Epic, Empire, and Community in the Atlantic World

Epic, Empire, and Community in the Atlantic World studies the epic poem Espejo de paciencia by Silvestre de Balboa, written in 1608 in order to commemorate the abduction of bishop Fray Juan de las Cabezas Altamirano, which took place near the town of Bayamo in the eastern part of Cuba on April 29, 1604. Marrer-Fente argues that the disappearance of the Espejo de paciencia manuscript during the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries did not prevent the poetic world described in the text from founding a trope of enduring possibilities in Cuban literature. Epic, Empire, and Community in the Atlantic World makes a salient contribution to Cuban colonial studies by offering a comparison between Balboa’s poem and the works of other contemporary authors from the Canary Islands, Spain, Spanish America, emphasizing the relevance of transatlantic relations in the poetic production of the period.