M. Mujica Lainez: from the illustrious-family nation to the recreation of the decadent "porteño society" (1949-1957)

Abstract

In the narrative stage on " national subject matter " (1949-1957), M. Mujica Lainez recreated, first, constituent events on the history of the Nation: The respective foundations of the city of Buenos Aires, its Reconquest and Defense during both English invasions, the cultural dawns in its new halls and bookshops, etc. With regard to his creators, the writer reveals important roles of his ancestor characters. This is shown, in his first two books of shorts stories: Aquí vivieron…(1949) and Misteriosa Buenos Aires (1951).
Secondly, from 1953 until 1957, we realized that the author decided to move both in his thematic and axiological approach, from the historical-social national matters (contemporary). It will no longer be the literary construction of an honored past, that corresponds to the great National History amalgamated with his own family construction, but the fictional construction of social sectors, once recognized, now, losing their position.
From a social semiotic perspective, we approach these thematic and valued changes (sub-subjects matters), under the theoretical principle of certain relational coherence in the variation of strategic discursive options, put into practice by the agent, in relation to variations of some objective conditions of the social process, of particular relational system (literary), as well as of the career of the writer.-