Discussion Group: Contested Narratives: Translating La Araucana

This talk traces the reception of La Araucana, an early modern Spanish epic poem about the colonisation of Chile, from 16th-century emulations to present-day reinterpretations, from salons to Spotify, across multiple national literatures (Spanish, English, Dutch, French, Portuguese, and Mapudungun). It explores how La Araucana has shaped and been reshaped by colonial and anti-imperial narratives as part of a broader debate about the relationship between empire and translation and the role of epic poetry. It examines newly discovered works, including the French translation published in French India, Pedro II's translation written during the fall of the Brazilian monarchy, and Romantic poet laureate Robert Southey's annotated copy. Through the methodologies of postcolonial reception studies and book history, this project reveals the epic's far-reaching impact and how the poem's Indigenous characters have been rewritten from victims of imperialism to heroes of decolonial resistance in their own words.

Mary Katherine Newman is a final-year DPhil student in Spanish at the University of Oxford. Her research focuses on the rhetoric and understanding of the five senses in the accounts of the colonisation of Chile. To date, this project has received multiple international grants and award, including Best Graduate Student Paper at the Society for Renaissance and Baroque Hispanic Poetry (2022), a short-term fellowship at the Newberry Library, Chicago (2023), the Robert M. Kingdon Prize from the Sixteenth Century Society (2023), and a RSA Travel Grant (2025). She is also currently an Editorial Fellow at History Workshop, and OCCT Coordinator.