1920s Buenos Aires: Literary Movements, Youth, and Borges' Symbols

Social and Historical Context of the 1920s

The literature of the 1920s in Buenos Aires was disseminated and discussed, with a clear distinction made before the public. Writers were grouped into two main streams:

Florida Group

(Street of leisure) This group looked towards Europe and the aesthetic developments of the postwar period.

Boedo Group

(Street factory) This group looked towards Russia and embraced the dream of universal revolution.

Buenos Aires in 1920

The city rapidly transformed into a modern setting due to heavy immigration, which revolutionized society, especially the porteña population. The majority of immigrants were Spanish and Italian, but there were also other nationalities. Immigrants and their children benefited from increased literacy and schooling. In urbanism, new architectural and decorative forms emerged, favoring functionality with new technologies and machinery. Public education helped integrate the children of immigrants into social life.

Youth and Identity

Youth represented modernity, the city, immigrants, and writers. Values advocated included change, progress, renewal, and the future. This youth contributed enthusiasm, vigor, and rebellion. The university reform of 1918 played a significant role, with young people confronting the old university order in Cordoba.

Florida Writers

This group opposed the idea of books as mere commodities, emphasizing literature that emerged from aesthetic vocation. This characterized the literary movement of the Florida group, also known as the Martin Fierro group, who founded a newspaper named Martin Fierro. Key figures included Leopoldo Marechal, Jorge Luis Borges, and Oliverio Girondo.

Literary Features of the Florida Group

• Rejection of market influence.
• Removal of sclerotic forms.
• Disrespect for canonized works.
• Poetry that ignored metric and rhyme rules.
• Bold, scintillating, and provocative metaphors.

Boedo Writers

This group had more modest wealth and cultural capital, with less influence from European avant-garde literature. They focused on realistic portrayals of social conflicts, drawing inspiration from Zola, Dostoyevsky, Tolstoy, and Gorky.

Literary Features of the Boedo Group

1. Literature attentive to the conflicts of the most vulnerable sectors.
2. Primarily expressed through narrative.
3. Ideological nonconformity to social injustice and a desire for revolution, with stories developed in the workplace.
4. Cultural diffusion for the masses.

Borges in Literary History

Jorge Luis Borges was born in 1899. In 1914, he moved to Geneva, where he spent his teens, studied, and began his literary training. Upon returning to Buenos Aires in 1921, he found a changed city. In Europe, he learned French, Latin, and German, participated in avant-garde movements, and published poems, critical reviews, and articles.

Typical Features of Borges' Work

1. Universal philosophical topics.
2. Idioms and literary erudition.
3. Complex symbolic constructions that appear and reappear.
4. Exploration of all issues, problems, and names in universal literature.
5. Each text proposes an arduous and complex exercise for readers.

Ultraism Basic Principles

• Reduction of lyric to the metaphor.
• Removal of median phrases and useless adjectives.
• Abolition of all autobiographical or metaphysical references.

Borgean Symbols

The Labyrinth

It has several meanings:

1. The prison in which man is enclosed.
2. Hell and chaos.
3. The choices man must face in life.
4. Life itself.

Mirrors

Represent:

1. Abominable duplication.
2. Replication of an uncertain reality.

The Knife

Symbolizes:

1. Courage.
2. The compadrito.
3. Death.

The Infinite

Means:

1. Indetermination.
2. Confusion.
3. Time.

The Guitar

Represents:

1. The gaucho.
2. Victory.
3. Defeat.