Mármol, José

Related Category: Latin American Literature: Biographies

(hōsā´ mär´môl), 1817–71, Argentine writer of the romantic school. His invectives against Juan Manuel de Rosas earned him the nickname “the poetic hangman of Rosas.” He was imprisoned by Rosas in 1839 and later fled to Montevideo, where he lived until the overthrow of the dictator. Mármol's fame rests primarily upon his novel La Amalia (1851–55, tr. 1919), which, despite its stilted style, presents a powerful description of the tyranny of Rosas. He also wrote El peregrino (1847) [the pilgrim], a long poem in imitation of Byron's Childe Harold's Pilgrimage.