Log in / create accountArticle Talk Read Edit View history Our updated Terms of Use will become effective on May 25, 2012. Find out more. Argentine literature Main page Contents Featured content Current events Random article Donate to Wikipedia Interaction Help About Wikipedia Community portal Recent changes Contact Wikipedia Toolbox Print/export Languages Deutsch Español Français Italiano ქართული 日本語 N orsk (nynorsk) Português Русский Українська 1 History 1.1 Origins 1.2 Cultural independence from Spain 1.3 Literatura Gauchesca 1.4 Generation of 1880 1.5 Modern 1.6 Generation of '37 1.7 Neohumanism, Existentialism and other influences 1.8 Dark military days 1.9 Current 2 See also 3 References 4 External links History People Languages Traditions Mythology and folklore Cuisine Festivals Religion Art Literature Music and performing arts [show] [show] [show] [show] [show] [show] From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia This article needs additional citations for verification. Please help improve this article by adding citations to reliable sources. Unsourced material may be challenged and removed. (May 2007) Argentine literature is the body of literary work produced in Argentina. Among Argentina's best-known and most influential authors are Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, José Hernández, Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Roberto Arlt, Julio Cortázar, Manuel Puig, and Ernesto Sabato. Well-known women authors include Alfonsina Storni, Silvina Ocampo, Susana Calandrelli, Alejandra Pizarnik, Olga Orozco. Contents [hide] Part of a series on the Culture of Argentina History Origins [edit] [edit] Media Sport Monuments Symbols Culture portal Argentina portal [show] [show] As a matter of fact, the name of the country itself comes from a Latinism which first appeared in a literary source: Martin del Barco Centenera's epic poem La Argentina (1602). This composition runs 10.000 verses and describes the landscape as well as the conquest of the territory. The word was reintroduced in Argentina manuscrita, a prose chronicle by Ruy Díaz de Guzmán. Argentine literature began around 1550 with the work of Matías Rojas de Oquendo and Pedro González de VT E Prado (from Santiago del Estero, the first important urban settlement in Argentina), who wrote prose and poetry. They were partly inspired by oral aboriginal poetry—in particular, according to Carlos Abregú Virreyra, by the lules, juríes, diaguitas and tonocotés. A symbiosis emerged between the aboriginal and Spanish traditions, creating a distinct literature, geographically limited (well into the 18th century) to the Argentine north and central regions, with the province of Córdoba as its center, due to the foundation of the National University of Córdoba. Two names stand out from this period: Gaspar Juárez Baviano, and Antonia de la Paz y Figueroa, also known as "Beata Antula". Gradually, with the economic prosperity of the port, the cultural axis moved eastward. The letters of the colonial age (Viceroyalty-neoclassicism, baroque and epic) grew under the protection of the independentist fervor: Vicente López y Planes, Pantaleón Rivarola and Esteban de Luca. During 17th century, Argentine baroque was poor in comparison with that from Europe and some other parts of the New World. The only remarkable poet of this period was fray José Luis de Tejeda who wrote Coronas líricas and El peregrino de Babilonia Cultural independence from Spain Main article: 1837 generation As in the rest of the continent, strong feelings of emancipation from Spain were present in Argentina. Previous to independence, some neoclassical authors such as Juan Cruz Varela produced numerous works related with this revolutionary spirit but still under the paradoxical Spanish domain. [edit] Esteban Echeverría. Argentina's true break with Spanish tradition was manifested in literature though the adoption of French romanticism as a model, postulating the return to popular sources and to the medieval. This aesthetic and intellectual was brought by Esteban Echeverría who wrote the first local and realistic story, El Matadero ("The slaughterhouse"), as well as the nativist poem La Cautiva ("The Captive"), with the Pampas as its background. His barbed wit and opposition to powerful Buenos Aires governor Juan Manuel de Rosas forced him into exile. In the middle of the 19th century José Mármol published the first Argentine novel, Amalia (1851–1852), a historical novel set during the dark year of 1840 which mixed fictional characters (Amalia, Daniel Bello, Eduardo Belgrano) with actual historical characters like Juan Manuel de Rosas.