The poem's central character, Martín Fierro, is a gaucho, a free, poor, pampas-dweller, who is illegally drafted to serve at a border fort defending against Indian attacks. He eventually deserts, and becomes a gaucho matrero, basically the Argentinian equivalent of a North American western outlaw.
In his book of essays, Borges displays his typical concision, evenhandedness, and love of paradox, but he also places himself in the spectrum of views of Martín Fierro and, thus, effectively, gives a clue as to his (Borges's) relation to nationalist myth. Borges has nothing but praise for the aesthetic merit of Martín Fierro, but refuses to project that as indicating moral merit for its protagonist. In particular, he describes it as sad that his countrymen read "with indulgence or admiration", rather than horror, the famous episode in which Fierro provokes a duel of honor with a black gaucho and then kills him in the ensuing knife fight.
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2 Borges on the critics and Martín Fierro 3 Borges on the Martín Fierro 4 References |
Borges has far more respect for the early gauchesque poets than does
Lugones, whom Borges sees as reducing them to mere precursors,
"sacrificing them to the greater glory of Martín Fierro".
In this respect, Borges singles out the "happy and valiant" poetry
of Ascasubi, which he contrasts to Hernández's tragic
lament. Borges clearly relishes the paradox that Ascasubi, a soldier
with extensive experience of combat and whose work sometimes borders
on the autobiographical, is at his most vivid in describing the
Indian invasion of Buenos Aires province, which Ascasubi did not
witness.
Borges is somewhat less impressed with Estanislao de Campo, author of
Fausto, whom he characterizes as the most rural of the
gauchesque poets in his diction, but the least comprehending of the
mindset of the pampas-dweller. In contrast, he points out that
Hernández is much closer to the language (if not the subject
matter) of the payadas, relying far more on dialect spellings
than exotic words to create his atmosphere, and, in the scenes
within his poem where payadas are sung, showing his ability to
write strictly within the payada form.
Borges is in more sympathy with Calixto Oyuela, who sees
Martín Fierro as a tragic lament for the passing of the
gaucho life and the fading of the Spanish-descended criollos
into the emerging multi-ethnic Argentina. He also speaks briefly,
but with praise, of Vicente Rossi, who sees Martín Fierro
more as an orillero (hoodlum) than as a gaucho.
Borges mildly rebukes Miguel de Unamuno for denying the
specifically Argentine character of the work, annexing it to
Spanish literature, and is absolutely scathing on the
subject of Eleuterio Tiscornia. Tiscornia's excessively academic
and Europeanizing approach to Martín Fierro produced a
footnoted edition of the poem which Borges finds, at points,
laughably misleading. Taking only a few well-aimed swipes at
Tiscornia on his own behalf, Borges refers his readers to the work of
Ezequiel Martínez Estrada for a proper demolition.
Both in his commentary on Martín Fierro and on its
critics, Borges effectively positions himself, like
Hernández, at a confluence of two literary traditions with
common roots. In Borges's own case, these are an Argentine national
tradition and one more European. While clearly standing as a proud
Argentinian, he refuses to be placed in the position of glorifying
even what he sees as flaws in the Argentine character.
Borges on "gauchesque" poetry
Borges emphasizes that "gauchesque" poetry was not poetry written by
gauchos, but generally by educated urban writers who adopted the
eight-syllable line of the rural payadas (ballads), but often
filled them with folksy expressions and with accounts of daily life
that had no place in the "serious and even solemn"
payadas. He views these works as a successful impersonation,
facilitated by the interpenetration of rural and urban cultures,
especially in the Argentine military. The author of
Martín Fierro was one of the few gauchesque poets who
ever actually lived as a gaucho.Borges on the critics and Martín Fierro
Borges sees Lugones in El Payador (1916) as operating in an
explicitly nationalist tradition, seeking a national epic to take
the role of Don Quixote or the Divine Comedy and render the
Argentines a "people of the book", in a nationalist reflection of
religious identity. Borges shows no small sympathy for Lugones, but
argues that Martín Fierro is more of a verse novel than
an epic, and very much a work of its time (the 1870s). Borges has
far less sympathy with those who go beyond Lugones, such as
Ricardo Rojas who wants to see in Martín Fierro
literal or metaphorical analogues for almost every aspect of
Argentine history and moral character, praising the work mostly for
aspects that Borges finds "conspicuous by their absence."Borges on the Martín Fierro
As remarked above, Borges greatly admired Martín Fierro
as a work of art, but did not particularly admire its protagonist.
In El "Martín Fierro", he dissents from Lugones's
nationalist cult of the epic, but professes to admire Martín Fierro all the more in its aspect as a verse novel, concise and full of morally complex characters very much of a particular place and time. He sees in Hernández's work a confluence of two Argentine literary traditions that previous critics had genrally not distinguished: the rural payada and a separate and more artificial tradition of gauchesque poetry. References
El "Martín Fierro", 1953, written with Margarita Guerrero, ISBN 8420619337.