José Hernández | Biography

The Argentine poet José Hernández (1834-1886) was an active social force during the period of consolidation of the Argentine nation. He is best known for his classic gaucho epic, "Martín Fierro."

José Hernández was born on Nov. 10, 1834, on a ranch not far from Buenos Aires. His family was engaged in cattle raising, and various difficulties prevented him from obtaining any sort of formal education. Political events of the mid-19th century in Argentina--most directly the civil wars then being fought--dictated his being sent to live with relatives in Brazil. He eventually returned to Argentina and came to know and sympathize with the life and tribulations of the gauchos of the plains, who were frequently little more than pawns in the raging struggles for political dominance in the young nation.

By 1863 Hernández had settled in Buenos Aires and, after experimenting with several professions, had secured a job as a journalist with the paper El Argentino. Six years later he founded the newspaper Río de la Plata, but it was soon shut down by order of his political adversary, the celebrated Argentine author Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, who was then serving as the nation's president.

During these difficult years Hernández not only had formed strong sympathies for the gauchos' cause but had also developed profound scorn for those Europeanized fellow countrymen who viewed the gaucho as a subject unworthy of serious literary treatment and believed he could serve only as the model for quaint and picturesque caricatures.

"Martín Fierro"

Encouraged by a friend to write a "fundamental" gaucho poem, Hernández began composing in his Buenos Aires hotel room the verses of the first part of the long epic poem he would entitle Martín Fierro . In the 2,325 lines of the poem, which first saw print in 1872, he succeeded in capturing the authentic speech of the gaucho and in fashioning with his dominant sestinas and quatrains an eloquent attack on the social and political attitudes he opposed.

At the outset of the epic, the gaucho Martín Fierro announces that he will sing the song of his sorrows and with that song and the accompaniment of his guitar will seek consolation. There is an acute tone of social protest in Fierro's account of how the good old days had changed and how the government had come to abuse and cheat the gauchos it recruited for the Indian wars. Fierro becomes an outlaw, unites with a fellow gaucho, Cruz, and eventually goes off to live with the Indians, thus rejecting the society of civilized man.

The success of the first part of Martín Fierro was resounding. It was read in the cities and recited and enjoyed by the gauchos themselves on their ranches and around the country store-taverns, where they gathered for diversion. The second part, La vuelta de Martin Fierro (1879), is twice the length of the original poem and recounts Fierro's return to civilization, his search for his lost wife and sons, and further injustices perpetrated by the government. In the end, Fierro rides off aimlessly, with no future, but once more embracing society.

Under a new administration Hernández became a senator, serving in the Congress in Buenos Aires. He held this office until his death, which occurred on Oct. 21, 1886, as the result of a heart attack.