[1] As Rosas' power increased, more literary works from the opposition were produced, such as Juan Bautista Alberdi's play El Gigante Amapolas, a good example of local sainete. In the genre of essay, Domingo Faustino Sarmiento published his Facundo, a particular (re)vision of Facundo Quiroga's life from a deterministic point of view. Sarmiento conveyed aspects of sociology and semiotics in this analysis. Echeverría, Mármol,and Sarmiento are among the group of writers known as Generación del 37, considered the first generation of local intellectuals. José Mármol. Poetry lessened in combative spirit and turned towards the anecdotal and sentimental: Carlos Guido y Spano and Ricardo Gutiérrez, the chronicle writers of folk literature. Lucio V. Mansilla published in 1870 Una excursión a los indios ranqueles, a sort of chronicle of a voluntary expedition to sign a peace treaty with the Indians. His work (enrolled in a realistic aesthetic) anticipated Generación del '80, which would be deepley influenced by modernism. Juana Manuela Gorriti was one of the first popular female writers, mainly due to her melodramatic narrative works like the novel La hija del mazorquero and the foundation of La alborada, a cultural magazine. Literatura Gauchesca [edit] European-oriented, indeed Euro-centric, themes and styles would remain the norm in Argentine letters, especially from Buenos Aires, during this century. The (romantic) poetry as La cautiva or the latter Santos Vega by Rafael Obligado gave a lot of importance to the nature of the pampa,[2] sharing some elements with a picturesque, imitation-gaucho literature, purporting to use the language of the gauchos and to reflect their mentality. The first current is known as poesía nativista (nativist poetry) and is related with a literate tradition. The second (known as poesía gauchesca)developed in parallel as a part of that generation's understanding of national identity. Although it is also product of literate authors, this literature takes the voice of the gaucho as protagonist from the beginning. Gauchesca is related with payador's singing, being the payador a modern version of the illiterate medieval singers. A payador's work, in opposition to gauchesca, is sung spontaneously.[3] The first gauchesco author was Bartolomé Hidalgo who wrote during Independence War times, therefore his works had a strong political ideology. His compositions were mainly cielitos (a sort of payadoresque song with provocative political message) and diálogos patrióticos (conversations between two characters about current affairs). In a second period, gauchesca was influenced by political-faction fights. Estanislao del Campo, and Hilario Ascasubi are the most representative writers of this period. Del campo wrote Fausto, a poem which has been read both as a parody of José Hernández. Lucio V. Mansilla. gauchesca and an intelligent joke towards city people.[4] In the poem, Anastasio El Pollo meets a friend and tells him his impressions on particular event: he has seen the Devil. What El Pollo doesn't know (or pretends he doesn't) is that all he saw was actually an opera performance at Teatro Colón.[5] The last author of gauchesca is José Hernández, the author of Martín Fierro. Gauchesca leaves its political influences and becomes social in the sense that gauchos are disappearing, mainly due to Sarmiento and the new economic model. Hernández is considered the responsible for consolidating the gauchesco style. Generation of 1880 The generation of 1880 emphasized the European color and cultural supremacy of Buenos Aires. The migratory current of mixed ethnicity accentuated the change of the big village for the cosmopolitan metropolis. The poetry of this period is lyric: Leopoldo Díaz y Almafuerte. The latter usually depicts the worker's life in passionate attacks against the contradictions of contemporary society. Almafuerte (pseudonym of Pedro Bonifacio Palacios) was also a teacher and a journalist whose opinions and articles gave him a lot of problems. Essay is a recent genre that developed in the late 19th century: José Manuel Estrada, Pedro Goyena and Joaquín V. González. Narrative works oscillated between social issues and folk literature. The predominant tendency was Realism, best represented by Miguel Cané in his autobiographical novel Juvenilia. Other writers influenced by realism were Lucio V. Mansilla, Francisco Sicardi, Benito Lynch and Carlos María Ocantos. Naturalism was also an important tendency towards the end of