SOURCE: "Bernal Díaz del Castillo and 'Amadís de Gaula'," Studia Philologica: Homenaje Ofrecido a Dámaso Alonso, Vol. 2, 1961, pp. 99-114.

Whereas earlier commentators have praised the realism of Díaz's descriptions, Gilman posits that the style of The True History of the Conquest of New Spain derives from Romances of Chivalry. In the following essay, he traces the influence of the Amadís de Gaula, arguing that Díaz adapts the familiar style of the romance in order to describe an unfamiliar world.

One of the fascinations of the Historia verdadera de la conquista de la Nueva España for the lover of Spanish literature is to encounter here and there along the slow broad current of the narrative familiar islands of style and literary reference. Here is a chronicle of the extreme and the unknown—extremities of superhuman and inhuman behavior in an orbis novus...