The Proper Name of El País de los Incas
The Proper Name of El País de los Incas
This chapter retraces the enlightened naturalist and historicist configuration of Peru, in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, as an ancient and universal “country” of prescient “genius,” primarily through the texts of José Hipólito Unanue (1755–1833) and Mariano Eduardo de Rivero y Ustariz (1798–1857). In the middle to late decades of the eighteenth century, an enlightened Bourbon and Creole project of imperial revival set out to recover the fading grandeur and prestige of “Spain” and “Peru.” To use the naturalistic metaphors of that project, it provided fertile soil for the erudite cultivation of a verdant patriotism rooted in a historical, scientific, and practical discourse on the country. In Peru, the proper “Peruvianization” of two ancient topoi contributed strongly to the naturalization and temporalization in historical discourse of Peru as a country: “clime” and “soil.” Peru contained within itself all of the world's climes and was thus a complete microcosm of the entire universe.
Keywords: El País de los Incas, Peru, late eighteenth century, Bourbon, Creole, Spain, naturalistic metaphors, Peruvianization, ancient topoi, temporalization
Florida Scholarship Online requires a subscription or purchase to access the full text of books within the service. Public users can however freely search the site and view the abstracts and keywords for each book and chapter.
Please, subscribe or login to access full text content.
If you think you should have access to this title, please contact your librarian.
To troubleshoot, please check our FAQs , and if you can't find the answer there, please contact us .
