Guide to the La Gran Conquista de Ultramar Materials 1877-1939


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Table of Contents

• Descriptive Summary
• Information on Use
• Citation
• Historical Note
• Scope Note
• Related Resources
• Subject Headings
• INVENTORY
• Series I: Typescripts and Collations
• Series II: Addenda

Descriptive Summary

Information on Use

Citation

When quoting material from this collection the preferred citation is:

Gran Conquista de Ultramar, La. Materials, [Box #, Folder #], Special Collections Research Center, University of Chicago Library.

Historical Note

The great prose epic La Gran Conquista de Ultramar is considered to be one of the greatest Spanish works of the thirteenth century, the century, which for all practical purposes saw the beginning of Spanish as a literary language.

Since the edition of La Gran Conquista de Ultramar prepared by Pascual de Gayangos for the series Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles (v. 44, 1877) is regarded as incomplete and sometimes inaccurate, no philologically useful edition of the work exists as yet. Previous to the appearance of Gayangos' edition the epic had existed in the forms of one printed edition and three incomplete manuscripts: 1) The editio princeps printed in two folio volumes at Salamanca in 1503 which gives the complete text. 2) Manuscript no. 2454, Biblioteca Nacional, which begins with Book One, Chapter 47 and ends with Book Two, Chapter 7. 3) Manuscript J-1, Biblioteca Nacional, which begins with Book II, Chapter 264 and extends to Book IV, Chapter 429 (end) and 4) Manuscript de Palacio which begins with Book III, Chapter 355 and extends to Book IV, Chapter 429 (end).

The work of copying and supervising textual studies of these four forms was begun at the University of Chicago in the 1930s under the direction of professor George Tyler Northup. The collations and typescripts produced by Northup and his students may ultimately serve as the basis for preparation of a critical text of the epic and, in addition, they will continue to be valuable references for studies in source comparisons. (By the end of the 1930s the conclusion had been reached that the Spanish work was based on Old French manuscripts; indeed at least nine Old French works had been "prosified" in La Gran Conquista.

George Tyler Northup, born in 1874 in Sparta, Wisconsin, received his B.A. from Williams College in 1897, and his Ph.D. from the University of Chicago in 1906. Northup served as an Instructor in Romance Languages at Williams College from 1903 to 1905; Assistant Professor of Modern Languages at Princeton University from 1905 to 1912; and Assistant Professor in Italian and Spanish at the University of Toronto from 1912 to 1917. He was then brought to the University of Chicago, where he served as Associate Professor of Spanish Literature from 1917 to 1919, Professor of Spanish Literature from 1919 to 1939, and Professor Emeritus of Spanish Literature from 1939 to 1964.

Northup's most outstanding contribution to literature was his discovery of two unknown plays by Calderon, which he published. He also edited the works of many authors (Espronceda, Odo of Cheriton, Vespucci, Mesonero y Romanos, Calderon de la Barca, et. al.). His An Introduction to Spanish Literature (published by the University of Chicago Press, 1925; reprinted 1930; 2nd ed. 1936; 3rd ed. 1960; etc.) has proved enduringly popular, and was the only book-length work of his own authorship to be published by him. Northup died in March 1964, at La Jolla, California, at the age of 89.

For further information on the Gran Conquista de Ultramar see

(1) Biblioteca de Autores Espanoles v. 44 (Madrid, 1877) La Gran Conquista edited with critical notes and glossary by Pascual de Gayangos

(2) Calbrick, Gladys. A critical text of La Gran Conquista de Ultramar. Unpublished dissertation. University of Chicago. 1939

(3) Northup, George T. Hispanic Review, v. 2 (October 1934) pp. 287-302. "La Gran Conquista de Ultramar and its Problems."

Scope Note

The La Gran Conquista de Ultramar material was compiled by Prof. George T. Northup and his students at the University of Chicago in the 1930s. The collection has been arranged into two series. The first series, Typescripts and Collations, includes the four forms of the text: 1) 1503 print, Salamanca; 2) MS 2454 Biblioteca Nacional; 3) MS J-1 Biblioteca Nacional; and 4) MS Biblioteca de Palacio. The second series, Addenda, contains an additional 2,000 pages of material including a complete draft of a revised text of La Gran Conquista de Ultramar by George T. Northup.

