Leopoldo Marechal was one of the most important Argentine writers of the twentieth century.

Biographical notes

Born in Buenos Aires into a family of French and Spanish descent, Marechal became a primary school teacher and a high school professor after obtaining his degree despite enormous economic difficulties. During the 1920s he was among the poets who rallied around the movement represented by the literary journal Martín Fierro. While his first published works of poetry, Los aguiluchos (1922) and Días como flechas (1926), tended towards vanguardism, his Odas para el hombre y la mujer showed a blend of novelty and a more classical style. It is with this collection of poems that Marechal obtained his first official recognition as a poet in 1929, the Premio Municipal de Poesía of the city of Buenos Aires.

He traveled to Europe for the first time in 1926 and in Paris met important intellectuals and artists such as Picasso, Basaldúa and Antonio Berni

Antonio Berni

Delesio Antonio Berni was a figurative artist, born in Rosario, province of Santa Fe, Argentina. He worked as a painter, an illustrator and an engraver. His father, Napoleón Berni, was an immigrant tailor from Italy...

. On his second visit to Paris in 1929, he settled in Montparnasse

Montparnasse

Montparnasse is an area of Paris, France, on the left bank of the river Seine, centred at the crossroads of the Boulevard du Montparnasse and the Rue de Rennes, between the Rue de Rennes and boulevard Raspail...

 and widened his circle of friends, which now included artists Aquiles Badi, Alfredo Bigatti

Alfredo Bigatti

Alfredo Bigatti was an Argentine sculptor, medalist, and visual artist.Born in Buenos Aires, Bigatti studied and then taught at the Academy of Fine Arts, and then toured numerous countries in Europe from 1924 through 1928, including studying in Paris with Antoine Bourdelle.Bigatti's major work is...

, Horacio Butler, Juan del Prete, Raquel Forner, Victor Pissarro and the sculptor José Fioravanti

José Fioravanti

José Fioravanti was a prolific Argentine sculptor known for the many civic monuments he created.-Life and work:...

, who later sculpted the poet's bust in bronze. It is during this second Parisian experience that Marechal wrote the first two chapters of his novel Adán Buenosayres, which he did not publish until 1948. Some of its protagonists are based on his friends of the Martin Fierro group, including artist Xul Solar

Xul Solar

Xul Solar was the adopted name of Oscar Agustín Alejandro Schulz Solari , Argentine painter, sculptor, writer, and inventor of imaginary languages.-Biography:...

 (as the astrologer Schultze), poet Jacobo Fijman

Jacobo Fijman

Jacobo Fijman was an Argentine poet born in Orhei, Bessarabia, now in Moldova. He moved to Argentina with his parents in 1902.Raised in humble circumstances, Fijman was a highly intelligent child interested in art, music, and literature; he later made a modest living as a French teacher and...

 (as the philosopher Samuel Tesler), Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

 (as Luis Pereda) and Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz

Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz

Raúl Scalabrini Ortiz was an Argentine writer, journalist, essayist and poet, friend of Arturo Jauretche and Homero Manzi, and loosely associated with the political group Fuerza de Orientación Radical de la Joven Argentina .Scalabrini Ortiz was born in Corrientes, the son of the naturalist Pedro...

 (as "el petiso" Bernini).

Back in Buenos Aires, Marechal married María Zoraida Barreiro in 1934. Their two daughters, María de los Ángeles and María Magdalena, were born some years after. Marechal again obtained the First Prize of the prestigious Premio Municipal de Poesía in 1940 for his poetry book entitled Sonetos a Sophia. The poet's young wife died in 1947, leaving the poet with two small children.

The publication of the writer's Adán Buenosayres, considered by many as the fundamental novel of Argentine literature, did not have the expected repercussion, possibly due to the poet's open sympathies for the government of Juan Domingo Perón, the controversial populist leader greatly influenced by his radical wife Evita

Eva Perón

María Eva Duarte de Perón was the second wife of President Juan Perón and served as the First Lady of Argentina from 1946 until her death in 1952. She is often referred to as simply Eva Perón, or by the affectionate Spanish language diminutive Evita.She was born in the village of Los Toldos in...

. Among the novel's most ardent admirers was the young Julio Cortázar

Julio Cortázar

Julio Cortázar, born Jules Florencio Cortázar, was an Argentine writer. Cortázar, known as one of the founders of the Latin American Boom, influenced an entire generation of Spanish speaking readers and writers in the Americas and Europe.-Early life:Cortázar's parents, Julio José Cortázar and...

, who wrote a long critical study in the literary magazine Realidad in 1949. Despite this and other writers' support, Marechal's novel and the rest of his monumental work remained widely ignored by many colleagues of the literary world, including Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Luis Borges

Jorge Francisco Isidoro Luis Borges Acevedo , known as Jorge Luis Borges , was an Argentine writer, essayist, poet and translator born in Buenos Aires. In 1914 his family moved to Switzerland where he attended school, receiving his baccalauréat from the Collège de Genève in 1918. The family...

, whose mother and sister had been imprisoned during the Peronist regime.

Although the seminal influence of his first and subsequent novels has tended to classify him mainly as a novelist, Marechal is first and foremost a poet of primary importance. In fact, even his first novel, which is mainly autobiographical, is in his own words an extension of poetry: "When I wrote Adán Buenosayres I never intended it to be other than poetry. Ever since my early youth, and taking Aristotle

Aristotle

Aristotle was a Greek philosopher and polymath, a student of Plato and teacher of Alexander the Great. His writings cover many subjects, including physics, metaphysics, poetry, theater, music, logic, rhetoric, linguistics, politics, government, ethics, biology, and zoology...

's Poetics as my starting point, I have always believed that all literary genres are and should be types of poetry, whether epic, dramatic or lyrical."

