El signo de las formas en Facundo, civilización y barbarie, de Domingo Faustino Sarmiento

Acerca de la primera recepción del texto y su producción de presencia, desde la sugestión del paisaje a la materialidad del texto

Abstract

Facundo, Civilization and Barbarism, has prompted a long list of studies in which genre classification, rhetorical devices, and historical context are the central axes from which scholars attempt to shed light on the aesthetic and historiographic value of the text. Beyond this, however, the focus of this work is on the evocation of landscapes—both geographical and ideological-political. We aim to explore the construction of meaning within the text, not only through its verbal referential value, but also through its formal aspects and the medium through which it circulates. That is to say, the discourse carries its own intrinsic meaning—literary, novelistic—which also entails a significance that is expressed and deepened through its formal structure and material medium. These elements converge in what the work communicates beyond its concrete referentiality, asserting itself as a presence.