TROUBADOURS AND BEDOUINS ON THE PAMPAS: MEDIEVALISM AND ORIENTALISM IN SARMIENTO'S FACUNDO

On one hand, the timeline of modernity dictates a break with the Middle Ages in Europe, at precisely the time in which "the New World" comes into European consciousness. [...]what is today called Latin America was only "discovered" after the Middle Ages had ended. If there is a challenge to power, it is fleeting, even "democratic" (ostensibly positive in liberal democracy, but monstrous in "medieval" society), and impossible to maintain. [...]it is not so much that the countryside is medieval, but that it only partially approximates what for Sarmiento was authentic (European) medieval society, producing disastrous results: "de aquí resulta que la tribu salvaje de la pampas está organizada mejor que nuestras campañas, para el desarrollo moral" (3 1). According to Sarmiento's teleology of history, European societies were able to pass through the Middle Ages while Argentina remains mired in the wreckage of the past. Interestingly enough, Monvoisin's painting "Soldado de la guardia de Rosas" depicts a reclining, shady-eyed gaucho, whose draped clothing, facial hair and turban-like hat do recall his Orientalist depiction of Alí-Pachá the sketch Sarmiento refers to in Facundo. [...]Sarmiento was not alone in his transfer of already-established tropes about the Orient to nineteenthcentury Argentina.