Alonso de Ercilla
Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga (Madrid, August 7, 1533 - Ocaña, Toledo, November 29, 1594) was a Spanish poet and soldier, known mainly for being the author of La Araucana.
Biography
Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga was born on August 7, 1533 in Madrid, the son of parents originally from Bermeo (Basque Country): Fortún García de Ercilla, doctor of both rights, member of the Council of Orders before being promoted by his it was worth the Royal Council, and Leonor de Zúñiga. He had five siblings, two boys and three girls; he was the youngest. The eldership died soon, the middle man entered a seminary. A year after he was born he lost his father.
As the family had been practically ruined due to losing the lordship of Bobadilla in a lawsuit, Emperor Carlos V, in consideration of his noble origin, sent the family to his court, where the mother was admitted as lady of Empress Isabel of Portugal, so Alonso grew up there with his three sisters and served as a page to Prince Felipe. Together with him, he acquired a solid Renaissance education, which included learning Latin, French, Italian and German. He recounted the conquest of Chile in the famous epic poem La Araucana. Between the ages of 21 and 29, Don Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga -a young poet-, using leather, pieces of letters and bark, documented the epic of the conquest of Chile.
From London he left for Chile in 1555, where the Araucanians had revolted. He participated in various battles and began to write La Araucana , an epic poem of military exaltation in 37 songs, where he narrates the most significant events of the expedition.
After taking part in some campaigns in Lima and Panama, he returned to Spain in 1563, and published in 1569 the first part of his great work, dedicated to Felipe II. He was named gentleman of the court and knight of Santiago, after which he participated in various diplomatic actions.
In 1570, he married Doña María de Bazán, who contributed more than eight million maravedíes as a dowry. Installed in Madrid, he lived, according to what is said, a happy existence free of material worries that allowed him to finish the second and third parts of his poem.
Genesis of La Araucana
In 1556 he arrived in Peru and accompanied García Hurtado de Mendoza, the newly appointed Governor and Captain General of Chile, where the Araucanians had risen in revolt. He was in Chile for seventeen months, between 1557-1559, and he met Don Francisco Pérez de Valenzuela. He participated in the battles of Lagunillas, Quiapo and Millarapue, witnessing the death of Caupolicán, protagonist of his poem: La Araucana, an epic poem of military exaltation in 37 songs, where he narrates the most significant events of the Arauco war against the Araucanians (Mapuches) and that he began to write in the campaign.
In March 1558 Don García founded the city of Osorno and, when a party was being held in the new city with the participation of all his neighbors, Don García left through a false door of his house covering his face with a helmet of closed visor accompanied by Alonso de Ercilla and Pedro Olmos de Aguilera. Suddenly, Juan de Pineda joined, who was at odds with Alonso de Ercilla due to previous quarrels and at one point they both drew swords, causing a confusing incident. Don García realized the situation and attacked the most exalted, who was Alonso de Ercilla, and knocked him down with a blow from his mace. Badly wounded, Alonso de Ercilla ran to a church and sought asylum. The governor ordered them to be imprisoned and both contenders beheaded the next day. The neighborhood and many influential people, considering the sentence unjust, tried to persuade García Hurtado y Mendoza, but the preparations for the execution continued and the hope of saving them was lost. Then two women, one Spanish and the other Indian, approached Don García's house and entered through the window and through pleas managed to move the hard heart of the governor, who spared the lives of those sentenced. Alonso de Ercilla remained in prison for three more months and then was exiled to Peru. Don Alonso would write in his epic poem La Araucana regarding this serious incident:
I'm not saying how at last accident.of the accelerated captain
to behave more serious than death.
I was unfairly taken out
to be publicly beaten;
nor the long prison impertinent
I was so blameless.
not a thousand other miseries,Alonso de Ercilla
La Araucana was considered by Cervantes as one of the best epic works in Castilian verse that Spain has ever produced and novelistically saves it from the fire to which Don Quixote's library was subjected.
Marcelino Menéndez Pelayo pointed out that "There is no literature in the world that has such a noble beginning as that of Chile, which begins with nothing less than La Araucana, a work of Spanish ingenuity, certainly, but so linked to the ground that its author stepped on as a conqueror, and to the people he defeated, admired and pitied at the same time, that it would be a serious omission not to greet the grave figure of Ercilla in passing".
Death
After residing in Peru, he returned to Spain in 1562, where he published his great work (1569), dedicated to Philip II. He was named court gentleman and knight of Santiago in the town of Uclés, after which he participated in various diplomatic actions. In 1570 he married María de Bazán and settled in Madrid, where he completed the second (1578) and third parts of his poem (1589). Ercilla uses the word araucano as a demonym for the word in Mapudungun rauko (clay earth).
He died in Madrid at the age of 61 in 1594. His remains rest in the Convent of San José located in the city of Ocaña in Toledo. The convent is inhabited by Discalced Carmelites. His remains were for several centuries under the altar in a crypt where the nuns themselves were buried, but they were transferred to the church attached to the monastery so that they could be more easily visited.
