La nación refundada a través de la vanguardia. Adán Buenosayres en el campo literario argentino

Abstract

The following study is an attempt to determine the historical value of one of the most paradigmatic novels in Argentine literature from 20th century: Adán Buenosayres (1948) by Leopoldo Marechal. The interest that justifies our work is the novel’s long writing process –late twenties until 1948– and the controversy that caused its publication in its country’s literary field. Its writing, therefore, projects the Argentine society’s most relevant issues in the first half of the last century, specifically, the evolution of the avant-garde and nationalism. In this sense, Adán Buenosayres exposes the avant-garde attempt at renovation after the closure of Martinfierrismo –the Argentine historical avant-garde movement– and, simultaneously, the nationalism’s transformation from the 1930 coup d’etat. The novel is an example of how the avant-garde persists in the narrative genre after its first hatching and, in turn, how it reconciled with the Spanish-Catholic nationalism that was configured during the 1930s in the country. Likewise, its initial rejection among the critics manifests the disinterest towards this dichotomy by writers and intellectuals of the following decades –fifties and fifties–. However, the reissue of Adán Buenosayres (Sudamericana ed., 1966) and its favourable reception show the change that took place in the vanguard and nationalism from the 1960s onwards. In short, the particularity of its writing and reception make the novel a turning point in Argentine literary history that we intend to elucidate in this study. Adán Buenosayres fills an empty space because it doesn’t follow the poetics or genres’ lines of the forties; it didn’t identify itself with fantastic literature, nor the police subgenre, nor the different aspects of realism that dominate the Argentine literary field when Marechal’s novel is published. Rather, due to its relationship with nationalism vindicated through the gaucho tradition, popular culture and the mythical treatment of space, Adán Buenosayres constitutes a «refundational» fiction of homeland –reformulating the expression «foundational fictions» by Doris Sommer (1993)–. To sum up, the study seeks to be useful to rethink the relations between nationalism and avant-garde, even in texts and contexts outside of Marechal’s narrative. In the same way, it tries to propose a new perspective of Adán Buenosayres’ historical space of in Argentine literature as well as update the novels’ most recent rereadings to deepen into his national canonization.