Fictional narrative and historical narrative: the first Peruvian novel (1539)

DOI: https://doi.org/10.46744/bapl.202102.010
Keywords: Peru, Manco Inca, Fernández de Oviedo, Silva y Guzmán, fictionalization

Abstract

Manco Inca’s rebellion to recover the vast territory of the Andes, which the Spaniards had turned into the Hispanic Kingdom of Peru just four years earlier, was an undertaking meticulously narrated by various Castilian writers of the 16th century in Peru. Contemporary narratives such as that of the irreproachable royal chronicler Gonzalo Fernández de Oviedo, supported by very serious testimonies, coexist with other more imaginative narratives, albeit occasional, such as the one written in Cuzco in 1539 by Diego de Silva y Guzmán, the son of the novelist Feliciano de Silva —the one of “la razón de la sinrazón” [The reason for the unreason] in the first lines of Don Quixote—. In this paper we confront these two modes of narration of our early Spanish writers, i.e., that of the stories (not free of fantasy) where the aim is to tell the truth and that of those where fiction overflows the writer and the text becomes pure literary discourse. This is the drama of a good part of the colonial texts, and its intellection is urgent in the light of the advances of the modern theory of fiction and the theory of literary genres.

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Author Biography

Óscar Coello, Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos

Es doctor en Literatura Peruana y Latinoamericana por la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos, magíster en Literaturas Hispánicas por la Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú, y licenciado en Literaturas Hispánicas por la Universidad Mayor de San Marcos. También posee el título de Profesor de Lengua y Literatura. Es profesor principal a dedicación exclusiva de la Universidad Nacional Mayor de San Marcos. Ha publicado en poesía: De dunas, ostras y timbres (1979) con prólogo de Wáshington Delgado y Cielo de este mundo (1980) con un estudio preliminar de Manuel Pantigoso. En el campo de los estudios literarios, ha publicado El Perú en su literatura (1983), Los inicios de la poesía castellana en el Perú (2.ª ed. 2001), Los orígenes de la novela castellana en el Perú: La toma del Cuzco [1539] (2008), y Diego de Silva y Guzmán. Poema del descubrimiento del Perú y La toma del Cuzco (2016). Es autor de numerosos opúsculos universitarios, entre ellos, Nuestro castellano (2.ª ed. 2007), Arte y gramática de nuestro castellano (2.ª ed. 2007), Manual de semiótica clásica (2007). El área general de sus investigaciones es la literatura peruana del siglo XVI y el área específica comprende las letras castellanas de la fundación del Perú, siglo XVI.

Published
2021-12-02
How to Cite
Coello, Óscar. (2021). Fictional narrative and historical narrative: the first Peruvian novel (1539). Boletín de la Academia Peruana de la Lengua, 70(70), 309 - 334. https://doi.org/10.46744/bapl.202102.010
Issue
No 70 (2021): Julio - Diciembre
Section
Articles

Copyright (c) 2022 Óscar Coello

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