From “national ornithologist” to “universal writer”: William Henry Hudson in El hornero magazine

Abstract

In the context of the Argentine reception of the writer and naturalist W. H. Hudson’s work, read from aesthetically and ideologically divergent sectors, the early recovery of his figure in the ornithological magazine El hornero will be investigated here. In the first place, we will try to recompose Hudson’s singular naturalistic exercise and observe how the heterogeneity of his interests dialogues with the multifaceted objectives of the Plata Ornithological Association, founder of El hornero. Second, we will consider the different strategies of translation and incorporation of his naturalistic articles, which are modified in relation to the changes experienced by Hudson’s reception in the national literary scene. We will notice a first interest that is more strictly ornithological (expressed in the addition of scientific notes and unpublished photographs) and secondly an expanded cultural interest that allows the magazine to participate in the tributes that increase around the Centenary of his birth in 1941.