Polca jahe'o, lengua y mundo rural del Paraguay en la poética minimalista de Flaminio Arzamendia

CASTELLS, MARIO ALCIDES; VILLALBA ROJAS, RODRIGO NICOLÁS

A contracorriente

NC State University

Lugar: Raleigh; Año: 2023 vol. 21 p. 180 - 203

1548-7083

This article aims to characterize and make visible the literary dimension of the poetic work of Flaminio Arzamendia, one of the most prolific composers of music in Paraguay and who, despite the shortcomings of the folkloric tradition and the prejudices about the polca jahe'o (popular music with a 'weeping' tone), had managed to interpret a peasant style and aesthetics in transformation process. Here we will reflect both on the levels of Guarani in which his poetry feeds, as well as the overdetermination of the jahe'o style by the concurrence of conjunctural elements that favored the emergence and consolidation of this author. The corpus of poems by Flaminio Arzamendia that we use is the result of a transcription of the musical recordings of his ensemble Los Romanceros Nativos from different stages and with different formations. The first sections of this work make a historical reconstruction of the origins of the polca jahe'o, the emergence of Arzamendia as a lyricist and his becoming a referent of popular music and the constitution of the rural class and its path in the history of Paraguay. The last sections consist of a brief account of poets and styles preceding Arzamendia, and end with the analysis of some representative lyrics of his musical work.