Alabanzas sopechosas: Máscaras imperiales y posturas novohispanas en la corte de Gaspar de la Cerda

Alabanzas sopechosas: Máscaras imperiales y posturas novohispanas en la corte de Gaspar de la Cerda examines the relationship between the “imperial mask” of Gaspar de la Cerda and the “Novohispanic posture” of the writers who benefited from de la Cerda’s protection. This dissertation studies the discursive strategies used in the corpus galveano by paying special attention to the archetypes of the optimus princeps, optimus civis, pessimus princeps, pessimus civis and hostis. The texts of the corpus include a captivity account, a treatise on piracy, encomiastic accounts, panegyrical poetry, sermons, a pseudo-scientific report, and an epistle-account of events. In this dissertation I allude to the work of several authors, among which we find the well-known Carlos de Sigüenza y Góngora and Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz and the less studied Francisco de Ayerra, Alonso Ramírez de Vargas, Antonio de Peralta, Francisco Acevedo, Gaspar de Guevara, Antonio Morales Pastrana, Juan Millán de Poblete, and Thomás de Escalante, among others.

I identify how this corpus may be perceived as an example of colonial Spanish cultural production written during the last decade of the seventeenth century. This epoch was marked by the instability of Carlos II's reign; the warmongering of the Nine Years' War; the French presence in the Gulf of Mexico; the ideological crisis that contested the pair sacerdotium-imperium; several riots in the capital of the Viceroyalty of New Spain, attempted rebellions against the Spanish Empire in the almost inaccessible territories; the menace of smuggling and piracy in its most remote territories; the economic crisis produced by the definitive victory of British – Dutch mercantilism; Colbert’s economic policy measures; various climate catastrophes; epidemic diseases and the birth of a sentiment of regional pride in the Spanish territories.

This dissertation is based on the hypothesis that studying the texts produced by Gaspar de la Cerda’s protégés allows us to restore the importance that viceroyal patronage had in the Baroque of the Indies. Accordingly, I systematically analyze literary motifs in the works published under Gaspar de la Cerda’s patronage and their role in the Novohispanic Baroque. One of the central points in this research is the fact that, through interaction among the European-patron and the Novohispanic-writers, power relationships have left their mark in Latin American processes of identity formation, which are closely related to the coexistence between the utility of those individuals who contribute to the reinforcing of hegemonic structures and the feeling of belonging to a place of birth.