La invención de los clásicos: nacionalismo, filologí­a y polí­ticas culturales en Argentina

Abstract

This article analyses the place occupied by the philologic discourse in the disputes over the consecration of a legitimate version of the argentinian canon at the beginning of the XX century. Through an analysis of the way in which some critics used arguments and strategies of discoursive fixation derived from textual criticism to legitimate an anti-jacobinian and anti-socialist version of the origins of nationality at a crucial moment of the political life of the country (the approval of the Sáenz Peña Law and the first clean presidential elections), the article aims to indicate the close relationship existing between critical and political legitimation in the establishment of a canon of argentinian classics. The study of the way in which Rojas and Ingenieros edited the works of certain national writers in their respective popular collections of argentinian authors serves as an example to demonstrate how the texts of the past helped to justify contemporary political and cultural debates.