Chapter 19 - A Baroque Arte: Horacio Carochi and the Tradition of Nahuatl Grammars

Summary

In his Arte de la lengua mexicana (1645), Horacio Carochi writes that one of his motivations is to supplement the “obscurity” of previous grammars, which is difficult to overcome except with “the enlightenment of a good teacher.” His subsequent attempt to replace the figure of the teacher through numerous examples, Carochi admits, has resulted in an unusually extensive text. Drawing on the impulse of the discursive turn in Colonial Latin American Studies, this chapter proposes a literary and formal reading of the Arte and the transitional position it occupies in the tradition of Nahuatl grammars. Carochi looks to supplement sixteenth-century grammars like those produced by Alonso de Molina and Antonio del Rincón through exhaustive exemplification. The result is a textual prosopopoeia, a work that aspires to bridge the gap between grammatical fixity and oral plasticity.