Hernández, José

Hernández, José (hōsā` ārnän`dĕs), 1834–86, Argentine poet, journalist, and soldier. Hernández lived in the pampas as a child. He was the author of the national classic of gaucho literature, Martín Fierro (1872), and its sequel, La vuelta de Martín Fierro [the return of Martin Fierro] (1879, tr. 1936, 1948). The poem, written in colorful dialect, recounts the adventures of a wandering soldier-minstrel and glorifies the vanishing free life of the gaucho in the solitude of the Pampa.

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Hernández, José 

Born Nov. 10, 1834, in Pueyrredón, Buenos Aires Province; died Oct. 21, 1886, in Buenos Aires. Argentine poet, journalist, and political figure.

Hernández was a member of Parliament and a senator during the 1880’s. He used themes and techniques from folklore to create his epic poem Martín Fierro (part 1, 1872; Russian translation, 1965; part 2, 1879; Russian translation, 1972). A story of a freedom-loving gaucho who fell victim to social injustice, it is considered the greatest achievement of gaucho literature and of the entire corpus of Argentine realistic literature of the 19th century. Hernàndez’ other works include The Life of El Chacho (1875), which is a fictionalized biography of A. Peñaloza, a federalist leader, and the treatise The Education of a Landowner (1881).

REFERENCES

Khudozhestvennoe svoeobrazie literatur Latinskoi Ameriki. Moscow, 1976. (See Index.)
Martinez Estrada, E. Muerte y transfiguratión de Martén Fierro, 2nd ed., vols. 1–2. Mexico City-Buenos Aires [1958].
Lozada Guido, A. Martín Fierro: Gaucho-héroemito. [Buenos Aires, 1967.]
Jitrik, N. José Hernández. [Buenos Aires, 1971.]
Gammalsson, H. E. José Hernández: Ubicación, histórica, trayectoria, motivaciones ideologicas. [Buenos Aires, 1972.]
Villanueve, A. Crítica y pico: El sentido esencial del Martín Fierro. [Buenos Aires, 1972.]