On gauchos, criollos, and folklores: the concepts behind the terms

Abstract

The paper examines the different meanings these terms acquired in a handful of argentine literature theorists during the first half of the XXth Century. Followed and conditioned by the various assessments of the gaucho and the criollo, the concept of folklore is based upon underlying binary oppositions such as high/popular culture; orality/literacy; rural/urban realm; native/alien; traditional means of communication/mass media. A presentation of the contributions of Ernesto Quesada, Ricardo Rojas, Robert Lehmann-Nitsche, and Juan Alfonso Carrizo, among others, will allow us to understand how these pairs interact in the assembling of the various definitions of folklore, in which the significance of native, Hispanic, and European elements also played an important role.