Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Date of Degree

9-2020

Document Type

Doctoral Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Program

Latin American, Iberian and Latino Cultures

Advisor

Oswaldo Zavala

Committee Members

Esther Allen

Jose del Valle

Subject Categories

Arts and Humanities | Caribbean Languages and Societies | Feminist, Gender, and Sexuality Studies | Intellectual History | Latin American Languages and Societies | Latin American Literature | Religion | Spanish Literature | Women's Studies

Keywords

Saint Teresa, Genealogy, Gabriela Mistral, Teresa Wilms, Juana de Ibarborou, Delmira Agustini, Alfonsina Storni, Alejandra Pizarnik, Dulce María Loynaz

Abstract

This dissertation addresses for the first time a gender-based approach to the understanding of Spanish mystic Saint Teresa’s role as a symbol of feminism, language identity and creative writing theorization in 20th-century Latin American literature. Saint Teresa (1515-1582) was not only a model in her role as an intellectual for authors such as Delmira Agustini (1886-1914), Gabriela Mistral (1889-1957), Victoria Ocampo (1890-1979), Alfonsina Storni (1892-1938), Juana de Ibarborou (1892-1979), Teresa Wilms Montt (1893-1921), Dulce María Loynaz (1902-1997), Silvina Ocampo (1903-1993), Mercedes García Tudurí (1904-1997) y Alejandra Pizarnik (1936-1972), among others, but also a literary referent for those who described and historicized literature written by women over the past century. By focusing on women writers building their own Foucauldian Genealogy, I demonstrate the counter-hegemonic instrumentalization of the figure of Saint Teresa as a strategy of legitimation. Writers selecting precursors prepare their own future reception, but also modify our perception of the past. A new Transatlantic viewpoint on this reappropriation entails a symbolic re-reading of Teresa, in whose literature all these perceptions about language, exile, gender and genre potentially existed.

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