UNIVERSITY of CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Dante and Argentine
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA Los Angeles Dante and Argentine Identity A dissertation submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements for the degree Doctor of Philosophy in Italian by Heather Renee Sottong 2016 © Copyright by Heather Renee Sottong 2016 ABSTRACT OF THE DISSERTATION Dante and Argentine Identity by Heather Renee Sottong Doctor of Philosophy in Italian University of California, Los Angeles, 2016 Professor Massimo Ciavolella, Chair This dissertation examines Dante’s afterlife in Argentina in selected works by Bartolomé Mitre, Leopoldo Lugones, Jorge Luis Borges, and Leopoldo Marechal. My analysis is informed by the theories of Eric Hobsbawm, Benedict Anderson, and Nicolas Shumway, who coined the concepts of “invented traditions,” “imagined communities,” and “guiding fictions” respectively. I have applied these notions to the case of Argentina, which after the War of Independence from Spain (1810-1818) had to develop its own national cultural identity. In Chapter 1, “Bartolomé Mitre and the Building of a Nation,” I examine Mitre’s 1897 translation of the Divine Comedy, his friendship with Giuseppe Garibaldi, and his role as President of Argentina from 1862-1868. I have found Mitre’s reading of Dante to have important resonances with the readings of Risorgimento Italians such as Giuseppe Mazzini who associated Dante with political unity, morality, and high culture. I argue that Mitre’s translation is a counter-operation to the linguistic and aesthetic tendencies and socio-political message of José Hernández’s El Gaucho Martín Fierro (1872). ii Chapter 2 is dedicated to Leopoldo Lugones (1874-1938) and Jorge Luis Borges (1899- 1986). Lugones’ short story “Francesca” (1909) is a creative re-invention of the Vth Canto of Inferno.
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