Jose Marmol (1818 - 1871) was an Argentine journalist, politician, librarian, and writer of the Romantic school.
Born in Buenos Aires, he initially studied law, but abandoned his studies in favor of politics. In 1839, no sooner had he begun to make a name for himself than he was arrested for his opposition to Argentina's conservative caudillo, Juan Manuel de Rosas. He was held in irons for six days. A year and a half later, the political climate spurred him, as it had many other Argentine dissenters, to flee the country. He found passage to Montevideo on a French schooner. He was welcomed by other exiles, among them Juan Bautista Alberdi, Florencio Varela, Esteban Echeverria, Juan Maria Gutierrez, and Miguel Cane. Three years later, the siege of Montevideo by Rosas's ally Manuel Oribe led Marmol to flee yet again, this time to Rio de Janeiro. Here he remained until february of 1843, at which point he boarded a ship for Chile. The ship encountered fierce storms and was eventually forced to return to Rio de Janeiro. He remained in the city another two years before returning to Montevideo, where he spent the next seven years.
The defeat of Rosas at the Battle of Caseros (1852) allowed Marmol to return to Argentina. After an exile that had lasted thirteen years, he was elected a senator and later a national deputy from the province of Buenos Aires. The secession of Buenos Aires from the Argentine Confederation prevented him from serving as plenipotentiary to Chile, a post to which he had been appointed. However, he later served as plenipotentiary to Brazil. In 1868 he became director of the Biblioteca Nacional de la Republica Argentina, until blindness forced him to retire. He died in Buenos Aires in 1871. By coincidence, his two most notable successors in the office of chief librarian, Paul Groussac and Jorge Luis Borges, also suffered from blindness in their old age.
Work
During his time in Montevideo, Marmol founded three journals, most notable among them being La Semana, and he contributed to many others. He earned a reputation as a passionate critic of Rosas and his supporters, and the sobriquet el verdugo poetico de Rosas ("the poetic hangman of Rosas"). Abusive political content is not absent from his work, whatever the genre. Also characteristic of Marmol are his unique descriptive sensibility and his treatment of love.
In Uruguay in 1847 he published six of what would eventually be twelve cantos of El Peregrino ("The Pilgrim"), a long autobiographical poem set to the rhythm of his changing fortunes, which drew heavily from Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.
His lyric poems were collected into Armonias (Montevideo, 1851). In 1844 he published the first part of his semi-autobiographical Costumbrist novel Amalia, whose second part would not appear until his return to Buenos Aires years later. In 1914, Amalia was adapted into the first full-length Argentine film. Marmol's works for the stage were El Poeta (1847) and El Cruzado (1851). His style shows the influence of many Romanticists, not only Byron but also Chateaubriand, Jose de Espronceda, and Jose Zorrilla.
Bibliography
- (1844)
- El Peregrino (1847)
- El poeta (1847)
- Armonias (1851)
- El Cruzado (1851)
Source
Other pages about Argentine librarians
-Jorge Luis Borges -Jose Marmol -Paul Groussac
Other pages about Argentine writers
-Abel Posse -Abelardo Castillo -Adolfo Bioy Casares -Alberto Gerchunoff -Alberto Granado -Alberto Migre -Alberto Vanasco -Alejandro Dolina -Alfonsina Storni -Alicia Kozameh -Alicia Partnoy -Andres Rivera -Andrew Graham-Yooll -Angelica Gorodischer -Antonio di Benedetto -Arturo Jauretche -Atahualpa Yupanqui -Benito Lynch -Bernardo Verbitsky -Carlos Astrada -Carlos Barbarito -Carlos Mastronardi -Cesar Aira -Copi -Daniel Fresco -Diego Abad de Santillan -Domingo Faustino Sarmiento -Edgardo Cozarinsky -Edmundo Murray -Eduardo Gudino Kieffer -Eduardo Gutierrez -Eduardo Mallea -Eduardo Montes-Bradley -Elsa Osorio -Emeterio Cerro -Enrique Anderson Imbert -Enrique Cadicamo -Ernesto Sabato -Esteban Echeverria -Esther Vilar -Ezequiel Martinez Estrada -Guillermo Martinez -Guillermo Verdecchia -Gustavo Adolfo Martinez Zuviria -Gustavo Gabriel Levene -Hector Alberto Alvarez -Homero Manzi -Hugo Wass -Humberto Costantini -Javier Arroyuelo -Jordan Bruno Genta -Jorge Bucay -Jorge Fondebrider -Jorge Lanata -Jorge Luis Borges -Jorge Zentner -Jose Arce -Jose Hernandez -Jose Marmol -Josefina Passadori -Juan Argerich -Juan Carlos Portantiero -Juan Forn -Juan Gelman -Juan Jose Saer -Juan Maria Gutierrez -Juan Terranova -Juana Manuela Gorriti -Julio Carreras (h) -Julio Cortazar -Leonardo Castellani -Leopoldo Lugones -Liliana Heker -Lisandro de la Torre -List of Argentine writers -Luisa Valenzuela -Macedonio Fernandez -Manuel Mujica Lainez -Manuel Peyrou -Manuel Puig -Marcelo Birmajer -Marcelo Figueras -Marco Denevi -Marcos di Palma -Maria Dhialma Tiberti -Maria Elena Walsh -Maria Ines Falconi -Maria Kodama -Mariano Moreno -Mario Rodriguez Cobos -Miguel Betanzos -Miguel Cane -Mora Torres -Noe Jitrik -Norah Lange -Norberto Ceresole -Oliverio Girondo -Osvaldo Soriano -Pacho O'Donnell -Paul Groussac -Pilar de Lusarreta -Rafael Squirru -Raul Scalabrini Ortiz -Ricardo Piglia -Roberto Fontanarrosa -Rodolfo Enrique Fogwill -Rodolfo Walsh -Rodrigo Fresan -Sergio Chejfec -Silvina Ocampo -Silvio Frondizi -Tomas Eloy Martinez -Victoria Ocampo -Washington Cucurto -William Henry Hudson
This article is licensed under the GNU Free Documentation License. It uses material from the Wikipedia article Jose_Marmol