the century. Argentine Naturalism was commanded by Eugenio Cambaceres in his novels Sin rumbo and Música sentimental, almost forgotten today. Cambaceres was inspired by Émile Zola's theory about the naturalistic approach to literary work, but its ideology suffered considerable alterations. Julián Martel and Antonio Argerich with ¿Inocentes o culpables? added a highly loaded moral touch to Argentine naturalism. The early modern period [edit] History of modern literature 16th century in literature | 17th century in literature European literature in the 18th century 1700s | 1710s | 1720s | 1730s | 1740s | 1750s | 1760s | 1770s | 1780s | 1790s | 1800s Modern literature, 19th century 1800s | 1810s | 1820s | 1830s | 1840s | 1850s | 1860s | 1870s | 1880s | 1890s | 1900s Modern literature, 20th century Modern Leopoldo Lugones. Modernism | Structuralism | Deconstruction | Poststructuralism [edit] | Postmodernism | PostTowards the end of the 19th century, led by the Nicaraguan Rubén Darío, modernism colonialism | Hypertext fiction appears in Latin American literature. Preciosity of manner and a strong influence 1900s | 1910s | 1920s | 1930s | from Symbolism sum up the new genre, which inspires the clearest voice in poetry, 1940s | 1950s | 1960s | 1970s | Leopoldo Lugones, who was the author of the first Argentine science fiction story. 1980s | 1990s | 2000s The first truly modern generation in Argentine literature is the Martinfierristas (c. Modern literature in Europe 1922). The movement contributes an intellectual doctrine in which a number of current trends come together: the trend represented by the Florida group, adscript to European literature Modern literature in the ultraísmo, with Oliverio Girondo, Jorge Luis Borges, Leopoldo Marechal and Macedonio Fernández; and the trend of Boedo, impressed by Russian realism, with Americas Raúl González Tuñón, César Tiempo y Elías Catelnuovo. Ricardo Güiraldes, however, remains classical in style, giving a whole new freshness to gauchesca poetry and writing what is perhaps the novel, Don Segundo Sombra. American literature | Argentine literature | Brazilian literature | Canadian literature | Colombian literature | Cuban literature | Jamaican literature | Mexican literature | Peruvian literature Jorge Luis Benito Lynch (1885–1951), an eccentric short-story writer who, like Güiraldes, does not easily fit into any "generation", wrote his quirky tales in an enchanted newgauchoesque manner about this time. Between the end of this decade and the beginning of the following one emerged the Novísimos ("Newest"), a generation of Australasian literature poets (Arturo Cambours Ocampo, Carlos Carlino and José Portogalo), fiction writers Australian literature | New Zealand (Arturo Cerretani, Roberto Arlt, Luis Maria Albamonte and Luis Horacio Velázquez) literature Borges. and playwrights (Roberto Valenti, Juan Oscar Ponferrada and Javier Villafañe). The group promoted philosophical reflection and a new essence for Argentinidad. Leopoldo Marechal's novel Adán Buenosayres, published in 1948 and praised by Julio Cortázar in 1949. Modern Asian literature Roberto Arlt. Chinese literature | Indian literature | Pakistani literature | Kannada literature | Tamil literature | Telugu Also worthy of note is the literary work of Leonardo Castellani (1899–1981), a Jesuit literature | Hindi literature | Urdu priest who left a considerable bulk of essays, novels, tales and poetry. Expelled from literature | Indian writing in English the Company of Jesus, the outspoken Castellani was also widely ignored - like his | Bengali literature | Marathi contemporary Marechal - by the literary intelligentsia of his time due to his literature | Malayalam literature | nationalist ideology. Japanese literature | Vietnamese literature [edit] Generation of '37 African literature The Generation of 1937 centers on poetry, where it developed the descriptive, African literature | Nigerian nostalgic and meditative in the work of Ricardo E. Molinari, Vicente Barbieri, Olga literature | South African literature Orozco, León Benarós and Alfonso Sola Gonzáles. Fiction writers subscribed to Other topics idealism and magic realism, (María Granata, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Julio Cortázar, Silvina Ocampo) or to a subtler form of realism Manuel Mujica Laínez, Ernesto L. Castro, Ernesto Sabato and Abelardo Arias) with some urban touches, as well as folk literature (Joaquín Gómez Bas and Roger Plá). History of theater | History of science fiction | History of ideas | Intellectual history | Literature by