THE SOUL OF THE WORLD AND THE COSMIC FABRIC: THE INCA GARCILASO DE LA VEGA’S POETICS OF TERRITORY

Peyón P.M.F. · Philologia Hispalensis (2025) · DOI: 10.12795/ph.2025.v39.i02.10

Resumen

Garcilaso de la Vega’s writing project can be understood (at least from a certain point of view) as the spiritual, rhetorical and philosophical testimony of the intertwining of the viceregal idiosyncratic order and indigenous rationalities. As a (mestizo) member of both worlds, in the discourse of the Inca writer it is possible to trace (albeit often in subtext) indigenous ways of understanding the life of the cosmic totality. This article will highlight the presence, in the Comentarios Reales (1609), of conceptions of territory that correspond to the Amerindian cosmogony of his maternal ancestors. To this end, a hermeneutic reading of this viceregal book will be made in dialogue with an ethnographic and linguistic knowledge that allows for the development of certain cosmopoetic notions. This alternative interpretation of Garcilaso’s work highlights the relevance of the founder of literature in the Andean worlds in the face of the ecological concerns that mark our times.

Instituciones: Pontificia Universidad Católica del Perú