Juan de Castellanos (March 9, 1522 – November 1606)Juan de Castellanos
- Boyacá Cultural was a

Spanish Spanish might refer to: * Items from or related to Spain: **Spaniards are a nation and ethnic group indigenous to Spain **Spanish language, spoken in Spain and many Latin American countries **Spanish cuisine Other places * Spanish, Ontario, Can ...

poet, soldier and Catholic priest who lived in the New Kingdom of Granada. As one of the early Spanish

chronicler A chronicle ( la, chronica, from Greek ''chroniká'', from , ''chrónos'' – "time") is a historical account of events arranged in chronological order, as in a timeline. Typically, equal weight is given for historically important events and lo ...

s he has contributed to the knowledge of the indigenous peoples of the Americas, mainly the

Muisca The Muisca (also called Chibcha) are an indigenous people and culture of the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, Colombia, that formed the Muisca Confederation before the Spanish conquest. The people spoke Muysccubun, a language of the Chibchan langu ...

Biography

De Castellanos was born in Alanís,

Sevilla Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spanish autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the River Guadalquivir, in the southwest of the Iberian Peninsula ...

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = ''Plus ultra'' (Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , i ...

. He travelled to America before 1545 as a cavalry soldier, and acquired some property on

Cubagua Cubagua Island or Isla de Cubagua () is the smallest and least populated of the three islands constituting the Venezuelan state of Nueva Esparta, after Margarita Island and Coche Island. It is located north of the Araya Peninsula, the closest ...

island in the Pearl Coast. Abandoning the military profession, he became a secular priest in Cartagena and, declining the positions of

canon Canon or Canons may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Canon (fiction), the conceptual material accepted as official in a fictional universe by its fan base * Literary canon, an accepted body of works considered as high culture ** Western ca ...

and treasurer, went as curate to

Tunja Tunja () is a city on the Eastern Ranges of the Colombian Andes, in the region known as the Altiplano Cundiboyacense, 130 km northeast of Bogotá. In 2018 it had a population of 172,548 inhabitants. It is the capital of Boyacá departmen ...

. There he composed his epic poem, ''

Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias ''Elegías de varones ilustres de Indias'' is an epic poem written in the late sixteenth century by Juan de Castellanos. Description The work gives a detailed account of the colonization of the Caribbean and the territories in present-day Co ...

'', the first part of which appeared in

Madrid Madrid ( , ) is the capital and most populous city of Spain. The city has almost 3.4 million inhabitants and a Madrid metropolitan area, metropolitan area population of approximately 6.7 million. It is the Largest cities of the Europ ...

in 1588, and the first three parts in 1837. It is the longest poem ever in the Spanish language: 113,609 verses. The Lenox Branch of the New York Public Library possesses a complete copy. The verse recounts successively the deeds of prominent Spaniards in America, beginning with

Christopher Columbus Christopher Columbus * lij, Cristoffa C(or)ombo * es, link=no, Cristóbal Colón * pt, Cristóvão Colombo * ca, Cristòfor (or ) * la, Christophorus Columbus. (; born between 25 August and 31 October 1451, died 20 May 1506) was a ...

, and is an interesting source for the colonial history of northern South America, including many details of ethnography and ethnology. De Castellanos was among the earliest conquistadores and was acquainted with nearly every prominent leader of the time. He relies to some extent upon Oviedo for many details, stating that Oviedo communicated to him verbally what he knew by personal experience of the settlement at Cartagena. Castellanos' poem is the second of a series of epic compositions in Spanish treating of the early colonization of America, Ercilla's ''

La Araucana ''La Araucana'' (also known in English as ''The Araucaniad'') is a 16th-century epic poem in Spanish by Alonso de Ercilla, about the Spanish Conquest of Chile. It was considered the national epic of the Captaincy General of Chile and one of th ...

'' being the earliest in date of publication. De Castellanos died in

, Boyacá, New Kingdom of Granada in 1606.

Trivia

* A university in Tunja, the ''Fundación Universitaria Juan de Castellanos'', is named in honour of Juan de Castellanos.Website Fundación universitaria Juan de Castellanos
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References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Castellanos, Juan de 16th-century Colombian poets Colombian male poets Muisca scholars 1522 births 1606 deaths Epic poets

Biography

Trivia

See also

References