Esteban Echeverría

This article describes an Argentine writer. The article Partido Esteban Echeverría deals with the administrative unit of the same name in the Argentine province of Buenos Aires .

Esteban Echeverría (born September 2, 1805 in Buenos Aires , † January 19, 1851 in Montevideo , Uruguay ) was an Argentine writer. He is considered one of the most important representatives of romanticism in Latin America.

Life

Esteban Echeverría

Esteban Echeverría was born on September 2, 1805 as the second of nine sons of the Basque José Domingo Echeverría and the Argentine María Espinosa in the San Telmo district of Buenos Aires. His father died and his mother raised him during his childhood in 1816. He attended school between 1816 and 1818. During his early teens he was a wild and stormy child. From 1822 he attended the University of Buenos Aires for 2 years, where he was taught Latin and philosophy.

In 1826 he traveled to Paris . Here he came into contact with European romanticism. During his time in Paris he studied, attended literary salons and devoted himself to in-depth reading of well-known authors such as George Gordon Byron , Victor Hugo , August Wilhelm Schlegel , Friedrich von Schiller and Johann Wolfgang von Goethe . In 1829 he spent a few months in London .

The following year he returned to his hometown Buenos Aires and introduced literary romanticism there. In 1832 his health deteriorated, so he went to Mercedes (Uruguay) to relax for a few months in the country, and in 1837 he took an active part in the Salón Literario meetings held in and in the bookstore of Don Marco Sastre and Juan Bautista Alberdi and Juan María Gutiérrez took part. When Juan Manuel de Rosas ordered the closing of the salon, Echeverría became a co-founder of the Joven Generación Argentina . This consisted of a group of young liberal writers who sought to restore the ideals of the Revolución de Mayo (which had led to independence from Spain in 1810) and who were critical of the Rosas government. There were similar associations in Italy and Germany . These young writers are often grouped under the term Generation of 37 .

Because of his critical attitude towards Rosas attitude Echeverría was forced to go into exile in Montevideo in 1840. In exile he founded the Asociación de Mayo , which was probably intended as a new edition of the Asociación de la Joven Generación Argentina , but little is known about its real work.The basic ideas of this Asociación are set out in the Dogma Socialista de la Asociación de Mayo (known as Dogma Socialista ). So in the work u. a. discussed the dualism of traditionalism and modernity in Argentina at the time. For Echeverría and his colleagues, Spain embodied traditional, backward-looking thinking. In addition to the already achieved political independence from Spain, he also called for social independence. The ideas of the French authors Félicité de Lamennais and Henri de Saint-Simon serve as models for the dogma socialista . This work by Echeverrías is one of the most important texts of political liberalism in Latin America. It became the ideological basis of the Argentine constitution of 1853.

Echeverría was not to return from exile. He died of tuberculosis in Montevideo on January 19, 1851 , at the age of only 45, in loneliness and poverty.

Literary work

The work of Echeverría is complex. On the one hand, with the dogma socialista, he created a work of great political and social importance. On the other hand he created works like la cautiva or cartas a un amigo in which the individual sphere is in the foreground and which clearly identify him as a romantic. He is considered the founding father of Romanticism in the Río de la Plata area. After returning from Paris in 1830, he spread the ideas of European romanticism in Argentina. For example, Juan Bautista Alberdi wrote that he received the first information about European romanticism from Echeverría. In 1832 he anonymously published the larger poem Elvira ó la novia del Plata (1830), which, however, was not well received as it was too wild and fantastic. Still, it found its place in literary history as "the first romantic poem in Spanish".

Cartas a un amigo

One of his works are the Cartas a un Amigo (English: letters to a friend). In these 32 letters the lyrical self describes to a fictional friend its experiences and affairs of the heart. The first letters are about his terminally ill mother, then it describes his journey through the pampas , on which it meets the sad María. It learns that María's brother and her boyfriend have set out to fight the Indians and that their fate is uncertain. The lyrical I promises to inquire. It learns that both have died. Sorrowful, the lyrical self throws itself into suicidal thoughts and only the ghost of its mother prevents it from putting these thoughts into practice. The last letters are about Luisa, a woman who she met and whom she fell madly in love with on a dance evening.

The lyrical self of these letters is basically stereotypical of romanticism. It shows a tendency towards melancholy and nostalgia, it is closely connected with the nature into which it withdraws, it shows misanthropic tendencies, it is extremely emotional and it feels the urge to commit suicide.

The parallels to Goethe's epistolary novel The Sorrows of Young Werther (1774) are also remarkable . On the one hand formally, because both times the content is told through a fictional correspondence, and secondly on the content level with the unfulfilled love for a woman who gets to know the lyrical self at a dance evening, and the suicide wish (which Echeverría does not actually do ) becomes. The content of the Cartas a un amigo precedes his work La Cautiva .

