Borges and nationalism: urban myth and nation-dreaming in the 1920s
-
Kefala, Eleni [1]
-
[1] University of St Andrews
University of St Andrews
Reino Unido
-
- Localización: Journal of Iberian and Latin American Studies, ISSN-e 1469-9524, ISSN 1470-1847, Vol. 17, Nº. 1, 2011, págs. 33-58
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
-
Resumen
This article explores Jorge Luis Borges's reconceptualization of the periphery of Buenos Aires in the 1920s by focusing on his poetry collection Fervor de Buenos Aires (1923) and a number of his critical essays of the same period. It becomes clear that Borges opts for the liminal landscape of the orillas – the borders between Buenos Aires and the Pampa – in order to create an essentialist myth for the city and, metonymically, for the entire nation in an era when the country's most enduring national narrative – criollismo – is imperilled by immigration and modernization, most strikingly in the capital city. Part 1, ‘Changing landscapes: from ultraísmo to criollismo’, follows Borges's return to Argentina in 1921 and contextualizes his swift transformation from a fervent ultraist and ‘a good European’ into an impassioned criollo who ventures into the city's most progressive region – the suburbs – in an attempt to rehabilitate Pampean criollismo against the indomitable backdrop of modernity. Part 2, ‘The intimate na(rra)tion: a close up of Fervor’, studies in more detail the conceptual nation-rebuilding that Borges undertakes in his first poetry collection, and links it to contemporary theories on nationalism.
