Juan de Espinosa Medrano

Part of his biography has been preserved in the oral tradition of the Apurímac region—where it has acquired unique characteristics—as well as in Cusco and within the Peruvian literary canon. However, knowledge of his life and work is largely limited to scholars of Colonial Spanish American literature.^[13]

In the first half of the 20th century, Medrano's critical appreciation was poor and influenced by the ideologies of the pioneers of academic criticism in Peru: José de la Riva-Agüero and José Carlos Mariátegui. Both of them failed to understand the Baroque aesthetics and underrated the work of the Cuzco clergyman.^[13]

This undervaluation is also noticeable in the assessment of Medrano's work by indigenous critics in Cuzco in the late 20th century (Yépez Miranda and Ángel Avendaño). They discarded Medrano's work in literary historiography with limited scientific rigor, primarily due to its Baroque nature and Western culture. Finally, in the second half of the century, writers Luis Loayza and Martín Adán had inaccurate approaches to Medrano's work. It was only recently that Luis Jaime Cisneros reclaimed the figure of Medrano as an indispensable part of the Peruvian literary canon. Cisneros conducted pioneering documentary work to recover Medrano's identity and valued the work of the Cuzco preacher for its intrinsic worth.^[14]

Luis Jaime Cisneros published several articles in the 1980s about Espinosa Medrano's biography and work. He also edited two of the author's works: Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora (2005) and La Novena Maravilla (2011). José Antonio Rodríguez Garrido, on the other hand, deepened the philological work on Medrano's life and work. Garrido was responsible for writing an introduction to the author's work in the collection Historias de las literaturas en el Perú. In this collection, the inclusion of Medrano in the section of the 'Founders' of Peruvian literature (alongside Inca Garcilaso de la Vega and Felipe Guamán Poma de Ayala) demonstrates the historical achievement of recognizing the cultural importance of Medrano's work, especially for the history of Peru and Hispanoamerica.^[14]

 

According to Luis Jaime Cisneros, Calcauso, 1630, appears to be the most accurate intersection in which to place the origin (the birth) of Juan de Espinosa Medrano.^[1]

According to the coat of arms displayed in his portrait, Juan de Espinosa Medrano's father, Agustín de Espinosa, hailed from the noble House of Espinosa, while his mother, Paula de Medrano, came from the noble House of Medrano. Juan was a contemporary and relative of Sebastian Francisco de Medrano, president and founder of the Poetic Academy of Madrid (also known as the Medrano Academy), and a friend of Luis de Góngora and Lope de Vega.^[15]

Consequently, Agustín Cortés de la Cruz's —disciple and first biographer of the author— assertion about the origin of Espinosa Medrano should be taken as true: "in his first stages, scant favor he received from what the vulgus calls Fortune."^[16] Likewise, Clorinda Matto de Turner's novelization of the author's life as:

"He who entered the world in humble cradle, set foot on the steps of book and prayer... Then ascended to reach the literary skies of the America of the South, as king of stars there he shined."^[10]

In an imperial society in which access to intellectual enterprise was circumscribed to the nobles and highborns, Espinosa Medrano achieved prominent instruction, Indicating his high and noble status. The details about his first years of life, are—almost in their entirety—unknown. The absence of significant biographical data put forward in the will written by the own author days before his death^[17] has further led to speculation about his ethnicity and identification. It has also led to manipulation and tendentious interpretations of the data preserved about his existence; such distortive reading has been especially pronounced in the many works of biographers, critics or commentators, akin to the political agenda of Criollo and Indigenismo in Peru.^[18] What is incontrovertible, however, is that Juan de Espinosa Medrano always favored Criollo and Spanish (an ideological servant of the Empire); evidences for such are to be found in his oeuvre, in which Juan de Espinosa Medrano sides constantly with the Spaniards, and often describes Native American populations as 'enemies', 'barbarous' and 'idolatrous'.^[18]

The enigma of Juan de Espinosa Medrano's origin acts (still) as a recurrent stimulus for the creation of an oral and written biography in which the author is Indigenous. The model for this relies on his portrait and oral accounts by the Indigenous people of Peru, and the biographical approximation to the author that Clorinda Matto undertook at the end of the 19th century (Clorinda Matto de Turner made Espinosa Medrano the subject of an "indigenist" legend, imputing indigenous ancestry to him.^[19]

 

Clorinda Matto de Turner published her famous biographical study "Don Juan de Espinosa Medrano —that is— the Spotty-Faced Doctor" in 1887 in Lima, the capital of Peru. Three years later, after small corrections, she published the biographical study again in Pencil Sketches of Acclaimed Americans (1890),^[1] book that includes a chapter on Juan de Espinosa Medrano that Clorinda Matto was able to elaborate after obtaining data from the oral tradition in rural Peru.

