The Argentine Generation of 1837 proposed a foundational program in pursuit of a national, socialist and progressive literature, which constituted an original literary theory. Although they are based on the multifaceted ideology of European Romanticism, they achieve a peculiar synthesis, which responds to the interpretation they make of the historical-political moment that Argentina is experiencing. This theoretical proposal is then concretized in texts that respond to various generic modalities. The most innovative is the prospectively historical novel, created to remember the terror of the government of the "tyrant Rosas" by Jos & eacute; M & aacute;rmol with Amalia (1851-1852) and Juana Paula Manso with Misterios del Plata (1852). Fifteen novels of different lengths repeat this model until 1863; a set that we call the Cycle of Tyranny. The purpose of this article is to demonstrate, from the perspective of Historical Poetics and the Theory of Polysystems, that the distinctive rule or repertorema of this form is not so much the denunciation against Rosas, as the prevention against new tyrants and that, consequently, this generic modality concretizes the foundational literary program; in particular, in terms of shaping a more democratic future for the New Nation. We will take Manso's novel as an example.
This paper analyses two stage rereadings of El matadero (1838/9) by Esteban Echeverria to explore how political violence and the narrative perspective of the nineteenthcentury text are reconfigured in their transfer to dramatic devices. From an intermedial approach, the critical procedures of the opera El matadero. Un comentario (2009), by Emilio Garcia Wehbi and Marcelo Delgado, and the play Olv & iacute;date del matadero (2021), by Claudio Martinez Bel and Pablo Finamore, are studied. Both the stage works and Echeverr & iacute;a's nouvelle are approached as "cross-works", either because of their formal characteristics or because of the combination of imaginaries and narrative techniques from different sources. The article contributes to the reflection on the reworking of the canon of foundational Argentine literature in the contemporary theatre circuit.
This work recovers the first considerations made in the Argentine intellectual sphere during the 19th century regarding the concept of Romanticism produced in Germany, focusing particularly on the movement's principal figure: Friedrich Schlegel. To reconstruct these analyses, we will examine the publications of the journal La Moda, attributed to Juan Bautista Alberdi, one of the most important intellectual figures in Argentine national thought. We argue that the Romantic idea possesses a force that neither Hispanophilia nor the supposed medieval conservatism contained in the Fr & uuml;hromantik could prevent, hindering the reception of aesthetic criteria that enabled the development of autonomous and inimitable forms of Argentine national thought.
The historical novel of Mario Vargas Llosa Harsh times (2019) addresses the coup of 1954 in Guatemala that overthrew the elected president Jacobo & Aacute;rbenz. By justifying the president's political project and his decision to resign, the author creates a narrative defense of a still controversial politician in Guatemalan history. The article aims to detect the argumentation which Vargas Llosa uses to defend & Aacute;rbenz and find its provenance in order to explain how it is possible for a declared liberal and anti-leftist author to make an interpretation of History which judges positively the actions of a president vilified by the Guatemalan right and applauded by the left. The execution of this goal uses G & eacute;rard Genette's theories of transtextuality, which show the relationship that links the novelistic defense with & Aacute;rbenz's resignation speech. The article verifies that the defense does not contradict the author's political positions, as it reproduces the argumentation of & Aacute;rbenz's resignation speech while adding an anti-communist perspective. Consequently, the article sheds light on the novelistic treatment of a politician so important to Guatemalan history that his actions continue to provoke controversy within the country.
This essay discusses how nature and the natural landscape assume a central role in two paradigmatic novels of Latin American Romanticism, Sab (1841) by Gertrudis G & oacute;mez de Avellaneda and Maria (1867) by Jorge Isaacs. Both novels (which have been frequently discussed in relation to issues of gender, slavery, and the notion of national community [D. Sommer]) are examples of the regional, transnational, and global implications of Latin American Romanticism, even as they embody the relationship between nature and nation (in Cuba and Colombia, respectively). Both novels employ various notions of pastoral or Edenic nature, implicitly or explicitly distinguished from European models and represented as "insular" models of nationhood, which in turn are beset by the incursion of "civilizing" processes. Building on the pioneering work of Lesley Wylie (2020), I will argue that the tension between nature, civilization, and "plantation" shapes a Latin American version of Romanticism.
