La construcción simbólica del mito de la milonguera en las letras de tango

Abstract

The first lyrics of tango create a particular mythology of the city of Buenos Aires. In fact, the poetry of the tango is inspired by the reality of those days to elaborate a collection of archetypical characters that constitute a symbolic imaginary: the milonguera, the guapo, the compadrito. These are built through a group of symbolic elements that connote these characters. In this article we will analyze the milonguera. During the first decades of the XXth century, the prostitution in Buenos Aires reaches very high levels. At the same time, the cabarets begin to spread in the heart of the city as centres of night entertainment. Inspired by this situation, the lyrics of tango build an archetypical female character, known as milonguera. She is a girl that, seduced by the possibility of improving her material condition, does an initiation trip from the suburbs to the centre of the city, in order to work at the cabaret. This character is constructed, in the lyrics of tango, through a series of particular symbols, which reveal her change of identity.