Clorinda Matto's biographical study is, in substantial sections, barely rigorous for it is troubled by the absence of documentary evidence —a void that she seeks to fill through an exercise of fictionalization of the life of Espinosa Medrano. Such purpose (though still laudable for its exaltation of the author) has led the present academic community to question the legitimacy of her biography up to such a dramatic point that, in the present, her work is no longer considered legitimate or true (on the contrary, her biography is now discarded as a source for fantasy, especially for its lack of historical objectivity). The manifest ideological character that the text also displays —and that Clorinda Matto does not pretend to camouflage— has further led to the dismissal of her biographical attempt as inaccurate. It is, in summary, averse to the aspiration to truth present in biographical works of such nature.^[1]

Clarification in place, it is nonetheless necessary to briefly refer to the biography of Espinosa Medrano as it was composed in 1887/1890 by Clorinda Matto via the oral accounts by the people of Peru. For her biography is still the most influential source for Peruvian popular imagination of the author, as well as the most and only known outside of the academic world.

According to Clorinda Matto, Juan de Espinosa Medrano was the offspring of an indigenous conjugal union, that of Agustín Espinosa and Paula Medrano, humble parents that raised their little child "in a shack at the joyous town".^[10] At seven, Juan started his education at the class for infants taught by the priest of Mollebamba, class where —besides being a remarkable student— Juan de Espinosa Medrano would also receive instruction to act as sacristan of the parish (the parish is, according to Clorinda Matto's biography, the place in which Espinosa Medrano discovered both the religious and literate vocation that would later flourish in him as time went by).

After a period of instruction and service in favor of the priest of Mollebamba, Juan de Espinosa Medrano would start a life in the city of Cuzco as an indio servant. According to Matto, there he would obtain admission into the Seminary of Saint Anthony the Abbot, precinct where the young Juan de Espinosa Medrano would quickly develop mastery of different musical instruments and skill in seven languages. He would also reach expertise in sciences and grammar, according to this biography, erudition that would cause admiration in his contemporaries.^[10] Espinosa Medrano would finally obtain the degree of Doctor, at eighteen years old, in the Jesuit University of Saint Ignatius of Loyola.^[10] From that point onwards, he would have to defy the common prejudice that asserted that no Indigenous person could take hold of ecclesiastical charges of significance in Cusco.^[20]

 

Espinosa Medrano further advanced in his ecclesiastical career by acting as priest of Juliaca from 1660 to 1668. That year a miners uprising takes places in the town of Laicacota, the same that is repressed by the Viceroy Pedro Antonio Fernández de Castro, Count of Lemos.^[21] From 1669 to 1676, Espinosa Medrano takes charge of the parish of Chincheros (today part of the Sacred Valley of the Incas). Since 1678 he has been parish priest of San Cristóbal, one of the most important Indigenous parishes in Cusco, a position that he will maintain until 1683 or 1684 when he is named magisterial canon in the city cathedral.^[1]

From this period in the adult life of Juan de Espinosa Medrano, it is necessary to highlight two events in which he demonstrated his prowess to peoples in possession of high positions in the Spanish Imperial System. According to written records, the Viceroy of Peru ordered his entourage that Juan de Espinosa Medrano's works be sent to the printing press in Spain:

 

"The first event corresponds to the visit to Cuzco by the Viceroy Count of Lemos in 1668, a step that allows the Viceroy to read (or listen to) lyrical and sacred works by Juan de Espinosa Medrano, which were perhaps prepared for his reception. The event is essential in the author's biography, as it demonstrates official recognition of the distinction of his Baroque production (whose uniqueness was praised by his compatriots). According to the testimony of the aforementioned first biographer and executor, Agustín Cortés de la Cruz 'as soon as the Count of Lemos heard in Cuzco some works and verses [by Espinosa Medrano] with which the San Antonio College celebrated him, he had them copied, and there was not a single page that was not worthy of his esteem, in order to have them published in Spain. Unfortunately, nothing concrete is known about the truth and the whereabouts of this transfer of his work to Europe'."^[22]

