Biographical fragments, national meanings

biography as a way of narrating national history in Argentina and Chile in the nineteenth century

Abstract

Given the significant number of biographies published in South America during the nineteenth century, it is possible to distinguish different forms of biographical elaboration. Therefore, this article aims to describe the variables of biographical writing in the nineteenth century in South America. Some biographical writings will be analyzed in order to propose heuristic categories to apprehend the biographical movement during the nineteenth century, highlighting its discursive specifications and its writing strategies. More specifically, two versions of Jose de San Martin’s biography will be examined. They were written by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento and published in Chile and Argentina in the middle of the nineteenth century. This study suggests that biographies function as a way of elaboration of historical discourse which structures and temporalizes a national experience of history. Thus, we maintain that biography, among the various modes of articulation of historical discourse, can be considered as a fundamental mode for the elaboration of the experience of history, in view of its specific targeting of identity values and national exceptionalities.