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. Borges, who was well aware of this story and its lack of correspondence to the literary nationalism Lugones advocated in El payador, set out to write a Francesca of the pampas. His short story “The Intruder” simultaneously subverts Dante’s Vth Canto and Lugones’s adaptation. I also examine Borges’ famous story “The Aleph,” which, I argue, is not only a parody of the Divine Comedy, but also a subtle critique of Lugones in the figure of Carlos Daneri. In the third and final chapter I discuss how in Adán Buenosayres (1948) Leopoldo Marechal employs Dante to parody the viewpoints of many of Argentina’s intellectual elite (including Borges) on the topic of Argentine literature and identity. I conclude that the Divine Comedy, a work widely acknowledged to have played a key role in the emergence of Italian national conscious, was an important font of inspiration for a several major Argentine authors concerned with developing Argentine national literature. iii The dissertation of Heather Renee Sottong is approved. Luigi Ballerini Efraín Kristal Massimo Ciavolella, Committee Chair University of California, Los Angeles 2016 iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Title Page…………………………………………………………………………………………..i Abstract……………………………………………………………………………………………ii Committee Page…………………………………………………………………………………..iv Table of Contents………………………………………………………………………………….v List of Figures………………………………………………………………………………….....vi Acknowledgements………………………………………………………………………………vii Vita……………………………………………………………………………………………...viii Introduction……………………………………………………………………………………..…1 Chapter 1: Bartolomé Mitre and the Building of a Nation………………………………..………9 Figure 1…………………………………………………………………………………121 Figure 2………………………………………………………………………………....122 Bibliography Chapter 1…………………………………………………………...…….123 Chapter 2: Rewriting Francesca: Leopoldo Lugones and Jorge Luis Borges…………………..128 Bibliography Chapter 2………………………………………………………………....220 Chapter 3: Dante and Leopoldo Marechal: The Divine Comedy and Adán Buenosayres……..226 Conclusion…………………………………………………………………………...…363 Bibliography Chapter 3…………………………………………………………………367 v LIST OF FIGURES Figure 1: Mitre’s signature (B. Mitre) underneath the poem “A la Joven Italia,” published in El Nacional the 30th of November, 1838………………………………………………….121 Figure 2: Full page view of the poem “A la Joven Italia” published in El Nacional the 30th of November, 1838………………………………………………………………………...122 vi ACKNOWLEDGMENTS First and foremost, I would like to thank the director of my dissertation, Prof. Massimo Ciavolella, for his Dantean expertise and especially for his positive encouragement throughout the entire process. It was also Prof. Ciavolella who drew my attention to the rich yet largely unexplored topic of Dante in Latin America. I would also like to thank Prof. Efraín Kristal for his insightful critiques of my work and for his vast knowledge of Latin American literature. I gratefully acknowledge the financial support of a number of organizations which funded my three research trips to Buenos Aires in 2013, 2015, and 2016. My archival research would not have been possible without the generosity of the Harry and Yvonne Lenart Graduate Travel Fellowship, the Ahmanson/Murphy Summer Fellowship, the CERS (Center for European and Russian Studies) Summer Dissertation Research Fellowship, and the UCHRI (Humanities Research Institute). In Buenos Aires I would like to thank the librarians of the Museo Mitre for their endless patience and for making research there such a smooth and agreeable experience. Special thanks to Pablo Martínez Gramuglia at the Universidad de Buenos Aires for his suggestions regarding the chapter on Bartolomé Mitre, and for drawing my attention to some lesser-known articles that proved relevant to my thesis. I would also like to thank Mariano Pérez Carrasco (Conicet -UBA) and Claudia Fernández (UBA) for inviting me to present a portion of my research