"The second important event in the biography of Juan de Espinosa Medrano corresponds to the sending of a letter to Carlos II, King of Spain, by the Bishop of Cuzco, Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo in 1678. This event clearly demonstrates the admiration and high regard the author enjoyed, both within religious circles and among the literati in the city. The name of Juan de Espinosa Medrano began to be disseminated beyond the colonial bishopric of Cuzco and the Viceroyalty of Peru. In the letter, the bishop recommends the assignment of a position in the Cuzco Cathedral for Espinosa Medrano and writes to the king: 'He is the most worthy individual in the bishopric due to his extensive and outstanding knowledge and virtue'."^[23]

 

Documentation found indicates that by the year 1645, when he was about fifteen years old, Juan de Espinosa Medrano was a student in the Seminary of Saint Anthony the Abbot.^[24] His tutors in this institution were: Francisco de Loyola, Augustinian prior and cofounder, in 1559, of the Monastery of Saint Augustine in Cuzco —Loyola stated that young Juan was "an exceptional prowess, and also very virtuous"^[1]—; Juan de Cárdenas y Céspedes, famous dean of the Seminary of Saint Anthony the Abbot in Cuzco (from 1632 to 1702, the year he passed away); and Alonso Bravo de Paredes y Quiñones, sacred preacher and professor of philosophy at the Seminary —Paredes y Quiñones was also a censor of the Apologético).^[24] Juan de Espinosa Medrano's studies must have extended until 1649 or 1650, years that provide records of him now in charge of the art classes at the Seminary.^[1] Between 1655 and 1657, Espinosa Medrano would acquire the degree of Doctor in Theology (after evaluation at the Jesuit University of Saint Ignatius of Loyola), performing as professor of such sacred discipline at the Seminary starting from 1658.^[1][24][25] In 1655, Juan de Espinosa Medrano's ecclesiastical career starts. He serves, in the first place, at the Parish of the Sanctum (Parroquia del Sagrario) where he conducts a series of marriage ceremonies and baptisms —a final one documentally registered in 1659.^[1] Already appointed archdeacon of the Cathedral and about to take office, in November 1688, the Creole Phoenix died in the city of Cusco, the chronicler Diego de Esquivel y Navia indicates November 13, while other documents indicate November 22. The burial takes place in the city's Cathedral "with magnificent pomp" and effusive displays of pain on the part of the people. Among the distinguished attendees at the funeral were Bishop Manuel de Mollinedo y Angulo and Bishop Juan Bravo Dávila y Cartagena, recently elected to office in Tucumán.

 

In December 1656, Juan de Espinosa Medrano begins his sacred preaching career. His first sermon "The panegyric prayer to Our Lady of Antiquity" ("La oración panegírica a Nuestra Señora de la Antigua") at the University of San Ignacio de Loyola before Pedro de Ortega Sotomayor, the bishop of Cuzco. This is followed by the "First sermon to Saint Anthony the Abbot" ("Sermón Primero de San Antonio Abad"), preached in 1658; the "First Sermon to Saint Blaise, bishop and martyr" ("Sermón de San Blas obispo y mártir"), preached in 1659; and "The panegyric prayer to James the Great" ("La oración panegírica a Santiago") in 1660, at the Cathedral of Cuzco before the city's nobility.^[1]

In August 1662, he preached the "Panegyric Prayer to the Renewal of the Blessed Sacrament", again in the Cathedral of Cusco. In 1662, in Lima, the Apologetic in defense of Luis de Góngora (Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora) is published.^[1] It is important to highlight, however, that Espinosa Medrano's intellectual activity in the profane had already started in the decade of 1650 —the biblical play To Love One's Own Death (Amar su propia muerte) had been written c. 1650; the autos sacramentales The Seizure of Proserpine and the Dream of Endymion (El robo de Proserpina y sueño de Endimión) and The Prodigal Son (El hijo pródigo) had also been written c.1650 and c.1657 respectively. In 1663, probably in April, Espinosa Medrano preached the "Panegyric Oration in praise of the glorious virgin and seraphic mother Saint Catherine of Sena" at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in Cusco. From 1664 to 1680, Juan de Espinosa Medrano continues writing panegyric sermons to be preached in diverse religious precincts of Cuzco. Among the most important are the "Sermon for the Funeral of Philip IV" ("Sermón a las Exequias de Felipe IV") in 1666 in competition with other preachers who elaborated sermons on the other letters.

