Transnational dante: inventing Argentine cultural identity / Heather Renee Sottong.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Sottong, Heather Renee, author.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Literature and society--Argentina.

Literature and society.

Identity (Psychology) in literature.

Argentine literature--History and criticism.

Argentine literature.

Physical Description:

1 online resource

Place of Publication:

[Place of publication not identified]: Fordham University Press, 2025.

Summary:

This book examines Dante’s afterlife in Argentina in selected works by Bartolomé Mitre, Leopoldo Lugones, Jorge Luis Borges, and Leopoldo Marechal. My analysis is informed by the theories of Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson, and Nicolas Shumway, who coined the concepts of “invented traditions,” “imagined communities,” and “guiding fictions” respectively. I have applied these notions to the case of Argentina, which after the War of Independence from Spain (1810–1818) had to develop its own national cultural identity. In Chapters 1–2, I examine Bartolomé Mitre’s 1897 translation of the Divine Comedy. I have found Mitre’s reading of Dante to have important resonances with the readings of Risorgimento Italians such as Mazzini who associated Dante with political unity, morality, and high culture. Chapters 3–5 are dedicated to Leopoldo Lugones (1874–1938) and Jorge Luis Borges (1899–1986) and their re-writings of the Vth Canto of Inferno. I also examine Borges’s “The Aleph,” which, I argue, is not only a parody of the Divine Comedy, but also a subtle critique of Lugones in the figure of Carlos Daneri. In Chapters 6–8 I evidence how in Adán Buenosayres (1948) Leopoldo Marechal employs Dante to parody the viewpoints of many of Argentina’s intellectual elite (including Borges) on Argentine literature and identity. I conclude that the Divine Comedy, a work widely acknowledged to have played a key role in the emergence of Italian national consciousness, was an important font of inspiration for several major Argentine authors concerned with developing Argentine national literature.

Contents:

Contents

Introduction

Bartolomé Mitre on Immigration and Argentine Identity

Bartolomé Mitre's Translation of the Divine Comedy: An Anti-Martín Fierro

Leopoldo Lugones on Immigration and Argentine Identity

Hypermedievalizing and Demedievalizing Dante: Leopoldo Lugones's and Jorge Luis Borges's Rewritings of Inferno V

Rewriting Dante to Parody Lugones: Borges's "The Aleph"

Leopoldo Marechal on Immigration and Argentine Identity

Dante's Vita nuova and Book 6 of Adán Buenosayres: Solveig as Beatrice, Solveig as Argentina

The Journey to Cacodelphia: A Parody of Inferno and Modern-Day Argentina

Conclusion: Argentina's Failure to Produce a Divine Comedy

Notes

Bibliography

Index

About the Author

Critical Studies in Italian Migrations.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references and index.

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ISBN:

9781531511203

9781531510459