Editing Jorge Luis Borges (section)

===''Martín Fierro'' and Argentine tradition===
{{main|Borges on Martín Fierro}}
Along with other young Argentine writers of his generation, Borges initially rallied around the fictional character of Martín Fierro. ''[[Martín Fierro]]'', a poem by [[José Hernández (writer)|José Hernández]], was a dominant work of 19th-century [[Argentine literature]]. Its eponymous hero became a symbol of Argentine sensibility, untied from European values – a [[gaucho]], free, poor, ''[[pampas]]''-dwelling.<ref Name="Irreverence"/> The character Fierro is illegally drafted to serve at a border fort to defend it against the indigenous population but ultimately deserts to become a ''gaucho matrero'', the Argentine equivalent of a North American western outlaw. Borges contributed keenly to the avant garde [[Martín Fierro (magazine)|''Martín Fierro'' magazine]] in the early 1920s.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Walker |first=Carlos |date=2011 |title=Jorge Luis Borges: De Martín Fierro a Sur (1924-1935) |url=https://journals.iai.spk-berlin.de/index.php/iberoamericana/article/view/531 |journal=IBEROAMERICANA. América Latina - España - Portugal |language=es |volume=11 |issue=41 |pages=25–42 |doi=10.18441/ibam.11.2011.41.25-42 |issn=2255-520X}}</ref>

As Borges matured, he came to a more nuanced attitude toward the Hernández poem. In his book of essays on the poem, Borges separates his admiration for the aesthetic virtues of the work from his mixed opinion of the moral virtues of its protagonist.<ref>Borges and Guerrero (1953) ''El "Martín Fierro'' {{ISBN|84-206-1933-7}}</ref> In his essay "The Argentine Writer and Tradition" (1951), Borges celebrates how Hernández expresses the Argentine character. In a key scene in the poem, Martín Fierro and El Moreno compete by improvising songs on universal themes such as time, night, and the sea, reflecting the real-world gaucho tradition of ''payadas'', improvised musical dialogues on philosophical themes.<ref Name="Irreverence">Gabriel Waisman, Sergio (2005) ''Borges and Translation: The Irreverence of the Periphery'', Bucknell University Press, pp. 126–29; {{ISBN|0-8387-5592-5}}</ref><ref Name="Argentine">Borges, Jorge Luis and Lanuza, Eduardo González (1961) "The Argentine writer and tradition" Latin American and European Literary Society</ref> Borges points out that Hernández evidently knew the difference between actual gaucho tradition of composing poetry versus the "gauchesque" fashion among Buenos Aires literati.<ref>{{Cite journal |last=Queiroz |first=Maria José De |date=1973-09-30 |title=Resenha: BORGES, Jorge Luis. El oro de los tigres. Buenos Aires: Emecé, 1968. 168 p. |url=http://dx.doi.org/10.17851/1678-3549.1.1.126-130 |journal=Phasis |volume=1 |issue=1 |pages=126 |doi=10.17851/1678-3549.1.1.126-130 |doi-broken-date=1 November 2024 |issn=1678-3549}}</ref>

In his works he refutes the arch-nationalist interpreters of the poem and disdains others, such as critic Eleuterio Tiscornia, for their Europeanising approach. Borges denies that Argentine literature should distinguish itself by limiting itself to "local colour", which he equates with cultural nationalism.<ref Name="Argentine"/> [[Jean Racine|Racine]] and [[Shakespeare]]'s work, he says, looked beyond their countries' borders. Neither, he argues, need the literature be bound to the heritage of old-world Spanish or European tradition. Nor should it define itself by the conscious rejection of its colonial past. He asserts that Argentine writers need to be free to define Argentine literature anew, writing about Argentina and the world from the point of view of those who have inherited the whole of world literature.<ref Name="Argentine"/> Williamson says "Borges's main argument is that the very fact of writing from the margins provides Argentine writers with a special opportunity to innovate without being bound to the canons of the centre,&nbsp;... at once a part of and apart from the centre, which gives them much potential freedom".<ref Name="Irreverence"/>