Hernan Perez de Oliva (1494?-1531) was a learned Spanish humanist who wrote his major works in the decades following the discovery of America. By articulating events of his career and literary life, my goal is to comprehend his contributions to the early literary production regarding the newly-found Americas. The thesis consists of three parts. Part One deals with the literary foundation of Oliva's production: three adaptations, into Spanish, of classical dramatic works. I argue that these plays belong to a moral universe that structures Oliva's entire production and that he aimed to demonstrate the capacity of Castilian as a learned language. He developed his system of thought in the moralistic treatises that I study in Part Two of the dissertation. In the "Dialogo de la dignidad del hombre." Oliva synthesizes earlier philosophical traditions regarding humankind in a debate that proves to be independent from the prevailing tendencies of the time. Oliva's understanding of knowledge as the only path towards God is also skillfully condensed in the facade of the University of Salamanca of which he was the chief designer. In Part Three, the ethical dimension again prevails in the culminating work of Oliva's literary production, the "Historia de la invencion de las Indias." Here Oliva consolidates Castilian as a learned language while incorporating the ideas that shape his other works into his narration of Christopher Columbus's first three voyages (1492-1496) of exploration and conquest of the Antilles. Ending his work with an account of native Taino culture, Oliva elaborates a moral portrait of the interactions between Spaniards and Amerindians that questions human conduct in a concrete historical setting. Emphasizing the natives' love of liberty and homeland and the expeditionaries' greed of conquest, Oliva offers an early glimpse into the topics that would animate debate in the decades that followed. I have attempted to give a fuller image of this humanist's engagement with the most transcendent issues of his time and as the culmination of a life devoted to learning. [The dissertation citations contained here are published with the permission of ProQuest LLC. Further reproduction is prohibited without permission. Copies of dissertations may be obtained by Telephone (800) 1-800-521-0600. Web page: http://www.proquest.com/en-US/products/dissertations/individuals.shtml.]