(De)constructing Argentine Women

Gender, Nation, and Identity in ‘Alfonsina y el mar’

Bibliographic Data

ID21728375
AuthorsCINTIA CRISTIÁ (0000-0002-1972-3116, Toronto Metropolitan University, corresponding author)
Year2022
Volume19
Issue1
Pages29-63
Publication date2022-02-01
Peer ReviewedYes
Open AccessYes
TypeARTICLE
Venuetwentieth-century music (JOURNAL)
Journal identifiersISSN: 1478-5722 • E-ISSN: 1478-5730
PublisherCambridge University Press (CUP) (PUBLISHER)
DOI10.1017/s1478572221000219
OpenAlexW4226367102
LanguageEN
Citations received1
References cited23

This article examines gender, nation, and identity in the popular song of folk roots ‘Alfonsina y el mar’. Written by Félix Luna and Ariel Ramírez, the song is based on the suicide of feminist poet Alfonsina Storni and achieved worldwide popularity through Mercedes Sosa's 1969 rendition on the album Mujeres argentinas . Using Butler's theory of gender performance, Cusick's proposals for a feminist music theory, and Plesch's concept of dysphoric topics in Argentine nationalist music, this article deconstructs the song's poetic, musical, and visual discourses to critique its underlying cultural signification. It concludes that by infantilizing, romanticizing, and nationalizing Storni's public figure, her legacy was adapted to the patriarchal expectations of decorum and historical narrative about nation pervasive in Argentina in the late 1960s. Storni's white European urban background was adapted to more ‘authentic’ Argentine values through Sosa's performance and public image

Aesthetics · Art · Decorum · Literature · Musical · Narrative · Nationalism · Poetry · Political science · Popular music · Popularity · Sociology · Diverse Musicological Studies · Gender Studies · Latin American and Latino Studies · Law · Music History and Culture

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