Resumen de Classical Letters and Millenarian Madness in Post-Conquest Mexico: The Ecstasis of Fray Cristóbal Cabrera (1548).
The present article incorporates an edition and translation of an extraordinary Latin poem by Fray Cristóbal Cabrera, a humanist scholar and Franciscan missionary who worked in New Spain from the early 1530s until 1546-1547. The Ecstasis, the longest acrostic composition in western literature, is a first-person fiction, reminiscent of Erasmus's Praise of Folly, in which the poet describes an apocalyptic vision of judgement and his slide into madness after an earlier premonition that God's wrath would fall upon Mexico City. The poet professes to reject pagan literature but his sustained engagement with several classical authors, especially Catullus, Virgil and Cicero, provides a key to the interpretation of this enigmatic work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of International Journal of the Classical Tradition is the property of Springer Science & Business Media B.V. and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)
