Writers and the state in the centenary height and spread of Argentina native literature

• Main Author: Diego J. Chein
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad de Chile 2010-11-01
• Series: Revista Chilena de Literatura
• Online Access: https://revistaliteratura.uchile.cl/index.php/RCL/article/view/9029

With the new alliance between writers and the state, which was forged in the literary circuits in Argentine towards the first anniversary of the May revolution, the ‘nativist' claims for a regional-national literature, forged in the last two decades of the nineteenth century, became the basis from which to mediate and negotiate the interests of an oligarchic state. This state perceived a threat in the needs of national writers who aspired to acquire a professional autonomy not to be guaranteed by the market alone. It also perceived a threat in the contradictions inherent in both the state's and the writers' conflictive relationship with the "people". By examining the works of two of the most renowned writers of the period, Leopoldo Lugones and Ricardo Rojas, we explore the appropriations, displacements and resignifications consistent with the rise and the range of influence of the nativist position.