nationality Adolfo Bioy Casares. Essayists do not abound: Antonio Pagés Larraya, Emilio Carilla, Luis Soler Cañas are some of the few exceptions; but, of course, the greatest Argentine essayist after Sarmiento, Ezequiel Martínez Estrada, belonged to the Generation of '37. Many of these writers and a number of European ones contributed extensively to Sur, a literary journal published by Victoria Ocampo, a noted commentator on the day's culture. Ernesto Sabato. Neohumanism, Existentialism and other influences [edit] Manuel Mujica Láinez. In 1950, another milestone arose: the New Humanism, a response to World War II and its aftermath. On one level are avant-gardists like Raúl Gustavo Aguirre, Edgar Bayley and Julio Llinás; on another, existentialists: José Isaacson, Julio Arístides and Miguel Ángel Viola. Further away are those who reconcile both tendencies with a regionalist tendency: Alfredo Veiravé, Jaime Dávalos and Alejandro Nicotra. Other fiction writers left a highly charged testimony of the times: Beatriz Guido, David Viñas, Marco Denevi and Silvina Bullrich. In a majority of the writers, a strong influence of AngloSaxon and Italian poetry can be perceived. Of particular interest are the poetic works of two of Marechal's disciples, the poets Rafael Squirru and Fernando Demaría. A new trend started in 1960, continuing until about 1990. Its influences are heterogeneous: Sartre, Camus, Eluard; some Spanish writers, like Camilo José Cela; and previous Argentine writers like Borges, Arlt, Cortázar and Marechal. Two trends were in evidence: the tracing of metaphysical time and historicity (Horacio Salas, Alejandra Pizarnik, Ramón Plaza) and the examination of urban and social disarray: (Abelardo Castillo, Marta Lynch, Manuel Puig, Alicia Steinberg). Beatriz Guido. Dark military days [edit] The 1970s are a dark period for intellectual creation in Argentina. The sign of the epoch is exile (Juan Gelman, Antonio Di Benedetto) or death (Roberto Santoro, Haroldo Conti, and Rodolfo Walsh). Remaining literary journalists, like Liliana Heker, veiled their opinions in their work. Some journalists (Rodolfo Walsh), poets (Agustín Tavitián and Antonio Aliberti), fiction writers (Osvaldo Soriano, Fernando Sorrentino), and essayists (Ricardo Herrera, María Rosa Lojo) stand out among the vicissitudes and renew the field of ethical and aesthetic ideas. Current [edit] Osvaldo Soriano. The 1990s are marked by reunion among survivors of different generations, in an intellectual coalition for the review of values and texts as Argentina faced the end of the century. Some examples are Alan Pauls, Mario Areca, Aníbal Cristobo, Ernesto de Sanctis, and some more. See also Book: Argentine literature [edit] n n n n Latin American Boom Latin American literature Latin American poetry Cultural movement [edit] Wikipedia books are collections of articles that can be downloaded or ordered in print. References 1. 2. 3. 4. 5. ^ María Minellono. "Entre el folletín y la novela histórica; el problema del género en Amalia de José Mármol" ^ Eduardo Romano. El nativismo como ideología en "Santos Vega" de Rafael Obligado: Editorial Biblos ^ Wikipedia article (Spanish) ^ Enrique Anderson Imbert. Prólogo a Fausto. Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano ^ Enrique Anderson Imbert. Análisis de Fausto. Buenos Aires: CEAL, 1968 External links [edit] n n n n n n n n n Historia de la Literatura Argentina (Spanish) Literatura Argentina (Spanish) Generaciön del 37 (Spanish) Biblioteca básica de literatura argentina Scanner cultural La inmigración en la Literatura Argentina (Spanish) Orígenes de la Literatura Argentina (Spanish) Dossier Juan L. Ortiz Argentine Literature in Argentina.ar(English) V TE South American literature Argentina Bolivia Brazil Chile Colombia Ecuador Guyana Panama Paraguay Peru Suriname Trinidad and Tobago Uruguay Venezuela Aruba Bonaire Curaçao Falkland Islands French Guiana South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands [hide] Sovereign states Dependencies and other territories Rate this page What's this? Trustworthy Objective Complete Well-written View page ratings c d e f g I am highly knowledgeable about this topic (optional) Submit ratings Categories: Argentine literature This page was last modified on 22 March 2012 at 23:49. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License; additional terms may apply. See Terms of use for details. Wikipedia® is a registered trademark of the Wikimedia Foundation, Inc., a non-profit organization. Contact us Privacy policy About Wikipedia Disclaimers Mobile view