Marechal was not a widely recognized figure in Argentine literature

Argentine literature

Argentine literature is the body of literary work produced in Argentina. Among Argentina's best-known and most influential authors are Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, José Hernández, Jorge Luis Borges, Adolfo Bioy Casares, Roberto Arlt, Julio Cortázar, Manuel Puig, and Ernesto Sabato...

 until the 1965 reprint of Adán Buenosayres, which ignited a resurgence of interest in his work. His seminal novel has been translated into French by Patrice Toulat (Paris Grasset, Unesco 1995) and into Italian by Nicola Jacchia (Vallecchi, Firenze 2010).

The poet was officially invited to Cuba

Cuba

The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...

 in 1967, where he formed part of the international jury for the annual Casa de las Américas prize

Casa de las Américas Prize

The Casa de las Américas Prize is a Cuban cultural award given by the Casa de las Américas, an organization founded in April 1959. It is one of Latin America’s oldest and most prestigious literary awards....

 for literature. Marechal has since become a fundamental influence in Argentine poetry and fiction, although he continues to be a relatively unknown figure on the international scene. Among his more well known literary disciples and friends are Argentine poets Rafael Squirru

Rafael Squirru

Rafael Squirru , is an Argentine poet, lecturer, art critic and essayist.- Biographical notes :Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Squirru was educated at Saint Andrew's Scot School and at the Jesuit El Salvador Secondary School...

 and Fernando Demaría

Fernando Demaría

Fernando Demaría is an Argentine poet, philosopher and classical scholar.Demaría studied at Buenos Aires’ Colegio Champagnat, run by the priests of the Marian Order, whose dedication and rectitude represent a cornerstone in the poet’s life.He then graduated in Philosophy at the University of...

, to whom he dedicated his Heptameróns Poética and Alegropeya, respectively. Marechal's daughters have established a foundation (see External links) for the diffusion of their father's work.

Poetry

• Los Aguiluchos (1922)
• Días Como Flechas (1926)
• Odas para el hombre y la mujer (1929)
• Laberinto de amor (1936)
• Cinco poemas australes (1937)
• El centauro (1940)
• Sonetos a Sophía (1940)
• Canto de San Martín o Cantata Sanmartiniana (1950)
• Heptamerón (1966)
• El poema de Robot (1966)
• Poema de la Física (posthumous publication)

Novels

• Adán Buenosayres (1948)
• El banquete de Severo Arcángelo (1965)
• Megafón o la guerra (1970)

Drama

• Antígona Vélez (1965)
• Las tres caras de Venus, (1966)
• La batalla de José Luna, (1970)
• Don Juan, (1978)(posthumous publication)

Essays

• Historia de la calle Corrientes, (1937)
• Vida de Santa Rosa de Lima, (1943)
• Cuaderno de navegación, (1966)

Translated Novels

• Adán Buenosayres (Paris Grasset, Unesco 1995, French translation by Patrice Toulat)
• Adán Buenosayres (Vallecchi, Firenze 2010, editor Claudio Ongaro Haelterman, Italian translation by Nicola Jacchia)
• Adán Buenosayres (English translation by Norman Cheadle. In progress.)

Works about Leopoldo Marechal

• Rafael Squirru
  Rafael Squirru
  Rafael Squirru , is an Argentine poet, lecturer, art critic and essayist.- Biographical notes :Born and raised in Buenos Aires, Squirru was educated at Saint Andrew's Scot School and at the Jesuit El Salvador Secondary School...
  
  , Leopoldo Marechal, Buenos Aires, Ediciones Culturales Argentinas, 1961.

• Coulson, Graciela, Marechal, la pasión metafísica, Ediciones García Cambeiro, Buenos Aires, 1973, 190 p.

• de Navascués, Javier, Adán Buenosayres: una novela total. Estudio narratológico, Pamplona, EUNSA (Universidad de Navarra), 1992, 296 p.

• Kröpfl Ulrike, Leopoldo Marechal oder die Rückkehr der Geschichte, Vervuert Verlag. Frankfurt am Main, 1995, 409 p.

• Kröpfl, Ulrike, Cahiers d´Histoire des Littératures Romanes Romanistische Zeitschrift für Literaturgeschichte, Universitätsverlag C. Winter Heidelberg, 21. Jahrgang, 1997, Sonderdruck, pp. 393-415.

• Cheadle, Norman, The Ironic Apocalypse in the Novels of Leopoldo Marechal, Colección Támesis. Serie A, Monografías 183. Londres: Támesis Books, 2000.

• Podeur, Jean-François, Don Juan, de Leopoldo Marechal: du Mythe à l´allégorie du salut, Theatres du Monde, Université d´Avignon, Institut de Recherches Internationales sur les Arts du Spectacle, Faculté des Lettres et des Sciences Humaines, Cahier Nº 3, 1993.

• Lojo de Beuter, María Rosa, La mujer simbólica en la narrativa de Leopoldo Marechal, Ensayos de crítica literaria. Año 1983. Buenos Aires: Editorial de Belgrano, 1983.

Trivia

• The name of the Los Abuelos de la Nada
  Los Abuelos de la Nada
  Los Abuelos de la Nada were an Argentine rock band that underwent several incarnations, all of them led by singer and songwriter Miguel Abuelo.-First Era:...
  
   band ("The Grandparents of Nothingness") was taken from a rant contained in Marechal's "Severo Arcángelo".

Sources

• Gordon, Ambrose. "Marechal, Leopoldo." In Encyclopedia of World Literature in the 20th Century Revised Edition, ed. Leonard S. Klein (New York: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., 1983)

External links

• http://www.marechal.org.ar (Spanish) (English) (Italian) (French)
• 1.htm Hacia el Adán Buenosayres - La Máquina del Tiempo por Jorge Lafforgue