Martín Fierro

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Lore & Background

In *El Gaucho Martín Fierro*, the impoverished gaucho Martín Fierro is drafted to serve at a border fort, defending the Argentine inner frontier against the native people. His life of poverty on the pampas is somewhat romanticized; his military experiences are not. He deserts and tries to return to his home, but discovers that his house, farm, and family are gone. He deliberately provokes an affair of honor by insulting a black woman in a bar; in the knife duel that ensues, he kills her male companion. Another knife fight is narrated with a lack of detail, suggesting it is one of many. Fierro becomes an outlaw pursued by the police militia. In a battle with them, Sergeant Cruz, inspired by Fierro's bravery in resistance, defects and joins him mid-battle. The two set out to live among the natives, hoping to find a better life there. In *La Vuelta de Martín Fierro* (1879), that hope is promptly and bitterly dashed. They are taken for spies; the cacique (chieftain) saves their lives, but they are effectively prisoners. An epidemic kills both Cruz and the cacique. At Cruz's grave, Fierro hears the anguished cries of a woman and encounters a criolla weeping over the body of her dead son, her hands tied with the boy's entrails, accused of witchcraft. Fierro fights and wins a brutal battle with her captor and travels with her back towards civilization. After leaving her at the first ranch, he encounters his two surviving sons (one a prisoner, the other the ward of the wily Vizcacha) and the son of Cruz (who has become a gambler). He has a night-long payada (singing duel) with a black payador who turns out to be the younger brother of the man Fierro murdered. At the end, Fierro speaks of changing his name and living in peace, but it is not entirely clear that the duel has been avoided.

Reader's Guide

Martín Fierro is central to Argentine literature and national identity. The poem, written in a Spanish that evokes rural Argentina, is considered the pinnacle of gauchesque poetry and has appeared in hundreds of editions, translated into over 70 languages. It was an immediate popular success: at the time of the publication of the second part, the first part already had 48,000 copies in print in Argentina and Uruguay, sold not only in bookstores but in pulperías (rural bars), and frequently read aloud as public entertainment. The poem received its canonization during a series of lectures by Leopoldo Lugones in 1913 (published as *El payador* in 1916), where he crowned the *Martín Fierro* the epic of Argentina, comparable to Dante's *Divine Comedy* for Italy or Cervantes's *Don Quixote* for Spain. It has earned major praise and commentaries from Miguel de Unamuno, Jorge Luis Borges, and Rafael Squirru, among others. The Martín Fierro Award, named after the poem, is the most respected award for Argentine television and radio programs. Borges, who describes the work as more of a 'verse novel' than an 'epic,' points out that it is such an accurate evocation of its own time that it took some distance before its greatness could become apparent.

Did You Know?

• The poem is 2,316 lines long, originally published in two parts: *El Gaucho Martín Fierro* (1872) and *La Vuelta de Martín Fierro* (1879).
• By the time the second part was published, the first part had 48,000 copies in print in Argentina and Uruguay, an almost unimaginable number for that time.
• The poem has been translated into over 70 languages and has appeared in hundreds of editions.
• The Martín Fierro Award, named after the poem, is the most respected award for Argentine television and radio programs.
• Jorge Luis Borges wrote a short story titled 'El Fin' that plays out the possibility of the final duel with the black payador being avoided.