EPIC OF AMERICA: AN INTRODUCTION TO RAFAEL LANDIVAR AND THE RUSTICATIO MEXICANA.|THE

London, United Kingdom: Duckworth, 2006. cloth, dust jacket. Mexico. 8vo. cloth, dust jacket. 312 pages. First Edition. A lively introduction to the rich and complex tradition of Latin literature from colonial Spanish America, and to its best known author, the poet Rafael Landivar. Rafael Landivar is the best known of all the poets from the Americas to write in Latin. In the 15 books of his Rusticatio Mexicana (1782), he described - in vivid epic verse - the lakes, volcanoes, and wildlife of Mexico and his native Guatemala, as well as the livelihoods and recreations of the people of the region. This panorama of nature, culture and production in colonial New Spain took classical didactic poetry into a new world of political conflict. But Landivar also writes with a strongly personal voice: elegiac and pastoral modes convey the pathos of displacement and the poet's overwhelming nostalgia for his American homeland. Andrew Laird's introduction provides information about Landivar's life and exile to Italy, explains his diverse intellectual heritage, and collects his shorter works (translated into English here for the first time). Very small tear at the head of the jacket, else fine. From the private reference library of Dorothy Sloan with a commemorative bookplate loosely inserted.