This thesis explores the representation of the Spanish conquistador Hernán Cortés in four epic poems spanning the sixteenth to the eighteenth centuries, investigating how the politico-historical conditions of early modern Spain and Mexico gave rise to varying concepts of heroism. Through an analysis of Gabriel Lobo Lasso de la Vega’s Mexicana (1594), Antonio de Saavedra Guzmán’s El peregrino indiano (1599), Juan Cortés Osorio’s Las Cortesiadas (c. 1665), and Juan de Escoiquiz’s México conquistada (1798), this thesis establishes a transatlantic dialogue between poets writing from both the Peninsula and the Americas, exploring what the diversity of heroisms embedded in their epics reveals about the complex economic, cultural, religious, and political matrix of early modern Spanish and colonial society. In my consideration of how the figure of Cortés is used as a tool to explore issues of patronage, creole identity, evangelisation, and nationalism, I question not only how heroic discourse is conditioned by historical context, but also by the poets themselves, who, far from objective recorders of Cortés’ deeds, harbour their own personal motivations and ideological agendas. Through tracing the epic genealogy of Cortés across three centuries, this thesis not only follows the journey of the conquistador, but also that of the epic genre and its intimate relationship with the history of Spanish imperialism.