POETISA CHIC: FASHIONING THE MODERN FEMALE POET IN CENTRAL AMERICA, 1929-1944 By Erin S. Finzer Submitted to the Department of Spanish and Portuguese and the Graduate Faculty of the University of Kansas in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy. ______________________________ Dr. Jill S. Kuhnheim, Chairperson ______________________________ Dr. K. Vicky Unruh ______________________________ Dr. Yajaira Padilla ______________________________ Dr. Jonathan Mayhew ______________________________ Dr. Brent Metz Date Defended: ______________________________ ii The Dissertation Committee for Erin S. Finzer certifies That this is the approved version of the following dissertation: POETISA CHIC: FASHIONING THE MODERN FEMALE POET IN CENTRAL AMERICA, 1929-1944 Committee: ______________________________ Dr. Jill S. Kuhnheim, Chairperson ______________________________ Dr. K. Vicky Unruh ______________________________ Dr. Yajaira Padilla ______________________________ Dr. Jonathan Mayhew ______________________________ Dr. Brent Metz Date Approved: ______________________________ iii ABSTRACT Erin S. Finzer, Ph.D. Department of Spanish and Portuguese, August 2008 University of Kansas This dissertation explores the cultural and literary “fashionings” of Central American female poets of the 1930s in order to demonstrate how some of these poets entered the lettered city (Ángel Rama’s term for the nexus of the Latin American city, written discourse and political and social power), a metaphoric place still dominated by men at that time. Recent Central American cultural studies have found the 1930s to be a critical decade of dictatorships, nascent revolutionary movements, modernization, and foreign imperialism that sets the stage for the conflicts of the later twentieth century. My project takes part in this scholarship by attending to the significant increase in published female poets during this time. I recover their previously unstudied poetry and examine its participation in contemporary middlebrow aesthetics, theosophy, discussions of modernization, mestizaje, and social revolution. Close readings of women’s poetry in relation to other cultural texts (such as photography, film, narrative, pedagogy, and state propaganda) demonstrate how literary criticism and cultural studies can work together to provide a richer view of literature’s roles in both underpinning and undermining hegemonic views on gender relations. iv The idea of fashion brings together gender, modernity, cultural production, and consumption in the poetry of many of the authors I study. In that the verb, to fashion, and the Greek verb, poiein, both mean “to create,” this study examines the poetics and fashionings of social and historical processes of 1930s Central America. In particular, fashion theory—the study of fashion as communication—allows me to consider the complexities and ambiguities that poetry and fashion encompassed for women as sign systems. Each chapter draws on the work of several Central American female poets—among whom are well-recognized Clementina Suárez and Claudia Lars—and analyzes their verse vis-à-vis non-poetic texts taken from “high,” mass-mediated, and popular cultures. Setting the stage for subsequent chapters, chapter 1 uses reception studies to consider the poetisa aesthetics and gendered literary communities of Carmen Sobalvarro, Olivia de Wyld, Magdalena Spínola, and Claudia Lars. Chapter 2 considers the modernizing force of erotic verse, which invests women’s sexuality with power in the work of Alma Fiori, Clementina Suárez, and Olga Solari. Chapter 3 looks at theosophy and its potential for both framing and veiling socially and politically subversive readings in the works of Angelina Acuña, Claudia Lars, and Clementina Suárez, and chapter 4 examines the different ways in which Carmen Sobalvarro, María de Baratta, and Olivia de Wyld use the huipil as a trope of indigenism. Finally, my conclusion sets the stage for future work on this generation’s use of the lyric as a platform for promoting feminism and social revolution throughout the isthmus. v To Bert For Blanche and Sarah Blanche vi Can we imagine, or should we, a position that speaks in tropes and walks in sensible shoes? —Nancy Miller, Subject to Change, 76. Beyond the theater, the question of costume reaches deep into the life of art and poetry, where fashion is at once preserved and overcome. —Walter Benjamin, The Arcades Project [B1a,4], 65. vii Table of Contents Illustrations…………………………………………………………………..……..vii Acknowledgements……………………………………………………………...…viii Introduction: Theorizing Fashion and the Poetics of Cultural Studies………….…...1 One: Poetisas and Central American Literary Culture…………………………....27 Two: Eroticism and the Modern Woman……………………………………...