The Epic of Florida: A Critical Edition of Poems by Juan de Castellanos, Bartolomé de Flores, and Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo (1565-1600)

FAIN: FT-286106-22

Thomas Bonneau Hallock
University of South Florida, St. Petersburg (St. Petersburg, FL 33701-5016)

Research leading to a critical edition and translation of sixteenth-century epic poetry about Florida by Juan de Castellanos, Bartolomé de Flores, and Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo.

The Epic of Florida recovers an early chapter in the written literature of what would become the United States, the sixteenth-century epic poetry about Florida. General readers--and even scholars--are unaware of the breadth and richness of this material. Completing a long-overdue recovery, this volume includes poems by Juan de Castellanos, Bartolomé de Flores, and Alonso Gregorio de Escobedo, with the primary works supplemented by a critical introduction and scholarly annotation. The translations fill an important gap, establishing how our nation's literary heritage has been multilingual from the beginning. The NEH summer stipend will support research in June-July 2022 at the Archivo de Indias (AGI), Sevilla, Spain. Research at the AGI will allow me to document factual details, often glossed in the poetic flights, thus establishing a measure for understanding the poems' rhetorical purposes and design.