CECÍLIA MEIRELES AND GABRIELA MISTRAL AS READERS OF RABINDRANATH TAGORE: NEGOTIATING GENDER BETWEEN LATIN AMERICA AND INDIA

Abstract

This article depicts the influence of the Bengali author Rabindranath Tagore on two Latin American women writers, both part of the Modernist movement: the Chilean Nobel laureate (1945) Gabriela Mistral, and the Brazilian Cecília Meireles. By examining the poetic reflections on Tagore and his influence on Mistral’s and Meireles’ prose and poetry, the article argues that the Tagore’s reception was important for women’s writing in 20th century Latin America. In analyzing Mistral and Cecília as writers and readers, I will question the differences between both cultural practices and show that Latin America became the hotspot for the development of a poetic that prior to the advent of postcolonial studies, criticized the patriarchal model, and the Eurocentric perspective of the cultural vanguard.