…..96 Three: Theosophy and Subversive Inscriptions…………………………….….….156 Four: Mestizaje and Custom Fitting the Huipil……………………………...…...206 Afterword: Fashioning Revolutions……………………..……………...………...262 Appendix A: Carmen Sobalvarro…………………………………………………273 Appendix B: Aura Rostand………………………………………………………..279 Works Cited………………………………………………………………………..286 viii Illustrations Society photo from Pinceladas………………………………………………72 Portrait of Olivia de Wyld…………………………………………………...76 Portrait of María Teresa Sánchez…………………………………………...115 Cover art of Canción redonda………………………………………………195 Raquelita del Cid………………………………………………………...…231 Las nenas…………………………………………………………………...232 Cover art of Destellos del alma…………………………………………….235 Barechested indigenous woman…………………………………………....236 Photo of Carmen Sobalvarro……………………………………………….278 Photo of Aura Rostand……………………………………………………..284 Drawing of Aura Rostand…………………………………………………..285 ix Acknowledgements I have many people to thank for helping me to write this dissertation. My family members have been my constant cheerleaders throughout this project. Bert and Sarah Blanche have often put their needs second, and Mom, Dad, Nick and Dianne have provided invaluable babysitting. Kirsten Drickey and other dear friends in KU’s Spanish graduate program have lent me their shoulders, ears, and ideas. My committee has consistently provided me with insightful and encouraging feedback, and Jill has given me the freedom to experiment and explore. Tom Spaccarelli first encouraged my passion for Central American poetry. Jill Kuhnheim, Andy Debicki and the 2003 NEH Poetics Seminar first taught me to think about poetry theoretically. P.E.O. International (with the local support of Dru Sampson and Chapter GQ) funded a semester of my doctoral research, and KU’s Office of Graduate Research twice granted me funding to conduct summer research in Central America. KU’s Center of Latin American Studies also funded a year for me to study Kaqchikel Maya with a Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowship. The KU Libraries, especially the Inter-Library Loan Office, have been instrumental in finding and obtaining rare books for me, and the University of Texas Nettie Lee Benson Latin American Collection has given me permission to reproduce a number of images from their holdings. Janet Gold and Jorge Eduardo Arellano have shared with me their archives, without which this project would have been lacking. The amicable staff at the UPS Store on Clinton Parkway has helped me with thousands of x inexpensive photocopies. Ruben Flores has advised me in terms of the Mexican Revolution’s Secretary of Public Education and rural teachers. The following people have very kindly helped me with contacts in Central America: Yvette Aparicio, Frances Jaeger, Francisco Solares-Larrave, Patricia Fumero, Stacy Lutsch, Megan Thornton, Tamara Falicov, Tom Spaccarelli, Arturo Arias and Sonia Ticas. In Central America, the following people and organizations facilitated my research: Helena Ramos, Jorge Eduardo Arellano, Claribel Alegría, María Lourdes Cortés, Mercedes Ramírez, William Miranda, Eddy Kuhl, Thelma Porres Morfín and her staff at Antigua’s Centro de Investigaciones Regionales Mesoamericanas (CIRMA), Raúl Figueroas Santi and F & G Editores in Guatemala, the Hemeroteca Nacional de Guatemala, and the Centro Costarricense de Producciones Cinematográficas (CCPC). 1 Introduction Theorizing Fashion and the Poetics of Cultural Studies In the present context of post-revolutionary Central America, historical scholarship has turned to the past in an effort to restore national memories of the times before and during the dictatorships that promoted often distorted versions of history and led to years of civil war. Many of these studies have identified the 1930s as a critical decade in Central America due to its nations’ trying to defend and define themselves within the complex, often contradictory, forces of rapid modernization, militarization, military invasion, and economic imperialism.1 Not only did several dictators—such as Jorge Ubico in Guatemala, Maximiliano Hernández Martínez in El Salvador, and Anastasio Somoza García in Nicaragua—consolidate their power during this time period, but the United Fruit Company (UFC) was at the height of its influence, and the U.S. military presence in Nicaragua reminded the entire region of its precarious independence.2 As will be discussed in more detail in chapter 2, the heavy-handed economic policies of these regimes, as well as the wealth that accompanied the UFC and other foreign military and economic interests, signified a late-arriving, rapid modernization to Central America in the 1930s, in spite of the global economic depression that characterized the decade for the rest of the world. With increases