Conquistador (Masterplots, Definitive Revised Edition)
At a glance:
- Author: Archibald MacLeish
- First Published: 1932
- Type of Work: Poem
- Time of Work: Early sixteenth century
- Setting: Mexico
- Principal Characters: Bernal Diaz, Diego Velaszuez, Hernan Cortes, Montezuma
- Genres: Poetry, Narrative poetry
- Subjects: Native Americans or American Indians, Sixteenth century, Mexico or Mexicans, Spain or Spanish people, Conquistadors
- Locales: Mexico
Conquistador: In his truly fine poem Archibald MacLeish makes this word whistle and flash like a blade of Spanish steel. But there are no overblown heroics here. Avoiding the stale approach of the historian, of “this priest this Gomara with the school-taught skip to his writing,” MacLeish turns over the telling of his story to Bernal Diaz, an old man who in his youth was a soldier with Cortes and who confines his tale to “’That which I have myself seen and the fighting.’. . .” The result, as Diaz rambles on with simple eloquence, becomes an impressionistic, sensual record of...
[The entire page is 1339 words long]
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