Chivalric Epic, Chronicles of the Indies and Travel Books. More on the Narrative of the Battle of Chupas (1542) in José de la Riva-Agüero’s Paisajes peruanos (Peruvian Landscapes)

Abstract

The historical account of the battle of Chupas (September 16th, 1542) that José de la Riva-Agüero (Lima, 1885-1944) includes in chapter XI of Paisajes peruanos (Peruvian Landscapes), 1955, has generic traits more akin to an epic or a chivalric novel than to the chronicles of the Indies. The present paper continues another that advances that observation. It focuses on two characters: a tragic one, Diego de Almagro el Mozo, and a comic one (albeit with epic grandeur), Francisco de Carbajal. To do so, a comparison between Riva-Agüero’s text and the chronicles by Pedro Cieza de León, Agustín de Zárate and Inca Garcilaso de la Vega is offered.