laird’s introduction provides information about Landivar’s life and exile to Italy, explains his diverse intellectual heritage, and collects his shorter works (translated into English here for the first time). A 1948 text of the Rusticatio Mexicana, with a translation by Graydon W. Regenos, is included in this volume.

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