Academia Antártica
Encyclopedia
The Academia Antártica was a society
of writers, poets and intellectuals—mostly of the criollo
caste—that assembled in Lima
, Peru
, in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Their objective was to author a body of literature that matched or surpassed that of Europe's and would prove that literariness indeed thrived in Spain's remotest colonies. Members of this collective together published several anthologies of original writings and translations, the most famous of which are the Primera parte del Parnaso Antártico de obras amatorias (Antarctic Parnassus, Part One: Poems of Romance) and the Segunda parte del Parnaso Antártico de divinos poemas (Antarctic Parnassus, Part Two: Poems of the Divine). These are dated 1608 and 1617, respectively.
, Peru
, was a vibrant cultural center characterized by a widespread appreciation for literature. Even in "mills, mines and haciendas", not to mention in the homes of the aristocracy, classical Greek
and Roman
texts were circulated heavily. These included the writings of Aristotle
, Herodotus
, Petrarch
, Cicero
and Ovid
. Indeed, one of the Academia's most distinguishing features is its members' imitations of—and relentless allusion
s to—classical canonical texts.
The literary community in Lima
was keenly attentive to cultural trends in Europe. It is likely that certain Limeño writers felt compelled to form the Academia Antártica in the last decades of the 16th Century because similar societies had sprung up in Seville
around that same time. Because no records documenting the society's gatherings or membership roster remain, little else is known for certain about the Academia. Most of the information we have about its mission and affiliates comes from only three sources: (1) a sonnet composed by Gaspar de Villaroel that appears in the Arauco domado (1596) and is dedicated to the society; (2) the lyric poem "Discurso en loor de la poesía", which is attributed to the enigmatic Clarinda
and praises many of the Academia's members; and (3) a sonnet named "Academia" that was written by Pedro de Oña.
Scholars debate the organization and membership of the Academia Antártica—at least one critic has even suggested that it was actually just a branch of the University of San Marcos; however, there is little disagreement about the society's mission to spread the word that in Lima
world-caliber literary geniuses thrived. Under the scrutiny of recent post-colonial theorists, the society's name has been interpreted as a deliberately hybrid intended to unite literary customs ("Academia") and spaces where they existed without recognition ("Antártica"). The original poetry associated with the Academia, in particular Clarinda
's "Discurso en loor de la poesía" ("Discourse in Praise of Poetry"), seems to confirm that its members resented Europe's reluctance to acknowledge as talented the poets who lived and wrote in the American colonies.
To modern readers, the Academia's writing may seem more European in style and theme than American. This may be due to the collective's emphasis on the translation and imitation of classical works, the adherence to then-popular Petrarch
an tropes, and the general absence of references to indigenous peoples and folklore. Nevertheless, the Academia represents an important step toward the achievement of a Peruvian national literature
and its recognition by European intellectuals. This recognition may have come from Spain's most influential author himself, Miguel de Cervantes
, who in his Canto a Calíope (1583) celebrates the literature generated in Spain's American colonies, though he does not mention the Academia Antártica by name.
in 1603. Its centerpiece is the new Spanish-language translation of Ovid
's Heroides
, penned by Diego Mexía de Fernangil, a Spaniard who traveled extensively in Mexico and Peru
and was a fundamental member of the Academia. The volume also contains Mexía's "El autor a sus amigos" ("From the Author to His Friends"), a narrative of his travels through the Spanish Empire
.
The publication's cover features an emblem and motto that more or less summarize the Academia's objective (see the facsimile to the right). The motto reads: "Si Marte llevó a ocaso las dos colunas; Apolo llevó a Antártico las Musas y al Parnaso" ("If Mars
bore the two columns [marking the boundary of known world] off to the West, Apollo
carried off the Muses to Parnassus and the Antarctic."). The Antarctic was, in the time of Spanish colonization, a nickname for Peru—the place Mexía says the gods now favor with poetry.
Preceding Mexía's translation is a collection of lyric poems written by fellow members of the Academia Antártica and in praise of the author's work. The most notable of these is Clarinda's
"Discurso en loor de la poesía" ("Discourse in Praise of Poetry"), which also invokes figures from Greek and Roman mythology to lionize the literary genius of colonial Peruvian writers. Due in part to 20th-Century feminist and post-colonial analyses, Clarinda's "Discurso" has surpassed Mexía's translation in respect and canonization and has become the Academia's "most celebrated" product.