La Cautiva

In 1837 Rimas and in it his lyrical-epic poem La Cautiva (The Prisoner) was published. This tells the story of a young couple, Brian and María. Brian, a captain at an Argentine border post, is abducted by Indians with his wife. The two escape and make their way through the pampas. Brian dies and María moves on alone, for the sake of her child. When she meets soldiers and they tell her that their child did not survive, María also gives in to death.

La Cautiva is divided into nine sections and an epilogue. Each section has a title and is preceded by a quotation. To be quoted u. a. Byron, Hugo, Dante and Lamartine .

La Cautiva was very well received by Echeverría's contemporaries and made its author well known. It is considered the national poem of Argentina. With this poem Echeverría succeeds in applying European romanticism to national Argentinean themes. His detailed description of the pampas with their sunsets and its grassy landscape goes back to Herder's description of the landscape. And his portrayal of the Indians runs contrary to the image of the “ noble savages ” customary in Europe , which goes back to Jean-Jacques Rousseau's image of man and which depicts the indigenous peoples in a positive, sometimes enthusiastic light. In Echeverría, however, the natives are cruel and violent. This is due to the fact that, as with Domingo Faustino Sarmiento , for Echeverría there is a dualism between civilization and barbarism, with the Indians embodying barbarism and the whites representing civilization. Echeverría clearly takes the side of civilization in this poem. This dualism of barbarism and civilization can also be seen as representative of the political situation in Argentina in the 1830s. The period after independence from Spain is marked by the conflict between the federalists and the Unitarians . For Echeverría the federalists and Rosas for primitiveness and savagery, i.e. for barbarism, and the Unitarians for education and progress, i.e. for barbarism. H. stand for civilization. An indictment of the Indians can also be understood as an indictment of the Rosas dictatorship.

El Matadero

Between 1838 and 1840 Echeverría wrote the social-romantic story El Matadero (German: Das Schlachthaus ). Along with La Cautiva , it is his best-known and most frequently commented work. It was published in the Revista del Río de la Plata by Juan María Gutiérrez two decades after his death in 1871 .

content

The story, as we learn from the narrator at the beginning, takes place in the late 1830s, after the death of Encarnación Ezcurra, Rosa's wife, during Lent (it takes place around the same time as it was written). In Buenos Aires there is a flood and as a result there is an acute shortage of meat because the slaughterhouse cannot be used. Although this agrees with the fasting requirement, it also ensures that other foods become more expensive, so that many people go hungry. During this time, the restaurador decided to send some calves to the slaughterhouse. A crowd of people gather to get some of the meat. Discussions flare up about one of the animals as to whether it is an ox or a bull. The animal breaks free and kills a boy in the process. Some riders chase the animal and after a long chase they kill it. It finally turns out it was a bull. After describing how the animal died, a young man enters the scene. The mob quickly recognizes him as an enemy because he is obviously a Unitarian. He is dragged to the slaughterhouse judge, where he is to be interrogated and tortured. The prospect of torture increases his anger so much that he dies from it.

Dualism of town and country

As in La Cautiva , this text reflects the idea of ​​the dualism of town and country or of civilization and barbarism, the “young” and the “lagging” Argentina. The young Unitarian is representative of civilization. The slaughterhouse offers a sort of border location. Because here the rural invades the urban area. The Unitarian enters hostile territory, so to speak, when he goes to the slaughterhouse, thereby challenging the Federalen to recapture the territory. These use inhuman and cruel methods to banish the intruder from their territory, and here it is again very clear that they assign Echeverría to barbarism. At first, the plot gives the impression that the Federales would be the winners since they achieved their goal. The fact that the Unitarian was his integrity and did not give himself up to the torture of the Federales shows his moral superiority and in the end he emerges as the winner of the dispute.

Designs of masculinity in El Matadero

In addition to the conflict between town and country, El Matadero also outlines two different types of masculinity. This is interesting because here the definition of the masculine is not done in contrast to the feminine, but is performed in contrast to the less masculine. The federal ideal of masculinity arises from the bloody world of the slaughterhouse, while the unitarian's ideal of masculinity arises from the desire to distance himself from this barbaric crowd. This he shows z. B. by not wearing mourning like the federal ones and riding on an English saddle. The scene of this conflict over masculinity and power is the body of the Unitarian. The discussion about whether the bull has cojones ( i.e. testicles) or not, whether he can be considered to be really male, is also transferred as a motive to the Unitarian and his masculinity is thus questioned. This emasculation finds its climax in the preparation to torture him, with some authors going so far as to speak of homosexual rape. By his death, however, the Unitarian evades this practice and his integrity is preserved, while the federation, on the other hand, has the reputation of rapist. The Unitarian model is clearly favored. The scene can also be understood as a political allegory in which the cruelty of the Unitarian is a symbol of the desecration of the Argentine nation by Rosas.

shape

El Matadero consists of two basic components. On the one hand there is the frame narration with a first-person narrator and on the other side the story embedded in the frame with an authorial narrative situation . Several motifs recur in the course of the story, but with different emphasis and constellation. These motifs are:

• the church,
• the rain,
• the meat (or lack of it),
• the slaughterhouse,
• the federal,
• the Unitarians and
• the restaurador

Jitrik compared the interplay of the various motifs with a symphonic poem , which is also a child of Romanticism. If one follows this model, then the crime against the Unitarian would be the climax and the point at which all motives come together.

