Villarroel, Gaspar de (1587?–1665)

Considered by many to be the first major contributor to Ecuadoran letters, Gaspar de Villarroel is a complicated figure from the colonial period who resists strict definitions and categories.

Villarroel was an important presence in the colonial church. His fame as a preacher and his extensive publications led to appointments as bishop of Chile (1637) and Arequipa (1651), and ultimately, as archbishop of Charcas (1660). His first work, Comentario sobre el Cantar de los Cantares, was lost before it could be published. Between 1631 and 1633, Villarroel published his first theological treatise, Comentarios, dificultades y discursos literales y místicos sobre los Evangelios de la Cuaresma. In 1636, a year before his elevation to the bishopric, he published Comentarios al libro de los Jueces. Between 1656 and 1657 he published his most important work, a reconciliation of monarchical and pontifical authority titled Gobierno Eclesiástico-Pacífico y Unión de los Dos Cuchillos Pontificio y Regio. Villarroel returned to theology in his last two works, Historias Sagradas y Eclesiá sticas Morales, con Quince Misterios de nuestra fe (1660) and Primera parte de los comentarios, dificultades, y discursos literales, morales y místicos, sobre los Evangelios de los Domingos de Adviento, y de los todo el año (1661).

A subtle narrator who said of himself, "writing has been a temptation for me from a very early age" (Zaldumbide, p. 27), Villarroel, like many of his peers, pays little attention to indigenous peoples and concerns. His work does, however, provide important insights into the seventeenth-century religious, historical and political mind.

See alsoCatholic Church: The Colonial Period; Literature: Spanish America.

BIBLIOGRAPHY

González Echevarría, Roberto, ed. The Oxford Book of Latin American Short Stories. New York: Oxford University Press, 1997.

Guerra Bravo, Samuel. "Gaspar de Villarroel." In Historia de las literaturas del Ecuador. Vol. 1. Edited by Juan Valdano. Quito, Ecuador: Universidad Andina Simón Bolívar, Sede Ecuador; Corporación Editora Nacional, 2002.

Rodríguez Castelo, Hernán. Literatura en la Audiencia de Quito, siglo XVII. Quito, Ecuador: Banco Central del Ecuador, 1980.

Zaldumbide, Gonzalo. Fray Gaspar de Villarroel, siglo XVII. Puebla, Mexico: J. M. Cajica, Jr., 1959.

                                      V. Daniel Rogers