 

In 1668, probably in January, he preached the "Third Panegyric Evangelical Prayer to the Great Father Saint Anthony the Great" in the Chapel of Saint Anthony the Abbot of Cuzco. Also in 1668, he preached the "Sermon panegyric to the most August and most holy name of Mary", at a party celebrated by the clergy of Cuzco in the city's Cathedral. In 1669, probably in March, he preached the "First Sermon to the Incarnation" at the Monastery of Saint Catherine in Cusco. Also in 1669, probably in August, he preached the "Second Panegyric Prayer to Saint Bartholomew" at the Hospital for Spaniards and Creoles of Saint Bartholomew in Cuzco. He then released the "Panegyric Prayer to the Immaculate Conception of Our Lady" ("Oración Panegírica a la Concepción de Nuestra Señora") in 1670.^[1]

In August 1673, he delivered the "Sermón primero de Nuestra Señora de la Caridad o Asunción de María de Santísima, patrona de los excelentísimos Señores Duques de Medina-Sidonia" during a celebration organized by Don Alonso Pérez de Guzmán, the Corregidor of Cuzco, at the city's Cathedral.^[26] In 1674, probably in August, he preached the "Oración panegírica al glorioso Apóstol San Bartolomé" at the Hospital of San Bartolomé in Cuzco. In 1677, probably in July, he delivered the "Sermón de Nuestra Señora del Carmen" at the Monastery of the Descalzas Carmelitas of San José and Santa Teresa in Cuzco. In 1679, during Lent, he preached the "Sermón del Miércoles de Ceniza" at the Catedral del Cuzco. In August 1681, he delivered the "Re-elección evangélica o sermón extemporal" as part of his competition for the magisterial canonry of the Catedral del Cuzco, which he won.

In 1682, probably in March, he preached the "Sermón de la Encarnación del hijo de Dios" at the Monastery of Santa Catalina in Cusco. Also in 1682, most likely in May or June, he gave the "Oración panegírica de la feria tercia de Pentecostés" at the Hospital of the Natives in Cusco, which is now the Church of San Pedro. In 1684, during the Octave of the Feast of Corpus Christi, he delivered the "Oración panegírica al augustísimo Sacramento del Altar" at the Catedral del Cusco. In 1685, probably in January, he preached the "Sermón panegírico primero al glorioso Doctor de la Iglesia Santo Tomás de Aquino" at the Convent of Santo Domingo in Cusco. In March 1685, he gave the "Oración panegírica segunda al glorioso Doctor de la Iglesia Santo Tomás de Aquino" again at the Convent of Santo Domingo in Cusco. Finally, also in 1685, probably in November, he delivered the "Oración panegírica del glorioso Apóstol San Andrés" at the Women's Hospital of San Andrés in Cusco.^[27]

 

• The Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora” (1662).
• El robo de Proserpina y sueño de Endimión (c. 1650)
• El hijo pródigo (c. 1657)—; comedies in Spanish —out of which only the biblical play Amar su propia muerte (c. 1650) is preserved—
• panegyric sermons —compiled after his death in a volume called La Novena Maravilla (1695)
• Philosophia Thomistica (1688), a course in Latin of thomistic philosophy
• El robo de Proserpina y sueño de Endimión (c. 1650).
• The Apologetic in favor of Don Luis de Góngora (1662), the first text of literary criticism written in America.
• La Lógica (1688)

As a young student in the Seminary of Saint Anthony, he wrote many of his plays.^[28] He wrote plays in both Spanish and Quechua. in 1657, He wrote in Quechua a religious play, El hijo pródigo (also known as Auto sacramental del hijo pródigo; The Prodigal Son) in 1657,^[29] as well as a mythological piece, El rapto de Proserpina (The Abduction of Proserpina) in 1650.^[28] The theatrical piece Ollantay is also attributed to him.^[29] Juan de Espinosa Medrano published "The Ninth Wonder (1695)", a volume of 30 panegyric sermons published posthumously. Espinosa Medrano also wrote La Lógica (Logic), the first volume of a tract devoted to the philosophy of Saint Thomas Aquinas, which was published in Rome in 1688.^[30]

 