Costumbrism

El Matadero is often referred to as a Costumbrian story or novella. Mariano José de Larra is a role model for costumbrism at Esteban Echeverría . Although Echeverría and his colleagues in Spain were extremely critical of Spanish literature, some points of identification can be found with Larra. Like Echeverría, Larra is a young liberal and he fights against absolutism and the backwardness of society. For example, Echeverría costumbrian elements are the historical reference at the beginning of the story, which makes it clear that it must be the late 1830s under Rosas. Furthermore, the presence of verbal irony in the narrator, with the aim of showing aspects of the story in a different light, points to costumbrism. Last but not least, the picturesque representation and the associated local color is an indication of an existing costume humbrism. A certain local coloring can be seen in Echeverría both in the setting (the slums of Buenos Aires) and in the language, which has a very low proportion of dialectal coloring.

Works

Other works by Echeverrías published during his lifetime

• 1830: Regreso and En celebridad de mayo (poems)
• 1831: Profecía del Plata (poem)
• 1832: El túmulo de un joven (poem) and Elvira o La novia del Plata
• 1834: Los Consuelos (poetry collection)
• 1837: Rimas (volume of poetry) therein La Cautiva
• 1838: Palabras Simbólicas
• 1839: Código de la Joven Argentina o Asociación de Mayo
• 1846: Dogma Socialista and Manual de enseñanza moral para las escueas primarias del Estado Oriental
• 1848: La revolución de febrero en Francia

Complete edition

From 1870 to 1874 Juan María Gutiérrez put together the collected works of Esteban Echeverrías. They appeared in five volumes as Obras completas de Estéban Echeverría by Casalle Publishing in Buenos Aires.

Works in German translation

• The slaughterhouse. Translated, commented and with an afterword by Léonce W. Lupette . Lux, Wiesbaden 2010, ISBN 978-3-939557-15-9
• El matadero. The slaughterhouse , bilingual. Edited, translated, commented and annotated by Wolfgang von Polentz. Amalienpresse, Berlin 2012, ISBN 978-3-939904-11-3
• Bloody slaughterhouse mud of Argentine romance. Claudia Ballhause on her German translation of Echeverrías El matadero . (Translation not published; text examples.) In ReLÜ , review magazine , 9, 11 December 2009

literature

in order of appearance

• Jorge M. Furt: Esteban Echeverría . Francisco A. Colombo, Buenos Aires 1938.
• Tulio Halperín Donghi: El pensamiento de Echeverría . Editorial Sudamericana, Buenos Aires 1951.
• Nydia Lamarque: Echeverria, el poeta . Cervantes Talleres Gráficos, Buenos Aires 1951.
• Luis Alberto Sánchez: Escritores representativos de América , Primera Series, Vol. 2. Editorial Gredos, Madrid 1971, therein Chapter 20: Esteban Echeverría .
• Edgar C. Knowlton: Esteban Echeverría . Dorrance, Bryn Mawr 1986, ISBN 0-8059-2984-3 .
• Dietrich Briesemeister : Esteban Echeverría: "El matadero" . In: Volker Roloff, Harald Wentzlaff-Eggebert (ed.): The Hispanoamerican novel , Vol. 1: From the beginning to Carpentier . Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft, Darmstadt 1992, ISBN 3-534-11163-X , pp. 44-51.
• Félix vineyard: Esteban Echeverría. Ideólogo de la segunda revolución . Taurus, Buenos Aires 2006.

