Selected Poetry of Delmira Agustini

by Alejandro Caceres

  notes

  1. All three books were published in Montevideo by Orsini M. Bertani, an Italian intellectual, a naturalized Uruguayan, and a former member of the anarchist party.

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  Expatriated from Italy, Bertani went first to Argentina and afterwards to Uruguay, where he arrived during the first years of the century along with other members of the anarchist party. A member of the Montevidean literary intellectual community, he belonged to the group of writers and political activists who gathered at the famous Polo Bamba coffee house—the most prestigious intellectual center of that moment.

  Between the beginning of the century and 1913, Bertani contributed a great deal to the cultural development of the city by opening a small publishing house in the back room of his own bookstore, where he published a large number of volumes of both prose and poetry written by national and international writers of the time.

  2. For an in-depth study of this period of their lives, see Ofelia Machado Bonet; also, Clara Silva, Genio y figura de Delmira Agustini; Alejandro Cáceres, “Doña María Murtfeld Triaca de Agustini.”

  3. According to Clara Silva, Agustini was quoted by her mother; see Genio y figura.

  It is important to note that the “vulgarity” she refers to may not mean that she considered Enrique Job to be a vulgar (rough, bad-mannered) man but rather that she considered married life and domesticity to be vulgar.

  4. The union of church and state appears legitimated in the 1830 constitution, where it is said that the official religion of the state is the Roman Catholic Apostolic.

  The separation of church and state occurred with the second constitution of March 1, 1919. President Batlle ordered the removal of all Catholic religious symbols in 1906.

  His administration fostered indeed the separations process. See Caetano; and Caetano and Geymonat.

  5. Like other critics writing on this subject, I will employ throughout this work the Spanish noun modernismo and the adjectives modernista and modernistas (to distinguish them from the English linguistically but not contextually equivalent “modernism” and

  “modernist”) to refer to the literary movement that flourished in Spanish America between 1870 and 1920 approximately. For a detailed study on the subject, see Cathy Jrade, Modernismo, Modernity, and the Development of Spanish American Literature.

  6. The adjective cachondo in vulgar Spanish means sexually aroused, but I consider

  “flirting” to be the closest possible translation, although “to flirt” does not necessarily imply a sexual move. On the other hand, the noun pudor does not necessarily translate as “candor” but rather as “modesty” or “decorum.” Candor in English means

  “frankness” or “sincerity” of expression. Of all these possibilities, I believe that Modesty and Flirting is still the closest choice. It has been suggested that an alternative translation could also be Modesty and the Sex Drive. In sum, the idea behind the two nouns represents the game between the male and the female—his chasing her, her escaping from him, as a prelude to the sexual encounter. See also Claudia Giaudrone and Nilo Berriel, El pudor, la cachondez, de Julio Herrera y Reissig.

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  7. The Charrúa Indians were one of the tribes living in what is today the territory of Uruguay when the Spaniards arrived. They were extremely brave, and because of that they could not be integrated into civilized society. In the early part of the twentieth century they were finally exterminated. The “new Charrúas” in Herrera y Reissig’s expression implies a sarcastic way to label the Uruguayan population at the time.

  8. This group of poems constitutes perhaps the most difficult, hermetic, and intricate sample of Agustini’s writings. The posthumous poems are neither well known nor easy to understand. Indeed, they are highly complex, and, in my interpretation, involve the notions of Jungian collective unconscious and theory of archetypes, as well as medieval alchemy and the organization, meaning, and proper recitation of the Christian rosary of the Virgin Mary. See my introduction to Delmira Agustini: Poesías completas, pp. 62–69.

  9. He refers to Spanish critic and novelist Juan Valera (1824–1905), forerunner on the criticism of Darío’s work, who already uses the adjective cosmopolita when evaluating, in 1888, Darío’s Azul. Monguió refers also to José Enrique Rodó (1872–

  1917), who believed that “the poets who may want to express in a manner universally intelligible for the superior souls, educated and humane ways of thinking and feeling, should renounce to a true stamp of original Americanism, meaning that they must be culturally and expressively cosmopolitan” (78). He also refers to Argentine critic and writer Anderson Imbert, who in 1961 also employs the same adjective when discussing Darío’s work. Moreover, he points out that between 1888 and 1961 many other critics have also used the same idea when discussing works written not only by Rubén Darío, but by other modernista authors. And the critic adds that Darío himself employed this term when referring to the modernista revolution in Hispanic letters.

  10. Men like Rodó, with his Ariel (1900), Darío with his Cantos de vida y esperanza (1905), and Lugones with his Odas seculares (1910) attempted to emphasize Spanish Americanism. “These modernista authors, so cosmopolitan in their love for the ideal, knew how to turn their eyes to América . . . to exult the beautiful values they believed were essential to the integrity of their tradition and their land” (Rodó qtd. in Monguió 86).

