Читать книгу The Codex Mendoza: new insights онлайн

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That being said, it is necessary to mention the value a manuscript such as the Codex Mendoza had for Purchas’s corpus, who devoted himself to popularize the exploration narrative genre for what is nowadays known as “armchair travelers.” A prolific writer and a successful proponent of the colonization of the Americas, Purchas has been characterized in two main ways. Several scholars with a historicist inclination have deemed him to be an irresponsible and careless writer, prone to rely on literary license to embellish his narratives when convenient in order to enhance specific elements of them (Pennington 1997, sec. Introduction). As a counterpoint, authors such as James Helfers (1997, 160–86) have pointed to the fact that, for Purchas, as the titles of his works suggest, exploration was a religious, rather than a secular, activity. In other words, in the act of exploring, an individual set out on a pilgrimage and, in doing so, unveiled the work of God. Discovery by means of exploration was synonymous with becoming acquainted with God. It is precisely in these terms that Purchas (1625, xxxix) talks about his Pilgrimes,