El amor a la patria y a la tribu. Las retóricas de la memoria incómoda

Abstract

Attention is directed to moral attitudes and emotions generated by national anthems and by a certain category of Indianist poetry, with commentary being made on a selection of texts from the perspective of an aesthetic of reception. Patriotic anthems and tribal verses constitute rhetorics which construct differentiated amorous sentiments. However, notwithstanding the specificity of different forms of expression, anthems and poems elaborate the love for imaginary communities as an instrument for concealing or disguising emotional ambiguity of the contemporary individual in the face of collective subjects. Country and tribe, when converted into building materials of self, become part of (affective) intimacy even as they represent an insatiable or necessary other, as may be the case. Such narratives arise from a troubling memory, as the expression of memory's discomfort.