“Una nueva y gloriosa nación”

Abstract

This chapter explores connections between scientific culture and the literary corpus associated with the independence from Spain of the provinces of Río de la Plata in the second decade of the nineteenth century. It seems no coincidence that Fr. Cayetano Rodríguez, Esteban de Luca, and Vicente López y Planes—the three authors of the lyrics competing to be chosen as a national anthem—had strong scientific interests. The analysis of the rhetorical role played by the scientific imaginary in the patriotic poetry of those authors points toward a double dimension of science in this kind of discourse. As a source of intellectual authority and reasonability, it reinforced the neoclassical formats cultivated by the patriotic authors and had a stabilizing effect; but science also opened up a dimension of revolutionary dynamism, a breaking away from tradition, and toward political emancipation.