Mexía followed the first part of the Antarctic Parnassus series with two subsequent collections. The immediate follow-up, Segunda parte del Parnaso Antártico de divinos poemas (Antarctic Parnassus, Part Two: Poems of the Divine) has thus far received less critical scrutiny than its predecessor. The final volume, the third part of the Antarctic Parnassus, has been lost.
Authors with poem fragments intact:
Authors known only by reference:
Authors of questionable membership:
Literary society
A literary society is a group of people interested in literature. In the modern sense, this refers to a society that wants to promote one genre of literature or a specific writer. Modern literary societies typically promote research about their chosen author or genre, publish newsletters, and hold...
of writers, poets and intellectuals—mostly of the criollo
Criollo (people)
The Criollo class ranked below that of the Iberian Peninsulares, the high-born permanent residence colonists born in Spain. But Criollos were higher status/rank than all other castes—people of mixed descent, Amerindians, and enslaved Africans...
caste—that assembled in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, in the 16th and 17th Centuries. Their objective was to author a body of literature that matched or surpassed that of Europe's and would prove that literariness indeed thrived in Spain's remotest colonies. Members of this collective together published several anthologies of original writings and translations, the most famous of which are the Primera parte del Parnaso Antártico de obras amatorias (Antarctic Parnassus, Part One: Poems of Romance) and the Segunda parte del Parnaso Antártico de divinos poemas (Antarctic Parnassus, Part Two: Poems of the Divine). These are dated 1608 and 1617, respectively.
Inspiration and influence
In the late 16th Century, LimaLima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
, Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
, was a vibrant cultural center characterized by a widespread appreciation for literature. Even in "mills, mines and haciendas", not to mention in the homes of the aristocracy, classical Greek
Greece
Greece , officially the Hellenic Republic , and historically Hellas or the Republic of Greece in English, is a country in southeastern Europe....
and Roman
Roman Empire
The Roman Empire was the post-Republican period of the ancient Roman civilization, characterised by an autocratic form of government and large territorial holdings in Europe and around the Mediterranean....
texts were circulated heavily. These included the writings of Aristotle
Aristotle
Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...
, Herodotus
Herodotus
Herodotus was an ancient Greek historian who was born in Halicarnassus, Caria and lived in the 5th century BC . He has been called the "Father of History", and was the first historian known to collect his materials systematically, test their accuracy to a certain extent and arrange them in a...
, Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
, Cicero
Cicero
Marcus Tullius Cicero , was a Roman philosopher, statesman, lawyer, political theorist, and Roman constitutionalist. He came from a wealthy municipal family of the equestrian order, and is widely considered one of Rome's greatest orators and prose stylists.He introduced the Romans to the chief...
and Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
. Indeed, one of the Academia's most distinguishing features is its members' imitations of—and relentless allusion
Allusion
An allusion is a figure of speech that makes a reference to, or representation of, people, places, events, literary work, myths, or works of art, either directly or by implication. M. H...
s to—classical canonical texts.
The literary community in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
was keenly attentive to cultural trends in Europe. It is likely that certain Limeño writers felt compelled to form the Academia Antártica in the last decades of the 16th Century because similar societies had sprung up in Seville
Seville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
around that same time. Because no records documenting the society's gatherings or membership roster remain, little else is known for certain about the Academia. Most of the information we have about its mission and affiliates comes from only three sources: (1) a sonnet composed by Gaspar de Villaroel that appears in the Arauco domado (1596) and is dedicated to the society; (2) the lyric poem "Discurso en loor de la poesía", which is attributed to the enigmatic Clarinda
Clarinda (poet)
Clarinda was the pen name used by an anonymous Peruvian poet, generally assumed to be a woman, who wrote in the early 17th Century. The only work attributed to her is the long poem Discourse in Praise of Poetry , which was printed in Seville in 1608. She is one of very few female, Spanish-speaking...
and praises many of the Academia's members; and (3) a sonnet named "Academia" that was written by Pedro de Oña.