Juan de Espinosa Medrano's most famous piece is in defense of Góngora's poetry called Apologético en favor de Don Luis de Góngora, Príncipe de los poetas lyricos de España: contra Manuel de Faria y Sousa, Cavallero portugués (1662).^[29] It is the first Apologético in the Americas. In the Apologético, published in Lima in 1662, Espinosa Medrano eruditely displays his knowledge of classical and contemporary literature. To support his arguments, Espinosa Medrano refers to, among others, the works of Apuleius, Augustine of Hippo, the Bible, Camoens, Miguel de Cervantes, Erasmus, Faria, Garcilaso, Homer, Lope de Vega, and Pedro de Oña.^[31] His defense of Góngora has been viewed as "a plea for recognition on behalf of himself and of writers living and working on the periphery of the Spanish empire."^[28]

As a young student, he wrote in Spanish the drama Amar su propia muerte (To Love One's Own Death) (ca. 1645). Amar su propia muerte is based on the story of the sufferings and peregrinations of the Jewish people in Chapter 4 from the Book of Judges in the Old Testament. There they are punished by God for various offences and are oppressed by several Canaanite kings until the judge, Deborah, prophesies that God will liberate them.

Characters of this play include Sisera, a general of Canaan; Jabín, king of Canaan; Jael; Barak, a general of the armies of Israel. Deborah signals the time to attack the enemy and plays a crucial role in the divine intervention, which was needed to free the Israelites from unjust bondage. But the work is much more than a mere recitation of this Bible story into the tale, Espinosa Medrano weaves a complex plot of love, betrayal and political intrigue between the Canaanite king, Jabin, his captain, Sisara, who are both in love with the Hebrew, Jael, and her jealous husband, Cineo. As the central character, Jael feigns love for both Canaanite men only to deceive them both in the end to free her people.

 

Espinosa Medrano skilfully includes Cineo’s desire to fight the Canaanites as a way to link the main biblical plot with the sub-theme of marital honour. The outstanding edition of Amar su propia muerte by Juan Vittulli fills an enormous gap in scholarship on Espinosa Medrano’s work.^[32][33] It situates the play in all the ambiguity, ‘otherness’, and contradiction of a young Juan de Espinosa Medrano, an Indigenous Andean writer who would leave his small town and enter into the cloisters, classrooms and pulpits of the ‘lettered city’ in seventeenth-century Cuzco, Peru. As Vitulli signals in his prologue, the Spanish playwright, Antonio Mira de Amescua, also wrote a similar work based on the same passages, thus, Espinosa Medrano is not only able to imitate but also compete with the great dramatists from the Spanish Golden Age of the seventeenth century.^[34] In Espinosa Medrano's opinion, there would be only one possible aspect of imitation, which would be what "great eloquence" has in common and is "mediocre." More specifically, there are "two aspects in style: one, born of Nature, which cannot be attained, and the other, born of Art, which can be achieved".^[35]

The district of Juan Espinoza Medrano is one of the seven districts of the province of Antabamba located in the department of Apurímac, under the administration of the Regional Government of Apurímac, in southern Peru. It is bordered to the north by the district of Sabaino and the district of Huaquirca, to the west by the district of Antabamba, to the south by the department of Ayacucho and the department of Arequipa, and to the west by the province of Aymaraes. From the hierarchical point of view of the Catholic Church, it is part of the Diocese of Abancay, which, in turn, belongs to the Archdiocese of Cusco. The district was created through Law No.9690 of December 12, 1942, in the first government of President Manuel Prado Ugarteche. Its first mayor was D. Florentino Suárez Rea. It bears the name of Juan Espinoza Medrano, in recognition of this writer born in Calcahuso, one of the annexes.

• Atlas departamental del Perú, varios autores, Ediciones Peisa S.A., Lima, Perú, 2003 ISBN 9972-40-257-6
• El Perú en los tiempos modernos, Julio R. Villanueva Sotomayor, Ediciones e Impressiones Quebecor World Perú S.A., Lima, Perú, 2002.
• Historia de la República del Perú, Jorge Basadre Grohmann, Diario "El Comercio", Lima, Perú, 2005. ISBN 9972-205-62-2.
• Nuevo Atlas del Perú y el Mundo, Juan Augusto Benavides Estrada, Editorial Escuela Nueva S.A., Lima, Perú, 1991.

• (in Spanish) Juan de Espinosa Medrano
• (in Spanish) Juan de Espinosa Medrano: Apologético en favor de don Luis de Góngora
• (in Spanish) La Panegírica Declamación de Espinosa Medrano o el discurso peruano de las armas y las letras
• (in Spanish) Amar su propia muerte (online digitized text)
• (in Spanish) El Lunarejo: Identidad mestiza y crítica literaria