Shaping of epic canon at the Juan de Mal Lara Academy (with some unknown verses of Fernando de Herrera)

Abstract

Within the framework of his Academy, the Hispalense humanist Juan de Mal Lara (1526-1571) reflects, in a pondered way, on the generic nature and essential directives that, to his understanding, the epic poem had to show. In fact, in the compositional praxis of his mythology-based works –La Psique and Hércules animoso–, he uses, for the sake of the developing of such depth and exhaling-breath project, a huge knowledge about the Greek-Latin and vernacular sources, as well as about an enormous volume of mythical matter, enriched, generally, by means of an ethical-moral reading under the parameters of Christian Humanism. Indeed, in the forge of the Hércules –covered, at the same time, with several thematic elements between reality and fiction, History and Literature–, his friend Fernando of Herrera (1534-1597) participated, with diverse compositions, one of them, which is circumscribed to epitafio of Gerión, and whose edition is offered in this study, has remained forgotten until today.