at the “Primer Congreso Argentino de Estudios Dantescos” (The First Argentine Conference of Dante Studies) held August 22-23 in Buenos Aires. vii VITA HEATHER RENEE SOTTONG Education Ph.D. in Italian, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Expected December 2016 M.A. in Italian, University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), Summer 2010 Laurea in Foreign Language and Literature, Università degli Studi di Firenze, 2008 B.A. in German, University of Notre Dame, 2004 Publications “Three Argentine Visions of Francesca: Victoria Ocampo, Jorge Luis Borges, and Leopoldo Lugones,” in Women in Hell: Francesca da Rimini & Friends Between Sin, Virtue, and Heroism, edited by Massimo Ciavolella and Ferruccio Farina (Rimini: Editrice Romagna Arte e Storia, 2013), 59-72. “The Crowd and Manzoni’s Conception of Cultural Unification,” Carte Italiane 8 (2012): 29-39. “Excess and Antagonism in Giordano Bruno’s Il candelaio,” Carte Italiane 7 (2011): 1- 13. “Marinetti’s Metaphorical Break with Tradition,” Carte Italiane 6 (2010): 7-16. Invited Lectures “Fortune in Ariosto’s Comedies.” Voces Nostrates Lecture Series, UCLA Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, Los Angeles, April 16, 2013. Conference Papers “Italy in Argentina: the afterlife of the Divine Comedy in Buenos Aires.” California Interdisciplinary Consortium of Italian Studies (CICIS), Santa Barbara, February 26-27, 2016. viii “Dante and Argentine Identity.” American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL), San Diego, November 20-22, 2015. “La cultura italiana: un argomento trascurato nei corsi di italiano per principianti?” American Association of Teachers of Italian (AATI), Siena, Italy, June 22-26, 2015. “Young Italy, Young Argentina.” American Association for Italian Studies (AAIS), Boulder, CO, March 26-28, 2015. “Madness and Melancholy in the Love Poetry of Guido Cavalcanti.” Madness, Melancholy, Myth, Los Angeles, May 31, 2014. “Conflicting Conceptions of Love: Dante vs. Petrarch.” Medieval (and Other) Myths of Love, Los Angeles, June 2, 2012. “Three Argentine Visions of Francesca.” Women in Hell: Francesca da Rimini & Friends Between Sin, Virtue, and Heroism, Los Angeles, April 20-21, 2012. “La folla della farina: A study of mass psychology in Manzoni’s I Promessi Sposi.” (Dis)Unity in Italy, Los Angeles, April 27-28, 2012. “The Origin of Improv: Commedia dell'arte.” Poets, Performers, and Other Mythical Creatures of the Middle Ages, Los Angeles, June 3-4, 2011. “Dante in Peruvian Narrative.” Dante in the Americas, Los Angeles, April 7-9, 2011. “The Fat Woodcarver: Victim of a Renaissance Sense of Humor.” Renaissance Society of America, Montreal, March 24-26, 2011. “Perceptions of Italians in 19th-Century American Fiction.” Modern Language Association (MLA), Los Angeles, Jan 6, 2011. Course Instruction UCLA Department of Italian, Graduate Teaching Fellow, 2014-2015 Italian levels 1-3 UCLA Freshman Cluster Program, Graduate Student Instructor, 2012-2014 GE30 Cluster Course, “Never-ending Stories: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on Myth.” Seminar: “Dante’s Inferno: Adapting Classical Mythology to Christian Judgment” UCLA Department of Germanic Languages, Teaching Assistant, Spring-Winter 2009 German 1 “Hollywood and Germany” film course ix Introduction Dante’s presence in the Río de la Plata region dates back to the early 1800s and continues to the present. My dissertation inquires into the cultural and historical reasons why some Argentine intellectuals during the nineteenth and twentieth centuries called upon Dante as a means to found, develop, and expand their literary tradition. Giving pride of place to the key issues of national unification and the establishment of national identity, my study of Dante’s afterlife and reception in Argentina examines his presence in the works of four Argentine authors: Bartolomé Mitre, Leopoldo Lugones, Jorge Luis Borges, and Leopoldo Marechal. I have been