The Cidean Hero in the Conquest of San Juan de Puerto Rico according to the Historia General y Natural de las Indias by Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo

Abstract

In contrast to the perspective of other historians, who are more interested in the figure of Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo y Valdés (Madrid, 1478-Santo Domingo, 1557) as a naturalist or a geographer, this study analyses the use of archetypical models from Classical and Christian traditions of the Middle Ages with the intention of representing the Christian hero in the conquest of the island of San Juan de Puerto Rico. In the reproduction of a heroic ideal of behaviour, the sixteenth volume of the Historia general y natural de Indias, Islas y Tierra Firme del Mar Océano (Sevilla: Juan Cromberger, 1535) employs discursive structures —narration, descriptions— which transcend the restrictions imposed by rationalist historiography, incorporating multiple allegorical and imaginative levels which belong to a literary textual formation.