De traducciones y translationes: la fundación de un sistema literario en la Academia Antártica de Diego Mexía y Clarinda

Abstract

The following article analyzes an interesting, yet understudied work Primera parte del Parnaso antartico de obras amatorias (1608) by a literary group that included among others Diego Mexia Fernangil and an anonymous female poet, sometimes called Clarinda. Through an interdisciplinary lens that entails theoretical underpinning deriving from iconographical theory, Pierre Bourdieu’s analysis of the creation of artistic fields and Walter Mignolo’s semiotic dissection of New World maps, this piece attempts to analyze the foundation of a New World literary system present in the members of the “Antarctic Academy.” Diego Mexia and Clarinda pose a New World reading of medieval topoi: the translationes imperii et studii, which presupposes that an imperial enterprise necessarily foregrounds a cultural project of similar magnitude. In a much baroque game of conceit, Mexia and Clarinda “translate” medieval knowledge through a “translation” of Ovid’s works of exile: the Heroids and In ibis. Ovid’s works are seen as a locus of discussion for many issues that affect the members of the academy: colonization, exile, femininity, etc. Diego Mexia and Clarinda attempt to establish an “Antarctic” literary system within the Spanish Empire. Later texts confirm that they succeeded.