¿Una nueva y gloriosa nación?: Retórica y subjetividad en la Marcha patriótica rioplatense de 1813

Parera and López’s 1813 Patriotic March (present-day Argentine national anthem) did not represent a yet-to-be-produced nationality but constructed it. The March passed along Enlightenment ideals cherished by certain 1810 revolutionaries while also establishing value distinctions between Patriots and Royalists, and projecting a sense of “national” unity, centered in Buenos Aires, by means of Hispanic patriotic musical topics later than 1808. Most topics reinforce the poem, yet some seemingly contradict it. They thus open a window onto the subjectivity of a composer whose agreement with his work does not seem complete and whose positioning vis-à-vis the “new nation” of which he sings is ambivalent.