The invention of the history of the gaucho poetry: El “criollismo” en la literatura argentina, by Ernesto Quesada (1902), and Los gauchescos, by Ricardo Rojas (1917)

• Main Author: Alejandro Eduardo Romagnoli
• Format: Article
• Language: Spanish
• Published: Universidad Nacional de Mar del Plata 2020-11-01
• Series: Estudios de Teoría Literaria
• Subjects: ernesto quesada; ricardo rojas; literatura argentina; poesía gauchesca; crítica literaria
• Online Access: http://fh.mdp.edu.ar/revistas/index.php/etl/article/view/4023

This article aims to study El “criollismo” en la literatura argentina (1902), by Ernesto Quesada. We propose that this founding interpretation of the gaucho poetry is based on two complementary operations: folklorization (to relate this kind of literature to folklore) and structuring as a story (no longer a simple chronology). We also analyzed the way in which these operations influenced subsequent readings, specially the essay of Ricardo Rojas Los gauchescos (1917), in order both to study the influence of Quesada’s interpretation and to understand how gaucho poetry became a chapter of Argentine literary history at the beginning of the 20th century.