Literatura y realidad histórica. Un reencuentro con Ezequiel Martínez Estrada y su interpretación del Martín Fierro

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to critically review some of the main theoretical tenets in Ezequiel Martínez Estrada’s pessimistic stance about the Argentinean history and society of his time. Focusing on his critical remarks about the so-called «literatura o poesía gauchesca» as well as on his enthusiastic assessment of José Hernández’ Martín Fierro, the achievements and missing points in Martínez Estrada’s skeptical diagnosis will be underlined and put in broader philosophical context. For the Argentinean writer the controversial notion of a “superimposed reality” – as he infers its existence from the Martín Fierro – captures a kind of ambivalent metaphysical concurrence among the literary creation, the geographical setting and the sociopolitical state of the country.