Alonso de Ercilla
Who was Alonso de Ercilla?
Spanish soldier and poet (1533-1594)
Biographical data adapted from Wikipedia’s article on Alonso de Ercilla (CC BY-SA 4.0).
Biography
Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga was born on August 7, 1533, in Madrid, Spain, into a noble family connected to the Spanish court. His father, Fortún García de Ercilla, was a respected lawyer who worked for the royal household. After his father's early death, Ercilla became a page to Prince Philip, who later became King Philip II. This position at court gave Ercilla access to humanist education, court life, and Renaissance learning, which helped him become both a writer and a soldier.
In 1555, Ercilla went with Philip II to England for the king's marriage to Queen Mary I, and soon after, he joined an expedition to the Americas. He arrived in Chile in 1556 during a time of intense military conflict between Spanish colonial forces and the Mapuche people, or Araucanians, who strongly resisted Spanish conquest in the area known as Araucanía. Ercilla directly took part in these military campaigns, experiencing the harsh and ongoing war that would become the main theme of his literary work.
While in Chile, between 1556 and 1563, Ercilla began writing La Araucana, reportedly jotting down verses on any available materials, including scraps of leather. The epic poem, consisting of 37 cantos written in ottava rima, was published in three parts: the first in 1569, the second in 1578, and the third in 1589. The work stands out for its unusual choice to praise the bravery and dignity of the Mapuche warriors while also depicting the Spanish military efforts, giving a voice to indigenous resistance in a way not commonly seen in the literature of Spanish colonial times.
After returning to Spain, Ercilla continued his work at court, holding various diplomatic and military roles under Philip II. He traveled widely across Europe and took part in campaigns in Portugal and other places. He married María de Bazán around 1570, and they lived a comfortable life within the Spanish aristocracy. He spent his later years refining and publishing the rest of La Araucana and fulfilling his duties as a courtier.
Alonso de Ercilla y Zúñiga died on November 29, 1594, in Madrid, the city where he was born over sixty years earlier. He left behind a body of work primarily composed of La Araucana, but this single monumental poem solidified his place among the leading literary figures of the Spanish Golden Age. Its influence spanned centuries and continents, shaping how future generations viewed both the conquest of the Americas and the opportunities epic poetry offers for exploring moral complexity.
Before Fame
Ercilla's early life was influenced by both privilege and loss. Born into a noble family in Madrid, he lost his father at a young age, which led to him becoming a page in the household of Prince Philip. This role gave him access to one of Europe's most cultured courts, where he received a thorough humanist education and developed literary talents while training as a courtier and soldier. In the Spanish court of the mid-sixteenth century, the ideal of the soldier-poet was highly valued, and Ercilla took on this dual role early in life.
Ercilla's journey to Chile and literary fame was as much due to historical events as personal ambition. The Spanish empire in the 1550s was at its peak of expansion, and young noblemen often sought wealth, honor, and adventure through joining overseas expeditions. When the chance came to join the forces being sent to the unsettled frontier of Chile, Ercilla took it. The intense, lengthy conflict he faced there with the Mapuche people provided the raw material that no courtly education alone could have supplied.
Key Achievements
- Authored La Araucana, a 37-canto epic poem widely regarded as one of the masterworks of the Spanish Golden Age
- Produced one of the earliest literary works in Spanish to portray indigenous American warriors with dignity and heroic complexity
- Served as a page to Prince Philip (later Philip II), placing him at the center of mid-sixteenth-century European court life
- Participated in the military campaigns against the Mapuche in Chile from 1556 to 1563, providing direct eyewitness material for his epic
- Published La Araucana across three decades in three separate installments, completing it in 1589 after more than thirty years of composition
Did You Know?
- 01.Ercilla reportedly wrote portions of La Araucana on scraps of leather while actively campaigning in the field in Chile, having no proper paper available.
- 02.He was present in England in 1554–1555 as a page during Philip II's marriage to Queen Mary I of England, giving him firsthand exposure to Tudor court politics.
- 03.La Araucana is notable for portraying indigenous Mapuche leaders such as Caupolicán and Lautaro as heroic figures, a striking departure from typical colonial-era depictions.
- 04.Despite writing one of the great Spanish epics set in the Americas, Ercilla was primarily a courtier and soldier, not a professional writer, and La Araucana remains essentially his only major literary work.
- 05.Voltaire praised La Araucana in the eighteenth century as one of the finest epic poems ever written, helping to cement its reputation across European literary culture.