No CrossRef data available.
Article contents
An Early Florida Poem: “Elegía a la muerte de Juan Ponce de León”
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 23 October 2020
Extract
In spring 1513 Juan Ponce de León sailed north from Puerto Rico, cruised the Bahamas, and touched land somewhere on the southeastern corner of what is now the mainland United States. The season being Easter, and because of the “beautiful view of the many cool woodlands,” Ponce de León called the peninsula, which he believed an island, la Pascua Florida (T. Davis 17, 57). The rest of the story is decidedly less poetic. A squabble with Christopher Columbus's family, involving broader matters of legal jurisdiction, had driven the conquistador to new territories. His time in la Florida was brief but violent. After claiming ownership, Ponce de León provisioned his ships, skirmished with the natives, took hostages, then rounded the Martires (or Keys), where he met unfriendly Calusa on the gulf side (T. Davis 17-22). In February 1521 he returned, this time as adelantado, or governor, and again met the Calusa—who dealt him a mortal wound to the thigh. Ponce died in La Habana (Fernandina) the following July, and he now lies in the cathedral of San Juan, Puerto Rico.
- Type
- Little-Known Documents
- Information
- Copyright
- Copyright © 2013 by The Modern Language Association of America
References
Works Cited
Alvar, Manuel. Juan de Castellanos: Tradición española y realidad americana. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1972. Print.Google Scholar
Alvar, Manuel. “Tradición española en las Elegías de Juan de Castellanos.” Arbor: Ciencia, pensamiento y cultura 321-22 (1972): 45–64. Print.Google Scholar
Bennett, Charles E., ed. Laudonniere and Fort Caroline: History and Documents. Tuscaloosa: U of Alabama P, 2009. Print.Google Scholar
Bolaños, Álvaro Félix. “Hispanismo y Colombia colonial: Los lectores de la obra épica de Juan de Castellanos.” Iberomania 58 (2003): 197–209. Print.Google Scholar
Calderón Cruz, Ángel. “La Gesta de Puerto Rico segun Juan de Castellanos.” Revista/Review Interamericana 8.3 (1978): 405–08. Print.Google Scholar
Castellanos, Juan de. Elegía a la muerte de Juan Ponce de León. Ed. Babín, María Teresa. San Juan: Instituto de Cultura Puertorriqueña, 1967. Print.Google Scholar
Castellanos, Juan de. Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias. Ed. Moreno, Gerardo Rivas. Bogotá: Selene, 1997. Print.Google Scholar
Horozco, Covarrubias, Sebastián de. Tesoro de la lengua castellana o española. 1611. Ed. Arellano, Ignacio and Zafra, Rafael. Madrid: Iberoamericana, 2006. Print.Google Scholar
d'Anghiera, Peter Martyr. The Decades of the Newe Worlde or West India. Trans. Eden, Richard. Ann Arbor: U Microfilms, 1966. Print.Google Scholar
Davis, Elizabeth B. Myth and Identity in the Epic of Imperial Spain. Columbia: U of Missouri P, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Davis, T. Frederick. “Juan Ponce de Leon's Voyages to Florida.” Florida Historical Quarterly 14.1 (1935): 1–67. Print.Google Scholar
Fontaneda, Escalante de. Memoir of the Things, the Shore, and the Indians of Florida…. C. 1575. Trans. Buckingham Smith. Washington, 1854. Print.Google Scholar
García Soto, Claudio. “Valor, honor y fama en la literatura colonial de Venezuela. Casos: Pedro de la Cadena y Juan de Castellanos.” Revista de literatura hispanoamericana 42 (2001): 45–59. Print.Google Scholar
Hernández de Mendoza, Cecilia. “Juan de Castellanos, poeta americano.” Boletín del Instituto Caro y Cuervo 52 (1997): 330–51. Print.Google Scholar
Herrmann, Henriette. “Reflejos de la oralidad en las Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias de Juan de Castellanos.” Colombia en el contexto latinoamericano. Ed. Luque, Myriam and Ordóñez, Montserrat. Bogotá: Instituto Caro y Cuervo, 1997. 359–68. Print.Google Scholar
Jones, Jane Anderson. “Florida in Renaissance Poetry.” Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings Journal in Florida Literatures (1999). Web. 14 Oct. 2003.Google Scholar
Jones, Jane Anderson, and O'Sullivan, Maurice. Florida in Poetry: A History of the Imagination. Sarasota: Pineapple, 1995. Print.Google Scholar
Martínez-Osorio, Emiro F. “‘En Éste Nuestro Rezental Aprisco’: Piracy, Epic, and Identity in Cantos 1-2 of Discurso del Capitán Francisco Draque by Juan de Castellanos.” Calíope: Journal of the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry 17.2 (2011): 5–34. Print.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Maura, Juan. “La Araucana, La conquista de Nuevo México, y Las elegías de varones ilustres: Tres épicas de la conquista de América.” Deseo, poder y política en la cultura hispánica. Ed. de la Fuente Ballaesteros, R. and Perez Magallón, J. Valladolid: U Castellae, 2007. 151–61. Print.Google Scholar
Nicolopulos, James. The Poetics of Empire in the Indies: Prophecy and Imitation in La Araucana and Os Lusíadas. University Park: Pennsylvania State UP, 2000. Print.Google Scholar
Pardo, Isaac J. Juan de Castellanos: Estudio de las Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias. Caracas: U Central de Venezuela, 1961. Print.Google Scholar
Restrepo, Luis Fernando. “Sacred and Imperial Topographies in Juan de Castellanos's Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias.” Mapping Colonial Spanish America: Places and Commonplaces of Identity, Culture, and Experience. Ed. Meléndez, Mariselle. Lewisburg: Bucknell UP, 2002. 84–101. Print.Google Scholar
Restrepo, Luis Fernando. “Somatografía épica colonial: Las Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias de Juan de Castellanos.” Modem Language Notes 115.2 (2000): 248–67. Print.Google Scholar
Reynal, Vicente. “Poética clasicista en el Siglo de Oro Español: El caso de las Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias.” Exégisis: Revista de la Universidad de Puerto Rico en Humacao 10.27-28 (1996): 101–17. Print.Google Scholar
Sununu, Alexandra Elizabeth. Estudio y edición anotada de “La Florida” de Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo. Diss. City U of New York, 1993. Ann Arbor: UMI, 1993. Print.Google Scholar