Hi Clara, it is so good to see you get this up and out there. V Cool and like the premise for your thesis, but may feed you back a modern version, later.
And to see your new CV ascertainment of CRPO; a good cooked potato is heaven, but so many ways to get there. And the potato is one of the reasons so many Irish flocked here to Aus and to the US. Another story.
Chasing up so many things from your essay, but also pleasantly surprised that I did have some bedrock knowledge or at least a bit of it for the time (like the El Cid story which preceded).
Love the maps. A thing for me . I have a couple of Captain Cook era maps which I love till I discovered they were taken out of books.
Culture and identity shape behaviour immensely, and your sort of vignette of mod wealthy boy waiting in Seville to embark and only stories to go on, got me. A familiar repeat. And at the time perhaps a strong zealot Crusader mentality in the background.
So I wonder if this background not only shaped their later retellings but also their going there.
The idea that not being able to read would have separated people from these rich stories or ballads or songs is quite unlikely and thus not likely to have been socially contained to the v rich alone.
Oral transmission, especially on long things like trans Atlantic sea voyages would I believe have been the norm for good and popular stories etc.
I can well remember in my teens working with musterers camping out at night. Sort of early 70s, and many had poor literacy skills due to itinerant or impoverished lives. So no internet, no radio or TV. So people told stories or sang songs around the fire , and this was a big deal. Another, another story.
And you ask , what made this so attractive ? Sort of has this Paradigm Fit thing as you say, not just as they were writing later, but maybe when trying to make sense of the crazy and bad things they did on the way.
And I think you nail it with Hernan Cortes. he is writing to some of the most important people in the two Kingdoms, who are unlikely to ever go to the New World and part of his narrative is tp consolidate the reasons for his success and that what he did was good, not just for Spain, but for the peoples of The Americas.
Could have said a bit more, but do think there is a segway to modern era and how people create historical narrative. Thinking about movie Apocalypse Now.
Maybe they are not highlighted , but some questions in this reply.
Great article!! I was wondering if you knew if there was an impact of oral tradition in spreading some of these literary conventions to groups who had higher rates of illiteracy? (I.e. in how Cortés encouraged his men with chivalric ballads)! I have very little background knowledge in this area so am assuming you’d have rural / early industrial working class crew with lower access to education.
Hi Clara, it is so good to see you get this up and out there. V Cool and like the premise for your thesis, but may feed you back a modern version, later.
And to see your new CV ascertainment of CRPO; a good cooked potato is heaven, but so many ways to get there. And the potato is one of the reasons so many Irish flocked here to Aus and to the US. Another story.
Chasing up so many things from your essay, but also pleasantly surprised that I did have some bedrock knowledge or at least a bit of it for the time (like the El Cid story which preceded).
Love the maps. A thing for me . I have a couple of Captain Cook era maps which I love till I discovered they were taken out of books.
Culture and identity shape behaviour immensely, and your sort of vignette of mod wealthy boy waiting in Seville to embark and only stories to go on, got me. A familiar repeat. And at the time perhaps a strong zealot Crusader mentality in the background.
So I wonder if this background not only shaped their later retellings but also their going there.
The idea that not being able to read would have separated people from these rich stories or ballads or songs is quite unlikely and thus not likely to have been socially contained to the v rich alone.
Oral transmission, especially on long things like trans Atlantic sea voyages would I believe have been the norm for good and popular stories etc.
I can well remember in my teens working with musterers camping out at night. Sort of early 70s, and many had poor literacy skills due to itinerant or impoverished lives. So no internet, no radio or TV. So people told stories or sang songs around the fire , and this was a big deal. Another, another story.
And you ask , what made this so attractive ? Sort of has this Paradigm Fit thing as you say, not just as they were writing later, but maybe when trying to make sense of the crazy and bad things they did on the way.
And I think you nail it with Hernan Cortes. he is writing to some of the most important people in the two Kingdoms, who are unlikely to ever go to the New World and part of his narrative is tp consolidate the reasons for his success and that what he did was good, not just for Spain, but for the peoples of The Americas.
Could have said a bit more, but do think there is a segway to modern era and how people create historical narrative. Thinking about movie Apocalypse Now.
Maybe they are not highlighted , but some questions in this reply.
Found your intro so provoking ! Congrats.
Great article!! I was wondering if you knew if there was an impact of oral tradition in spreading some of these literary conventions to groups who had higher rates of illiteracy? (I.e. in how Cortés encouraged his men with chivalric ballads)! I have very little background knowledge in this area so am assuming you’d have rural / early industrial working class crew with lower access to education.