DISCOMFITURE OVER BARBARISM. GUEVARA, MONTAIGNE AND SHAKESPEARE: THREE RENAISSANCE GLANCES AT THE NEW WORLD

Abstract

The purpose of this article is to analyze, through literary sources, the ways in which Europe regarded the New World in critical moments and contexts of the Spanish, French and English Renaissance. By means of studying literary works such as Frey Antonio Guevara’s (1480-1545) Libro aúreo del Emperador Marco Aurelio, Michel de Montaigne’s Essay on Cannibals and William Shakespeare’s The Tempest, the objective is to place the interpretation of American societies within the broader scope of expectations and interests of their authors and in connection with their own social and cultural experiences, understanding them as part of a broader process of transformations caused by Renaissance culture and its revalorization of Antiquity. Starting from the study of the generic definition of “barbarian”, inherited from Antiquity and applied to native Americans, the intention is to analyze the role this notion played in the interpretations of these authors and in the concrete situations in which the term was used to reflect the social and political conditions of Europe and thus judge the profound changes of the period: the legitimacy of the overseas empires, the rights to war and peace and the superiority of “civilization” compared to the idea of primitive equality.