Scholars debate the organization and membership of the Academia Antártica—at least one critic has even suggested that it was actually just a branch of the University of San Marcos; however, there is little disagreement about the society's mission to spread the word that in Lima
Lima
Lima is the capital and the largest city of Peru. It is located in the valleys of the Chillón, Rímac and Lurín rivers, in the central part of the country, on a desert coast overlooking the Pacific Ocean. Together with the seaport of Callao, it forms a contiguous urban area known as the Lima...
world-caliber literary geniuses thrived. Under the scrutiny of recent post-colonial theorists, the society's name has been interpreted as a deliberately hybrid intended to unite literary customs ("Academia") and spaces where they existed without recognition ("Antártica"). The original poetry associated with the Academia, in particular Clarinda
Clarinda (poet)
Clarinda was the pen name used by an anonymous Peruvian poet, generally assumed to be a woman, who wrote in the early 17th Century. The only work attributed to her is the long poem Discourse in Praise of Poetry , which was printed in Seville in 1608. She is one of very few female, Spanish-speaking...
's "Discurso en loor de la poesía" ("Discourse in Praise of Poetry"), seems to confirm that its members resented Europe's reluctance to acknowledge as talented the poets who lived and wrote in the American colonies.
To modern readers, the Academia's writing may seem more European in style and theme than American. This may be due to the collective's emphasis on the translation and imitation of classical works, the adherence to then-popular Petrarch
Petrarch
Francesco Petrarca , known in English as Petrarch, was an Italian scholar, poet and one of the earliest humanists. Petrarch is often called the "Father of Humanism"...
an tropes, and the general absence of references to indigenous peoples and folklore. Nevertheless, the Academia represents an important step toward the achievement of a Peruvian national literature
Peruvian literature
The term Peruvian literature not only refers to literature produced in the independent Republic of Peru, but also to literature produced in the Viceroyalty of Peru during the country's colonial period, and to oral artistic forms created by diverse ethnic groups that existed in the area during the...
and its recognition by European intellectuals. This recognition may have come from Spain's most influential author himself, Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes
Miguel de Cervantes Saavedra was a Spanish novelist, poet, and playwright. His magnum opus, Don Quixote, considered the first modern novel, is a classic of Western literature, and is regarded amongst the best works of fiction ever written...
, who in his Canto a Calíope (1583) celebrates the literature generated in Spain's American colonies, though he does not mention the Academia Antártica by name.
Publications
The Antarctic Parnassus (1608 & c.1617)
The most influential of the Academia Antártica's works, the Primer parte del Parnaso Antártico de obras amotorias (Antarctic Parnassus, Part One: Poems of Romance) was printed in SevilleSeville
Seville is the artistic, historic, cultural, and financial capital of southern Spain. It is the capital of the autonomous community of Andalusia and of the province of Seville. It is situated on the plain of the River Guadalquivir, with an average elevation of above sea level...
in 1603. Its centerpiece is the new Spanish-language translation of Ovid
Ovid
Publius Ovidius Naso , known as Ovid in the English-speaking world, was a Roman poet who is best known as the author of the three major collections of erotic poetry: Heroides, Amores, and Ars Amatoria...
's Heroides
Heroides
The Heroides , or Epistulae Heroidum , are a collection of fifteen epistolary poems composed by Ovid in Latin elegiac couplets, and presented as though written by a selection of aggrieved heroines of Greek and Roman mythology, in address to their heroic lovers who have in some way mistreated,...
, penned by Diego Mexía de Fernangil, a Spaniard who traveled extensively in Mexico and Peru
Peru
Peru , officially the Republic of Peru , is a country in western South America. It is bordered on the north by Ecuador and Colombia, on the east by Brazil, on the southeast by Bolivia, on the south by Chile, and on the west by the Pacific Ocean....
and was a fundamental member of the Academia. The volume also contains Mexía's "El autor a sus amigos" ("From the Author to His Friends"), a narrative of his travels through the Spanish Empire
Spanish Empire
The Spanish Empire comprised territories and colonies administered directly by Spain in Europe, in America, Africa, Asia and Oceania. It originated during the Age of Exploration and was therefore one of the first global empires. At the time of Habsburgs, Spain reached the peak of its world power....
