1837 generation

Meeting of the "Literary hall"

The 1837 generation (Spanish: Generación del '37) was an Argentine literary group. Influenced by the new romantic ideas, they rejected the cultural Spanish heritage of the country. They considered themselves the "sons of the May Revolution", as they were born shortly after it, and wrote some of the earliest Argentine literary works. They did not acknowledge any national roots in the indigenous peoples or the period of European colonization, focusing instead on the Revolution as the birth of the country.

The group established a literary hall in 1837, hence the name. Initially, they claimed to be neutral in the Argentine Civil Wars, but in time they wrote works biased against the federal governor Juan Manuel de Rosas (such as El Matadero by Esteban Echeverría or Facundo by Domingo Faustino Sarmiento) and became fully Unitarians.

Some notable members of this generation were Esteban Echeverría, Juan Bautista Alberdi, Miguel Cané, Bartolomé Mitre, Andrés Lamas, Antonio Somellera, Vicente Fidel López, Carlos Tejedor, Juan Bautista Peña, Florencio Varela, Juan Cruz Varela, José Mármol, José Rivera Indarte (Buenos Aires), Domingo Faustino Sarmiento, Quiroga Rosas, Antonino Aberastain, Santiago Cortínez (San Juan), Benjamín Villafañe, Félix Frías (Tucumán), Francisco Álvarez, Paulino Paz, Enrique Rodríguez, Avelino Ferreyra, Ramón Ferreyra (Córdoba), Juan Thompson (Corrientes).