  11. While the philosophical origins of modernity can be traced to the Renaissance, notes Jrade, the characteristics of modernity or modern times become more clear within the second half of the eighteenth century and are related to scientific and technological knowledge, the Industrial Revolution, and the changes brought about by capitalism. The critic explores “the nature of the connection between modernismo and modernity, thereby modifying the way in which the movement is perceived”

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  ( Modernismo 2). Jrade also maintains that all the social and political changes that occurred as a consequence of modern life encouraged literary responses very different from those of previous movements. Furthermore, Jrade states that since modernismo is the first Spanish American movement occupied with matters associated with the onset of modernity, it is also the one movement marking “fundamental shifts in the roles assigned to the poet, language, and literature” (2). She concludes by affirming that all these changes have continued influencing recent developments in Spanish American literature, placing it “in the much contested rubric of postmodernity” (2).

  12. Calinescu calls the first modernity the “bourgeois idea of modernity,” which has continued with the traditions of former periods “in the history of the modern idea” (41). These traditions—states the critic—are the “doctrine of progress, the confidence in the beneficial possibilities of science and technology, the concern with time . . . like any other commodity” that has a value in monetary terms, “the cult of reason, and the ideal of freedom . . . the orientation towards pragmatism, and the cult of action and success” (41). All these values were promoted in “the triumphant civilization established by the middle class” (42). On the contrary, the other modernity, which he calls “cultural modernity” (42) was from its romantic beginnings inclined towards radical antibourgeois attitudes. This modernity, says Calinescu, reflected a disgust with the middle class scale of values, a discomfort which was expressed in a variety of ways including, rebellion, anarchy, and aristocratic self-exile.

  To Calinescu, “the history of the alienation of the modern writer starts with the romantic movement,” and in an earlier stage, “the object of hatred and ridicule is philistinism, a typical form of middle class hypocrisy” (43).

  13. According to Coll, modernismo meant for
the Latin American writers a revolution in “Art.” Zavala discusses the idea that Art cannot be divorced from history nor creative activities from politics, “for in the radical perspective of the arts, they are a solid matrimony. And it is in precisely this way that the Latin American modernistas viewed their own struggle at the turn of the century” (“1898” 43). This Marxist perspective implies “studying art as conditioned by time, and by the needs and hopes of particular historical situations” (44). Modernista writers were, of course, “lovers of beauty,” explains Zavala, but “to them Art was also an activity of self-knowledge, self-determination, cultural and national independence” (44). Modernismo did not mean a revolution in aesthetic practices alone; they were integrating in a very particular artistic language the experiences of new countries, and they hoped to do it in a revolutionary language which would enable them to express their own particular conceptions of the world. By destroying old forms, they left as a legacy to generations of Latin Americans a method of constructive Introduction / 23

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  fantasy, which would be later linked with the theme of revolution and class struggle: César Vallejo and Pablo Neruda offered a way of social decisions with clear conscience. (44–45)

  14. When discussing the works of Enrique González Martínez and his memorable sonnet “Tuércele el cuello al cisne . . .” (Twist the neck of the swan . . .), which for many had traditionally meant the end of modernismo, and the beginning of what for some was postmodernismo, Cathy Jrade emphasizes the error those early critics had made:

  Contrary to their contention, the “swans of deceitful plumage” (cisnes de engañoso plumaje) to which González Martínez refers, did not belong to modernista poets, but rather, as he himself would make clear, to the myriad, now long-forgotten, hack imitators who echoed the language of modernismo, its opulence, elegance, and ornamentation, without comprehending the underlying issue that defined modernista poetics. ( Modernismo 95) This is the same group that Zavala mentions in her article on Coll’s ideas.

  15. To Angel Rama, “[t]he onset of modernization around 1870 was the second test facing the lettered city in the nineteenth century” ( The Lettered City 50), the first test being the independence period. It was “towards the end of the nineteenth century,”

  Rama explains, that in Latin America, “a dissidence began to manifest itself within the lettered city and to configure a body of critical thought” (55). Rama also quotes Uruguayan writer and philosopher Carlos Vaz Ferreira, who once remarked that

  “those who lived too late to be positivists became Marxists instead—highlighting the way that Latin American intellectuals have selectively adapted successive European doctrines to their own vigorous, internal traditions” (56). Rama moves on to discuss the fact that “Latin American writers lived and wrote in cities and, if possible, capital cities, remaining resolutely urban people, however much they sprinkled their works with the naturalistic details required by the literary vogue of local color” (61). Rama considers José Martí and Rubén Darío as the “two greatest Latin American poets of the period of modernization” (61).

