Ricardo Rojas y Jerónimo Zanné: pensar la nación con Wagner (Argentina y Cataluña—España—a inicios del siglo XX)

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis article sets out to compare the idea of nation proposed by writers Ricardo Rojas (Argentina, 1882–1957) and Jerónimo Zanné (Cataluña, España, 1873–1934) from a similar aesthetic perspective. The main objective will be to identify in their works points of contact and difference, and concepts proposed by them to argue the rise of national identities, using a Wagnerian aesthetic. The analysis shows that both Rojas and Zanné used the conciliation of opposites according to the idea of the melting pot to support the existence of national identities based on a territory whose historicity they thought it necessary to know. The Wagnerian aesthetic afforded both writers a source of argumentative resources that included the concept of the total work of art, the figure of the temple, the leadership of artists in society, and the primordial role of art for achieving self-knowledge.