Conquistadors and englishmen: the interplay of language and culture in English and Spanish early american exploration narratives.

Author

Edgar Thomson Shields

Date of Award

5-1990

Degree Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Major

English

Major Professor

Michael A. Lofaro

Abstract

The most exciting recent development in the study of early American literature is the rediscovery of early American culture's ethnic and linguistic diversity. Among others, the Spanish, the French, the Dutch, the English, and Native Americans all played a role in the first interactions between the New and the Old Worlds. Analyzing examples of the literature produced from within three distinctly separate groups of explorers--the Spanish conquistadors, the English cavaliers, and the English religious Separatists, often called the Pilgrims--demonstrates that despite diverse cultural backgrounds, early American explorers shared a similar method for describing their discoveries. The shared method for describing these discoveries is the incomplete text, narratives filled with gaps created by the inability of the explorers' Old World languages to describe the New World lands being surveyed. In order to analyze this common inability to describe the New World within exploration narratives, a theoretical foundation paralleling the theories of gaps described by recent French feminists such as Luce Irigaray and Helene Cixous is presented. After establishing a theoretical structure for reading exploration narratives, the image of the first American explorer/writer, Christopher Columbus, is analyzed by comparing the various interpretations critics have had of the Admiral to his self-image as presented in works written by Columbus and published during his lifetime. Next, the Spanish conquistador tradition is discussed, including Alvar Nunez Cabeza de Vaca's Naufragios (1542) on the Panfilo de Narvaez expedition and two narratives about the Hernando de Soto expedition, the Relacam verdadeira (1557) by the anonymous Gentleman of Elvas and La Florida del Inca (1605) by El Inca Garcialaso de la Vega. Finally, the English cavalier and Pilgrim traditions are examined, primarily through the works of cavalier explorer John Smith, who helped settle Jamestown in 1607, and William Bradford, one of the leaders of the Plymouth Plantation settlers of 1620.

Recommended Citation

Shields, Edgar Thomson, "Conquistadors and englishmen: the interplay of language and culture in English and Spanish early american exploration narratives.. " PhD diss., University of Tennessee, 1990.
https://trace.tennessee.edu/utk_graddiss/11498