Memoria, proliferación y fama en la <i>Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España</i>

Abstract

In literary and critical colonial studies, memory as an issue and as a topic has been, at least from the last three decades, one of the fundamental ways of going through the corpus of chronicles of the Conquest of México. Talking about memory implies a reflection on experience, literacy, testimony and eyewitnesses, and the polemics between historical discourses and direct experience. In this context, one of the outstanding texts has been the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España, written by Bernal Díaz del Castillo, who defines himself as a soldier with a huge memory and as a truthful narrator. In this article, we aim to analyze this reflection on memory and forgetfulness, and on memory as a form of discursive organization, as well as to define its role in the several polemics in which Bernal Díaz has been part of as an encomendero and as a former soldier.