Martínez Estrada, precursor de Roland Barthes

Abstract

The investigation of the reception of Roland Barthes in Argentina could also be formulated through the question of its predecessors in our country. The death of the author, a subject that has been dated in the history of theory and literary criticism (Topuzián), is present in the literature long before its formulation today classic in the work of Barthes. The crisis of poetry and the theories of reading that circulated in Argentine literature between modernism and the avant-garde put into effect the death of the author as a romantic genius and give rise to the birth of the reader as a subject of meaning. The problem is present explicitly in the essay of Martínez Estrada and is associated with the sacrifice of the poet who carries forward in the volumes of poetry of 1929. Also, along with the death of the author and the birth of the reader, we study here also other correspondences between Martínez Estrada and Roland Barthes: interest in the figure of the labyrinth and the short forms of poetry.