Santos Vega Revisited

This article examines Hilario Ascasubi's Santos Vega (1872), analyzing the significant differences between the original 1850 composition (Los Mellizos) and the extensively revised version published after the author's return from two decades of Montevideo exile. Through close textual analysis, the author demonstrates how Ascasubi transformed his work from a contemporaneous political narrative into a nostalgic reconstruction of colonial Argentina's pastoral past.The study reveals a complex narrative structure with multiple levels: an exterior frame featuring Santos Vega as narrator, the main story of twins Rufo Tolosa and Luis on an estancia called "La Flor," and several digressive subplots introduced in the 1872 revision. The article argues that Ascasubi's revisions reflect his disillusionment with the liberal project he had championed during the Rosas years and the subsequent decades of civil conflict. Rather than continuing his earlier political propaganda against tyranny, the aged poet created a nostalgic vision of gaucho life in an idealized colonial era before partisan warfare divided Argentina. The analysis explores how Ascasubi appropriated the legendary payadorSantos Vega—demythologizing the Devil's role while emphasizing the bard's storytelling abilities—as a narrative device to filter his own memories and experiences. By comparing the 1850 and 1872 versions, particularly the added chapters depicting urban corruption versus rural virtue, the author reveals Ascasubi's increasingly cynical view of Buenos Aires society and his romantic idealization of the estancia as a lost golden age where hard work, loyalty, and social harmony prevailed—a Faustian vision representing both personal failure and national disappointment.