1) 1503 print, Salamanca (British Museum, C. 32, m. 3) S

2) MS 2454 Biblioteca Nacional (Mazorriaga) M

3) MS J-1 Biblioteca Nacional (Northup) N

4) MS Biblioteca de Palacio P

S -- complete text (pp. 41-44 of original missing in British Museum copy)

M -- begins with I, 47; ends with II, 7 (Gayangos, pp. 62-139)

N -- begins with III, 264; ends with IV, 429 (end) (Gayangos, pp. 438-659)

P -- begins with III, 355; ends with IV, 429 (end) (Gayangos, pp. 486-659)

S 1-61 (61 pp.)

SM 62-139 (77 pp.)

S 139-438 (299 pp.)

SN 438-486 (48 pp.)

SNP 486-659 (173 pp.)

The page numbers above are as of Gayangos's edition.

360 pp.: testimony of S alone (55% of whole work)

125 pp.: testimony of S, with either M or N (19% of whole)

173 pp.: testimony of S, with both N and P (26% of whole)

Related Resources

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Subject Headings

• Northup, George Tyler, 1874
• Gayangos, Pascual de, 1809-1897
• University of Chicago
• Spanish literature
• Spanish fiction
• Crusades--Fiction

INVENTORY

Series I, contains typescripts and collations of all forms of the text. This includes typescripts for Volume I (Books One and Two) and Volume II (Books Three and Four) for Editio Princeps, Salamanca, Gieser, 1503. Book Three is incomplete and lacks folios 82-110, corresponding to Chapters 281-356. This series includes collations of Manuscripts J-1 Biblioteca Nacional (N), Biblioteca de Palacio (P) and the editio princeps (S) made on the basis of the J-1 Biblioteca Nacional manuscript. In the following lists the letter r=recto, v=verso; the letters a and b refer to column. For information on the symbols used for the Scope Note in this guide. Although duplication occurs in Box 4, Folders 5 through 7, they seem to be independent of the other studies and are accurate. Series I also contains collations of Manuscript J-1, Biblioteca Nacional and Manuscript Biblioteca Nacional 2454. It also includes complete typewritten copy of Manuscript Biblioteca Nacional 2454 and five studies in source comparisons.

Series II contains another 2,000 sheets of material consisting of a complete draft of a revised text of La gran conquista de ultramar, on which Professor George Tyler Northup had labored until the time of his death on March 29, 1964. This draft of a critical text, with a complete list of alternative readings appended in the notes at the foot of each page, follows the general plan laid down in Prof. Northup's article in the Hispanic Review, v. 2 (1934), 287-302. In this draft Northup has used MS 2454 of the Madrid Biblioteca Nacional (designated in the footnotes as "M") as the basis of his text from f. 64 in his typescript of f. 519; MS J-1 of the Biblioteca Nacional (designated as "J") as the basis of the text from f. 1329 until the end; and the Salamanca print of 1503 (designated as "S") has furnished the basis of all the rest, except for some use made of the Biblioteca de Palacio MS (designated as "P") from f. 1491 until the end. The typed draft is keyed to S in the sense that each page in the draft begins and ends with the same words (or even letters, when the words have been divided) that begin and end a corresponding page in S. But Prof. Northup's critical text, even where it depends solely on the authority of S, does not follow S slavishly; for, at every point, Prof. Northup has improved the punctuation, altered the scheme of capitalization, and cleared up obscurities and ambiguities. Moreover, in solving difficulties in the text, he has made considerable use of French sources. For his own statements on the degree of trust he has placed in the various sources see the notes in ff. 64, 519, 1329, and 1491 of the draft. One short example can illustrate Prof. Northup's methods--in Book I, Chapter 6, lines 14-5: S has: "e conquirio toda la tierra de oriente: saluo judea e torna la toda a su senorio"; Northup's text reads: "e conquirio toda la tierra de Oriente saluo India, e tornola toda a su senorio." Notice the change of "oriente" to "Oriente," of "torno la" to "tornola," the improvement of the punctuation, and the major emendation of "India" for "judea." These additional materials are related to the materials previously incorporated into the collection by the fact that Northup has made use of the collations done by his students in listing the alternate readings in his notes, and has worked from the British Museum typescript of S. In Boxes 7 and 8 f. 1787 has been wrongly numbered 1737 and the error persists through subsequent pages, so that the numbers from 1737 to 1786 have been used twice, and thus the last sheet in the MS, f. 1994, should actually be f. 2044.