MARECHAL, LEOPOLDO

born June 11, 1900, Buenos Aires died , September, 1970, Buenos Aires Argentine writer and critic who was best known for his philosophical novels. In the early 1920s, Marechal was part of the literary group responsible for Martn Fierro and Proa, Ultraista journals that revolutionized Argentine letters. His first book of poems, Aguiluchos (1922; Eaglets), employed Modernista techniques in the treatment of pastoral themes. In Das como flechas (1926; Days Like Arrows) and Odas para el hombre y la mujer (1929; Odes for Man and Woman), his metaphors and images become more daring in expressing the Ultraista aesthetic. With Cinco poemas australes (1937; Five Southern Poems), Sonetos a Sophia (1940; Sonnets to Sophia), and El centauro (1940; The Centaur), his poetry was influenced by Neoplatonic philosophy and shows a search for balance and order in a chaotic world. This theme continued in the Canciones Elbitences, love poems addressed to a quintessential woman, Elbiamor. These poems were included in Antologa potica (1969). Marechal's masterpiece is the novel Adn Buenosayres (1948), a work of technical complexity, stylistic innovations, and highly poetic language that was a precursor of the Latin American new novel. The mythical voyage of Adn, the hero, his descent into Hell, and his constant search for the ideal is at once autobiographical, a roman clef, and a historicalization of Argentina from geologic times. A socialist in his youth, Marechal became an ardent Peronist, and during the government of Juan Pern he occupied important government cultural posts. With Pern's fall he went into virtual seclusion but returned to public attention with the novels El banquete de Severo Arcngelo (1965; The Banquet of Severo Arcngelo) and Megafn o la guerra (1970; Megafn, or The War). In these Marechal continued his explorations of mythology and idealism.