John Donne's Colonial Innocence.
From his verse epistles and libertine poems to his religious polemic and sermons, John Donne routinely invokes the Native peoples of the Americas as exemplars of innocence. Donne's understanding of Native peoples' innocence was influenced by the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas's treatise Brev...
| Publicado en: | Studies in Philology Vol. 119; no. 3; pp. 1 - 37 |
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| Formato: | Artículo |
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University of North Carolina Press
Summer2022
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| Acceso en línea: | Ver este registro en EBSCOhost |
| fields | @attributes: recordID: 1 pdfLink: plink: https://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=hlh&AN=158205604&site=ehost-live header: @attributes: shortDbName: hlh uiTerm: 158205604 longDbName: Humanities International Complete uiTag: AN controlInfo: bkinfo: jinfo: jid: 00393738 SPL jtl: Studies in Philology issn: 00393738 maglogo: N pubinfo: dt: Summer2022 vid: 119 iid: 3 pid: 2027 pub: University of North Carolina Press artinfo: ui: 158205604 10.1353/sip.2022.0010 ppf: 1 ppct: 36 formats: fmt: – @attributes: type: T – @attributes: type: P size: 876KB tig: atl: John Donne's Colonial Innocence. aug: au: Villagrana, José Juan affil: San José State University su: Donne, John, 1572-1631 Indigenous peoples of the Americas Innocence (Psychology) Spanish colonies Spaniards sug: subj: Donne, John, 1572-1631 Indigenous peoples of the Americas Innocence (Psychology) Spanish colonies Spaniards ab: From his verse epistles and libertine poems to his religious polemic and sermons, John Donne routinely invokes the Native peoples of the Americas as exemplars of innocence. Donne's understanding of Native peoples' innocence was influenced by the Dominican friar Bartolomé de las Casas's treatise Brevísima relación de la destrucción de las Indias , widely read in its English translation, The Spanish Colonie. Las Casas characterizes the Native peoples of the Americas as innately weak, docile, and obedient to argue that they are innocents and that Spanish colonial policy is unlawful; meanwhile, he depicts Spaniards as exceptionally cruel and prone to commit acts of arbitrary violence. Las Casas's depiction of Spain as malicious and the Spaniard as intemperate underwrote English views that Spain's military and colonial dominance was illegitimate. Many scholars cite Donne's references to Amerindians as vulnerable and innocent as evidence that he read Las Casas and shared the friar's compassion for the Amerindians. Donne makes further use of Native innocence, however, as he figuratively identifies his various literary personae as themselves the victims of Spanish violence and the objects of sympathy by comparing them to the Amerindians. Donne holds up Native peoples' perceived qualities of innocence—freedom from sin, criminal blamelessness, childlike ignorance, and sexual (in)experience—as desirable qualities that the English should cultivate to remain spiritually and criminally blameless, unlike Spaniards, as they undertake colonial adventures. Donne's literary invocation of innocence is invariably bound up with the English colonial project. His works encouraged their various audiences, including members of the Virginia Company, to consider Amerindians' perceived embodied innocence in relation to their own pursuit of innocence as a behavioral and spiritual virtue that could advance their colonial objectives. pubtype: Academic Journal doctype: Article src: R language: English refInfo: copyright: @attributes: flag: Y custom: Copyright of Studies in Philology is the property of University of North Carolina Press and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites without the copyright holder's express written permission. Additionally, content may not be used with any artificial intelligence tools or machine learning technologies. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. item: Studies in Philology holder: University of North Carolina Press dt: @attributes: year: 2022 holdings: @attributes: islocal: N |
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