Author Description

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1921 edition. Excerpt:...justly dispute the intellectual supremacy of Colombia." The most learned among recent American writers and critics--Mr. Coester, Dr. Ford, Dr. Hills, and Mr. Goldberg--are agreed in this opinion, that Colombia, Mexico, and Peru are in the vanguard of South American intellectuality. You will realize from what I have said that the study of a literature such as Colombia's is no easy task and it has already been done so admirably by various erudite Spaniards and learned Colombians and other Americans, that all I need to do on this occasion is to review the general outlines of our subject, without invading the field of other scientific investigations which have been and still are being carried on in our country by experts specially appointed in each department. The renaissance period of the Spanish peninsula was just beginning toward the end of the sixteenth century, the names of Calder6n, Lope, Cervantes, and Quevedo being still unknown, when the firstfruitsof our literature began to appear in the then recently discovered New Kingdom of Granada. It would seem that the conquering cavaliers were only waiting to throw off the helmets and swords of their military trappings to pick up the pen and lay the foundations of an enterprise which was destined to a long and glorious career. Unusually striking and interesting is the figure of the founder of Santa F6 de Bogota, Don Gonzalo Jimenez de Quesada, a soldier and scholar, true type of the Castilian nobility, author of Compendio historial de la conquista del Nnevo Reino and Coleccibn de sermones, works which unfortunately have been lost and which he wrote during moments of ease from his expeditions. The heroic deeds of that time found their Homer in another discoverer who at the end of the...