  Meanwhile, in discussing the bohemian lifestyle and the utopias, Rafael Gutiérrez Girardot quotes César Graña, who understands the rise of the bohemian lifestyle to be the result of the disappearance of the traditional sponsors who for centuries had supported writers, artists, and musicians. He also refers to the establishment of the bourgeois middle class as a dominant class both politically and ideologically; also the rising of technology and industrialization, the democratization of literary life in the cities, the unemployment of intellectuals, besides the ennui, the theory of the personal genius, and the Introduction / 24

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  tension between writers, society, and the State. (Graña qtd. in Gutiérrez Girardot, Modernismo 176)

  16. “Volver a los modernistas significa salvaguardar el recurso a la estilización, a la sublimación, a la libidinación como antídotos contra la existencia alienada, como compensadoras de las restricciones de lo real empírico. Significa alcanzar por el extrañamiento la trascendencia irrealizable en la práctica social, vislumbrar por la utopía la completud que el orden imperante imposibilita. Significa preservar el poder de subversión, la capacidad de recrear imaginativamente la experiencia fáctica.

  Preservar la gratuidad, lo sorpresivo y sorprendente, la proyección quimérica.

  Realizar el deseo en la dimensión estéica para oponerlo a la represión, a la violencia reductora del mundo factible” ( Celebración 9).

  17. Perus considers that the selection of these three moments is not theoretically arbitrary, but rather that these periods constitute true milestones around which the global process of modern and contemporary Spanish American literature acquires meaning. Moreover, explains Perus,

  those “trends” correspond to well defined and highly representative moments of the historical development of the continent: implantation of the capitalistic way of production of a Latin America inserted in the capitalist-imperialist new world order, in the case of modernismo; a crisis of the local

  “oligarchic” sector of capitalist development, with an uprising of the lower social groups and the middle stages of the political scene, in the case of the

  “social novel” of the period 1910–1950; and a crucial change of direction of Latin American groups towards a process of industrialization, and accentuated urbanization, with characteristics each time more complex and conflictive of articulation with imperialism, in the case of the ‘new narrative ’ of the 60’s.

  (9–10)

  18. In her article “1898, Modernismo, and the Latin American Revolution,”

  Iris Zavala briefly states one of the fundamental concepts of Marxist criticism regarding art:

  Those who think that Marxist critics are only concerned with realist literary works that depict revolutionary socialist trends, have missed the point, for the study of artistic expression goes well beyond social realism. Marxist analysis, to my understanding, implies studying art as conditioned by time, and by the needs and hopes of particular historical situations. (44) 19. This notion of “race” can also be found in the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche and Arthur Schopenhauer.

  20. For more analysis of the swan imagery in Agustini’s work, see Molloy.

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  21. These two aesthetic movements—as well as all other “isms” of the turn of the century—emerged towards the end of the second decade of the twentieth century; by then Delmira Agustini had been dead for about five years. Ultraísmo— the Spanish version of the French dadaism— appeared in Spain in 1919 by means of the “Ultra”

  manifesto signed by a group of young poets, among whom were Guillermo de Torre, Juan Larrea, Gerardo Diego, and Jorge Luis Borges. Once Agustini abandoned the modernista imagery, her poetic voice started focusing on the same revolution of the avant-garde aesthetics that the group of young ultraísta poets was also looking for: A kind of aesthetic revolution that could take the poem to a different level, a different and superior dimension. Cathy Jrade notes that

  [t]he decisive shift that actually signals an essential reorientation away from the modernista agenda comes when the overall optimism of modernismo gives way to a more pervasive doubt and the abiding faith in a divine order is eroded by penetrating anguish. Confidence that cultural patterns are capable of revealing, evoking, or reflecting transcendental truths is undermined by a corrosive skepticism. The pursuit of formal beauty and logic recedes as art focuses on and aggressively confronts what is interpreted to be an increasingly hostile environment. This profound alteration is what defines la vanguardia, the avant-garde. ( Modernismo 94)

  She also considers Agustini as a representative of the avant-garde.

  22. This was a conscious effort Zum Feld
e made after the poet died and was probably due to his trying to put distance between himself and the tragedy. It was a matter of politics—they had been quite close, and now he was becoming very famous as a critic and scholar. Nevertheless, in 1914, Zum Felde published an extraordinary open letter to the public that analyzed the poet’s work, and it can be considered the earliest example of true and positive criticism on Agustini. See Zum Felde, Proceso intelectual del Uruguay and “Carta”; and Cortazzo, “Una hermenéutica machista.”

  23. See Molloy; this article was also reprinted in Delmira Agustini: Nuevas penetraciones críticas (1996): 92–106.

  24. This subject was, precisely, the one that suggested to me to undertake a difficult study of the famous letter Enrique Job sent to Delmira once they were separated; indeed, one of my conclusions was the evaluation of how positive the relationship between the parents and the daughter was. See my essay “Doña María Murtfeldt Triaca de Agustini.”

  25. I find this comment especially convincing, because it coincides with my own criticism and analysis of the fabric of Agustini’s poetry. See my introduction to Delmira Agustini: Poesías completas , especially pp. 41–44.

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