Web links

• Literature by and about Esteban Echeverría in the catalog of the Ibero-American Institute of Prussian Cultural Heritage, Berlin
• in Spanish

Individual evidence

1. ^ ^{A b} Esteban Echeverría: Obras Escogidas . Edited by Beatriz Sarlo and Carlos Altarmirano. Biblioteca Ayacucho, Caracas 1991. ISBN 980-276-154-0 , p. 311.
2. ↑ Echeverría, José Esteban . In: Encyclopedia of World Biography , 2nd ed. Vol. 5: Diderot - Forbes . Gale, Cengage Learning, Detroit 2000, ISBN 0-7876-2545-0 , pp. 197-198.
3. ^ Pierre-Luc Abramson: Las utopías sociales en América Latina en el siglo XIX . Fondo de Cultura Económica (FCE), Mexico City 1999, ISBN 968-16-5396-3 , including the chapter Esteban Echeverría: De la literatura a la política , pp. 123-129 (first edition under the title Les utopies sociales en Amérique latine au XIXe siècle . Université de Lille, Lille 1993).
4. ^ Andrés Avellaneda: Esteban Echeverría, by Edgar C. Knowlton . In: The Hispanic American Historical Review , Vol. 66 (1986), p. 814 (review).
5. ^ Segundo V. Linares Quintana: The Etiology of Revolutions in Latin America . In: The Western Political Quarterly , Vol. 4 (1951), p. 255.
6. ↑ Julián Yanover: Biografía de Esteban Echeverría , accessed on December 14, 2016.
7. ↑ Heinz Krumpel: Enlightenment and Romanticism in Latin America . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 145.
8. ↑ ^{a b} Heinz Krumpel: Enlightenment and Romanticism in Latin America . Peter Lang, Frankfurt am Main 2004, p. 154.
9. ↑ Julio Schvartzman: La lucha de los lenguajes (= Historia crítica de la literatura argentina , edited by Noé Jitrik , vol. 2). Emecé Editores, Buenos Aires 2003, ISBN 950-04-2478-9 , p. 488.
10. ^ Karl-Wilhelm Kreis: El concepto de la "poesía moderna" en la teoría y en la práctica de la producción literária de Esteban Echeverría: La pareja amante en "La cautiva" . In: Inke Gunia, Katharina Niemeyer, Sabine Schlickers, Hans Paschen (eds.): La modernidad revis (it) ada. Literatura y cultura latinoamericanas de los siglos XIX y XX. Estudios en homenaje a Klaus Meyer-Minnemann (= Tranvía sur , Vol. 7). edition tranvía - Verlag Walter Frey, Berlin 2000, ISBN 3-925867-48-1 , pp. 76-89.
11. ↑ Julio Schvartzman: La lucha de los lenguajes . Emecé Editores, Buenos Aires 2003, p. 489.
12. ^ ^{A b} Michael Rössner : The Hispanoamerican literature . In: Kindlers New Literature Lexicon , Vol. 20: Essays . Kindler, Munich 1992, pp. 40-56.
13. ↑ Estrella Koira: El tañido de la campana: La voz de los pobres en tres cuentos argentinos (Esteban Echeverría: "El matadero"; Leónidas Barletta: "Amigos"; Haroldo Conti: "Como un león") . In: Virginia Azcuy, Octavio Groppa (ed.): Suena la "Campana de Palo". Ensayos de escucha a los pobres . Centro de Estudios Salesiano de Buenos Aires (CESBA), Buenos Aires 2004, pp. 215-231, here pp. 219-223, quotation p. 202.
14. ^ Peter Teltscher: Hombres con hombres con hombres. Masculinity in the field of tension between macho and marica in Argentine narrative literature (1839–1999) . edition tranvía - Verlag Walter Frey, Berlin 2002, ISBN 3-925867-64-3 , p. 61.
15. ^ Peter Teltscher: Hombres con hombres con hombres. Masculinity in the field of tension between macho and marica in Argentine narrative literature (1839–1999) . edition tranvía - Verlag Walter Frey, Berlin 2002, p. 60f.
16. ^ Noé Jitrik: Suspender toda certeza. Antología crítica (1959-1976). Estudios sobre Cambaceres, José Hernández, Echeverría, Macedonio Fernández, García Márquez, Roa Bastos, Donoso, Cortázar y otros . Editorial Biblos, Buenos Aires 1997, ISBN 950-786-144-0 , p. 94.
17. ^ Peter Teltscher: Hombres con hombres con hombres. Masculinity in the field of tension between macho and marica in Argentine narrative literature (1839–1999) . edition tranvía - Verlag Walter Frey, Berlin 2002, p. 71.
18. ↑ David William Foster: Violence in Argentine literature. Cultural responses to tyranny . University of Missouri, Columbia 1995, ISBN 0-8262-0991-2 , p. 88.
19. ^ ^{A b} Noé Jitrik: Suspender toda certeza. Antología crítica (1959-1976). Estudios sobre Cambaceres, José Hernández, Echeverría, Macedonio Fernández, García Márquez, Roa Bastos, Donoso, Cortázar y otros . Editorial Biblos, Buenos Aires 1997, p. 81.
20. ^ Noé Jitrik: Suspender toda certeza. Antología crítica (1959-1976). Estudios sobre Cambaceres, José Hernández, Echeverría, Macedonio Fernández, García Márquez, Roa Bastos, Donoso, Cortázar y otros . Editorial Biblos, Buenos Aires 1997, pp. 73ff.