.
The publication's cover features an emblem and motto that more or less summarize the Academia's objective (see the facsimile to the right). The motto reads: "Si Marte llevó a ocaso las dos colunas; Apolo llevó a Antártico las Musas y al Parnaso" ("If Mars
Mars (mythology)
Mars was the Roman god of war and also an agricultural guardian, a combination characteristic of early Rome. He was second in importance only to Jupiter, and he was the most prominent of the military gods worshipped by the Roman legions...
bore the two columns [marking the boundary of known world] off to the West, Apollo
Apollo
Apollo is one of the most important and complex of the Olympian deities in Greek and Roman mythology...
carried off the Muses to Parnassus and the Antarctic."). The Antarctic was, in the time of Spanish colonization, a nickname for Peru—the place Mexía says the gods now favor with poetry.
Preceding Mexía's translation is a collection of lyric poems written by fellow members of the Academia Antártica and in praise of the author's work. The most notable of these is Clarinda's
Clarinda (poet)
Clarinda was the pen name used by an anonymous Peruvian poet, generally assumed to be a woman, who wrote in the early 17th Century. The only work attributed to her is the long poem Discourse in Praise of Poetry , which was printed in Seville in 1608. She is one of very few female, Spanish-speaking...
"Discurso en loor de la poesía" ("Discourse in Praise of Poetry"), which also invokes figures from Greek and Roman mythology to lionize the literary genius of colonial Peruvian writers. Due in part to 20th-Century feminist and post-colonial analyses, Clarinda's "Discurso" has surpassed Mexía's translation in respect and canonization and has become the Academia's "most celebrated" product.
Mexía followed the first part of the Antarctic Parnassus series with two subsequent collections. The immediate follow-up, Segunda parte del Parnaso Antártico de divinos poemas (Antarctic Parnassus, Part Two: Poems of the Divine) has thus far received less critical scrutiny than its predecessor. The final volume, the third part of the Antarctic Parnassus, has been lost.
Other publications
The two afore-mentioned publications, and the lost third volume, are the publications most often associated with the Academia Antártica as a collective. However, many of the society's members published other works independently and collectively that also reflect the Academia's influences. These include Carlos de Balboa's Miscelánea Antártica (1586) and Diego Dávalos de Figueroa's Miscelánea Austral (1602).List of members
Authors with complete poems intact:- Diego de Aguilar y Córdoba
- Miguel Cabello de Balboa
- ClarindaClarinda (poet)Clarinda was the pen name used by an anonymous Peruvian poet, generally assumed to be a woman, who wrote in the early 17th Century. The only work attributed to her is the long poem Discourse in Praise of Poetry , which was printed in Seville in 1608. She is one of very few female, Spanish-speaking...
("The Unknown Poetess") - Diego Dávalos y Figueroa
- Diego de Hojeda
- Diego Mexía de Fernangil
- Enrique Garcés
- Juan de Miramontes y Zuázola
- Pedro de Oña
Authors with poem fragments intact:
- Cristóbol de Arriaga
- Francisco de Figueroa
- Pedro de Montes de Oca
- Luis Pérez Ángel
- Cristóbol Pérez Rincón
- Juan de Portilla y Agüero
- Juan de Salcedo Villandrando
- Gaspar de Villarroel y Coruña
Authors known only by reference:
- Pedro de Carvajal
- Antonio Falcón
- Duarte Fernández
- Luis Sedeño
- Juan de Gálvez
Authors of questionable membership:
- Pérez Rincón
External resources
- Wikipedia's Spanish-language Academia Antártica article.
- Partial text of Antonio Cornejo Polar's critical edition of "Discurso en loor de la poesía" at GoogleBooks.
- Partial text of The Cambridge History of Latin American Literature (ed. González Echevarria & Pupo-Walker) at GoogleBooks.
- Calíope: Journal of the Society for Renaissance & Baroque Hispanic Poetry. Published biannually at the University of Houston.
- Roberto González Echevarria's recommended reading on Spanish colonial literature at Encyclopædia Britannica.
- The Conference on Latin American History (CLAH)
- H-LATAM (the Latin American History list-serv) at h-Net.org.