Libraries

This book presents a study and critical edition of the poem Obra nuevamente compuesta… (1571) by Bartolomé de Flores, considered the first poem in Spanish about North America and the only poetic testimony to Pedro Menéndez de Avilés’s victory over the French Huguenots in Florida in 1565. The poem offers one of the earliest poetic descriptions of nature and Native Americans in the 16th century. The formal characteristics of the work, which belongs to the literary genre of verse accounts of events printed on sheets of string, are examined. The poem is also carefully read to understand its importance in the history of 16th-century early american poetry. It includes a facsimile reproduction of the only known copy of the work, preserved in the John Carter Brown Library.

Raúl Marrero-Fente is Professor of Hispanic Literatures and Law at the University of Minnesota and a corresponding member of the American Academy of the Spanish Language. He is a research associate of the Siglo de Oro Research Group (GRISO) at the University of Navarra, and a member of the Centro de Estudios de la América Colonial (CEAC) at the Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona. He is the author, editor and co-editor of fifteen books and seventy articles on Spanish and Latin American literature, especially on the Golden Age and the viceregal period.