The work was characterized by its use of form, style and punctuation. It consists of 11,891 unrhymed hendecasyllabic lines and separated into 34 cantos. Villagrá incorporates a classical style, modeling the poem after Virgil's "Aeneid," but also borrows elements from previous New World epics like Bernal Verdaderas's use of glorification to express Spanish dominance in his poem "Historia de la Conquista de la España." Even in punctuation, Villagrá invokes an archaic use of the comma to elevate the language, rendering long sentences with brief pauses in between. An excerpt from the poem translated to English follows: