Feminine Anxiety of Influence Revisited: Alfonsina Storni and Delmira Agustini

Author(s): J. ANDREW BROWN

Source: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos , Invierno 1999, Vol. 23, No. 2
(Invierno 1999), pp. 191-203
Published by: Revista Canadiense de Estudios Hispánicos

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/27763541

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J. ANDREW BROWN

Feminine Anxiety of Influence

Revisited: Alfonsina Storni and
Delmira Agustini

En este art?culo, se re-examina la cr?tica feminista de la teor?a de influencia po?tica

de Harold Bloom a partir de la poes?a de la argentina Alfonsina Storni y la de su
antecesora, la uruguaya Delmira Agustini. En una comparaci?n de algunos de los
poemas de ambas autoras, se notan varios ejemplos en Storni de apropiaci?n y
revisi?n de im?genes po?ticas antes empleadas por Agustini. En la repetici?n de estas
im?genes se puede apreciar un hacer po?tica que se asemeja a la trayectoria trazada
por Harold Bloom en The Anxiety of Influence, pero esta semejanza sugiere una
excepci?n a la cr?tica feminista de Bloom, seg?n la cual la llamada "ansiedad de
influencia" es una condici?n dif?cilmente atribuible a las escritoras. A la luz de una
re-evaluaci?n de los postulados te?ricos, pues, nuestra lectura de im?genes
agustinianas en la poes?a de Storni pretende iluminar y enriquecer nuestro
entendimiento de la relaci?n po?tica entre las dos poetas.

In his recent novel, Un amor imprudente, Pedro Orgambide creates a dialogue

between Manuel Ugarte and Alfonsina Storni that invites an inquiry into the
poetical relationship between the Argentine poet and Delmira Agustini.

?Yo [Storni] estaba en Montevideo cuando Rub?n Dar?o la visit? a Delmira. Ella ley?
sus versos y ?l llor? de emoci?n. Lo estoy viendo. Es una gran poeta...
?Como usted.
??Dej?monos de galanter?as, Manuel! Ella es una rara avis entre tanta mediocridad.
Escribe la mejor poes?a er?tica del continente ... Es una diosa, como dicen Uds. (55)

This fictional conversation brings to the fore the question of how Storni defined
herself as a poet against the more imposing figure of Agustini. Yet we need not
depend solely on Orgambide for such a suggestion, Storni herself provided a
non-fictional source for the novelist's aestheticization of the relationship
between the two poets. In a conference given at the University of Montevideo in

REVISTA CANADIENSE DE ESTUDIOS HISP?NICOS Vol XXIII, 2 Invierno 1999

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 192

1920, Storni is reported to have referred to Agustini as the greatest female poet
of America and as the precursor to all subsequent poetry written by women
(Roxlo and M?rmol 89). Storni's comment, combined with Orgambide's
impression of the feeling seemingly suggested in the conference, reminds one of
Harold Bloom's well-known theory of poetic influence first introduced in The
Anxiety of Influence and developed in subsequent books. Having interpreted both
Storni's comments and Orgambide's scene as suggestions that such a relation
ship could exist, I intend to explore the way in which Storni experiences an
anxiety of influence with Delmira Agustini as a precursor. I will examine
Bloom's theory as he presents it and then consider it in light of feminist revisions
and objections. I will then interpret examples of Storni's work from a critical
position informed by Agustini's poetry and Bloom's theories.
Bloom argues that as poets develop their ability, they pass through a number
of stages as they free themselves from the influence of their poetic precursors. A
young poet, or ephebe as Bloom names him (I repeat Bloom's use of pronouns),
begins his journey with a clinamen, or "swerve" from the poems created by a
precursor. He uses similar images, but changes directions as he moves from the
poem. In tessera, the poet uses the "terms" of the precursor, but uses them to
mean something other than their meaning in the original poem, in a sense
revising them. The poet then moves through kenosis, "a movement toward
discontinuity with the precursor" (14), to dcemonization, in which the poet
becomes a strong poet, just beyond the precursor. Askesis places him in his
solitary role as strong poet, and is followed by the final apophrades in which the
strong poet returns to the precursor's work, absorbing it in a sense that makes
it seem more the new poet's than the precursor's. Bloom characterizes this
process as a Freudian dipal struggle in which the young poet must kill his
poetic father in order to gain access to the mother/muse/whore with whom he
will beget his own, original poetry despite the fact that she has "whored with
many before him" (61).
While Bloom's ideas are persuasive when applied to English and American
romantic male poets, their efficacy has been disputed when applied to other
groups of poets, especially women. On the surface, Bloom's argument seems
especially inappropriate as applied to a feminine poetic. Even though the
publication of The Anxiety of Influence in 1973 might allow for some leeway to be
given for the gender-specific language Bloom uses throughout the work, this
language also contributes to the heavily masculine atmosphere that permeates
Bloom's theory. Indeed, Bloom's choices of "strong" poets exclude women from
his argument and he only discusses one woman in the entire work, Emily
Dickinson, and then only briefly. Perhaps, then, the gender specific language and
metaphors he uses are not altogether inappropriate, since one would wonder to
what woman his text would be referring. Nevertheless, while Bloom's patriarchal
position leaves much to be desired for those studying anything other than

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 193

masculine writing, his theories are not so easily dismissed. The premise of a poet
who must elaborate a new poetic "stance" is persuasive as it suggests a quest for
originality that we appreciate as post-romantic readers of poetry (Bloom 71).1
While we can question Bloom's choices of language and allegory, we must
continue to deal with their deeper theoretical implications. To adopt a scientific
practice, we can judge the explanatory power of the model he has suggested by
applying it to other poets, female in our case, and observing how his hypothesis
explains the phenomena.
Such studies already exist in the fields of nineteenth- and twentieth-century
American and English female poets. Sandra Gilbert and Susan Gubar, in their
equally well-known The Madwoman in the Attic, devote a chapter to their
revision of Bloom's theory in which they adapt it for use in feminist studies. In
this now canonical work, they reject a supposed anxiety of influence as a viable
description of the relationship between women poets, who tend to look at female
precursors as sisters in the struggle against the male tradition (48). However,
they do note its usefulness in describing aspects of the strategies women authors
must use as they create a space within or without the male tradition. Gilbert and
Gubar call the anxiety women feel as they write against this tradition of
masculine production an "anxiety of authorship" rather than one of influence
(48-49). Annette Kolodny, in her article "The Influence of Anxiety" has revealed
other limitations in the explanatory power of Bloom's theory in regards to
women poets and novelists. Criticizing the psychoanalytic metaphor proposed
by Bloom, in which she echoes Gilbert and Gubar, Kolodny questions the
psychological ability of women to participate in the decidedly masculine
metaphors Bloom employs. For example, she questions how the female poet
would incestuously embrace Bloom's mother/harlot/muse in order to beget her
own poetry (114). Kolodny s critique continues on even deeper levels. For a
strong woman poet to appear, she argues, she must not only overcome her male
precursors but the male literary tradition in which she finds herself (119).
Kolodny's critique of the poetry of Amy Lovell is based on a concept of the
poetic sisterhood of women writers rather than on the notion of competition
among them (122). More significantly, she raises the issue of inaccessibility to
female precursors. Kolodny accurately notes that early American female poets
would have had limited access to their sister's work and then only to fragmented
and corrupted versions of it (123). Kolodny then creates a feminine version of
Bloom's theory, appropriating and revising his vocabulary so as to present a new
poetic tradition that promotes sisterhood and revises the previous masculine
paradigm: "Discovering, with Adrienne Rich, that we have our own work cut
out for us,' women now call back the Muses as their own, revel in their shared
misprisions and revisions of the whole of poetic history" (138). Misprision and
revision, Bloom's words, now occupy a feminine space, commenting the female
poetical dynamic suggested by Kolodny. The critical path she follows seems to

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 194

lead her to a more presentable Bloom, a workable theory once one allows for
women and as long as one applies it to the woman's struggle against the male
poetical tradition. This act also serves to entrench the critique and revision of
Bloom offered by Gilbert and Gubar.
While all three critics argue effectively and persuasively, they end up repeating
Bloom in one significant area. Just as Bloom wrote what he knew best - which
sadly did not include women poets - Gilbert and Gubar choose to write of North
American and English female authors of the nineteenth century while Kolodny
writes only of American female poets and authors in the nineteenth and
twentieth centuries, all three critics are victims of academic boundaries and the
sheer impossibility of knowing all of world literature. So, while Amy Lovell
would have had limited access to other female poets in 1925, what of Alfonsina
Storni who had complete access to the always canonical and recognizably strong
Delmira Agustini? It seems ironic that in a society recognized as extremely
patriarchal and machista, we find a group of canonical women poets in early
twentieth-century Latin America that include both Agustini and Storni along
with Gabriela Mistral and Juana de Ibarbourou. While one should recognize that
these poets were exceptions to a tradition in which the great majority of female
writers were forgotten, this pocket of writers creates severe difficulties for the
current feminist critique of Bloom if applied universally to Latin American
women.2
This unique group of female poets with a markedly feminine discourse offers
the opportunity for a better understanding of the workings of Bloom's theory
based on canonical masculine poets. These canonical female writers offer the
opportunity to observe any anxiety of influence that might exist without the
problems of limited access that Kolodny was right to note in the case of early
twentieth-century American female poets. In the study of Delmira Agustini and
Alfonsina Storni, several critics have examined the way in which each of the
poets have had to struggle against the male tradition.3 While these studies
contain valuable insight into this important struggle, I will focus on Storni's
attempts to free herself from Agustini's influence and how her poetic self
creation requires a revisiting of the accepted ideas of feminine anxiety of
influence.
Storni's early poetry encompasses several poetic influences. Rachel Phillips
(16) has commented on the presence of Rub?n Dar?o, Leopoldo Lugones, Amado
Nervo and Delmira Agustini in Storni's first book, La inquietud del rosal (1916).
Indeed, and as Phillips notes, Storni suppresses many of the poems from this first
book in her personal anthology for this very reason (15). Even so, I would argue
that in her early poetry and especially in her second book, El dulce da?o (1918),
Storni begins a process that resembles Bloom's concepts of clinamen and tessera,
especially in regards to the work of Delmira Agustini.

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 195

Clinamen, or that swerve the ephebe experiences as he begins his trajectory

from influence, becomes evident in several poems in El dulce da?o. "As?" (75),
the poem that opens the book, uses imagery of thirst as poetic desire in a manner
that imitates and expands the same image Agustini uses in her poem "La sed"
(98) from her El libro blanco (1907). While the poems seem disparate at first, the
image of thirst remains a constant as an image of the desire to create poetry that
we see previously in Agustini. In "As?," the poetic "I" is driven by her "mala sed"
to create poetry, sending her to try different tastes that represent the varying
themes of the poems in her book. The images that link the poems of Storni and
Agustini, honey and thirst, suggest a kind of misreading in which Storni accepts
the function of the thirst image along with an implicit rejection of the honeyed
poetry that she finds in Agustinas poem. The swerve comes as she subverts the
very positive atmosphere one finds in "La sed." While Agustini exults in the
water that quenches her metaphorical thirst, Storni condemns the same drive to
poetry, emphasizing her anguish in poetic creation. Despite Storm's attempts to
provide a different impression of the creative experience, she is unable to escape
the more powerful images and metaphors that Agustini has suggested. Storni is
left posturing herself against the model created by her precursor while using
images that are essentially unadapted in their representational function.
The swerve appears on a smaller scale in other poems. For example, in "Este
grave da?o" (76) and in the very title of the book, El dulce da?o, Storni evokes
the oxymoronic pleasure/pain combination that Agustini uses so widely in her
poetry. Storni imitates this contradiction as she notes that the grave da?o of
poetry - evoked in the images of roses and butterflies used to refer to poetry in
"As?" - is at the same time a life-giving force. "Este grave da?o" evokes the
masochistic tendencies of poetry that Agustini suggested in "La miel" (139) and
other poems in which she uses the images of honey and the bee so that honey
suggested the pleasure of poetry while, at the same time, its source, the bee,
served to remind that the pain of the sting always accompanied that pleasure.
This relationship, already elaborated by Agustini, becomes a driving force in
Storni's book, as evidenced in the above poem as well as in "Dulce tortura" (83)
and "Tu dulzura" (87).
Another image appropriated from Agustini is that of drinking as a potent
amorous symbol. In Storni's "Moderna," from El dulce da?o, one can perceive
a rewriting of the poem "La copa de amor," from Agustini's collection Orla rosa,
whereby Storni employs similar drinking imagery. Despite the similarities, we
once again see a space created by the distinct context in which Storni employs
the images. I will first examine the image in Agustini's poem and then turn to
Storni's.
In "La copa de amor" (169), Agustini develops the image of drinking wine as
a symbol of union. In the first stanza we see the fusion of the symbol and the
thing symbolized through the juxtaposition of images:

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 196

?Bebamos juntos en la copa egregia!

Raro licor se ofrenda a nuestras almas.
?Abran mis rosas su frescura regia
A la sombra indeleble de tus palmas!

The invitation to drink is accompanied by the image of opening flowers, an

important image of amorous invitation in Agustinis poetry. Throughout the rest
of the poem, Agustini returns to the drinking image as she converts herself into
the goblet, the receptacle of the wine that will give the pleasure of inebriation to
the desired male. As she does so, she establishes an active/passive dichotomy
between the masculine and the feminine. After the initial invitation in the first
person plural, Agustini concentrates on the actions of the male: "T? despertaste
... t? voz vino ... t? rompiste ..." converting the male into the actor while the
female remains in the passive role, that of receptacle, as we see in "Ven a beber
mis mieles soberanas / ?Yo soy la copa del amor pomposa!" She opens herself
figuratively to the male: "?Yo me siento abrir como una rosa!" and the poem
ends in the euphoria that permeates the majority of the poems in her collection
Orla rosa.
In "Moderna" (148), from El dulce da?o, Storni repeats the images of drinking
and drunkenness as symbols of pleasure that we find already incorporated in the
poetry of Delmira Agustini. From the first verse, Storni makes the invitation to
drink in a phrase that closely imitates Agustinis invitation in "La copa de amor":
"nos beberemos el licor de oro." Storni strengthens the drinking/desire
connection with the same technique of juxtaposing images we have already
observed in Agustini: "Y habr? de darte la embriaguez que pides / Hasta que
Venus pase por los cielos." Yet, while Storni imitates Agustini's images and
technique, she also creates her own poetical space. With the anaphora "Yo
danzar?," she reverses the active/passive dichotomy that Agustini establishes in
"La copa de amor." Storni introduces the element of dance, and projects the
feminine into the active role as she becomes not only the source of wine and
pleasure but the seductress who attracts male attention to the metaphorical wine.
Storni further exerts the power of the active feminine as she resists opening
herself before the male, "Mas algo acaso te ser? escondido, / Que pagana de un
siglo empobrecido / No dejar? caer todos los velos." This act of covering creates
the poetic space in which she can inscribe her work as she clearly distinguishes
her desire from the revealing and uncovering desire we find in Agustini. Even the
title, "Moderna," suggests a distinction, a self-defining moment in which Storni
creates a poem that modernizes its predecessor. While I would hesitate to view
this act as an act of GEdipal conflict, the acts of expansion suggest a concerted
effort to produce original poetry within the feminine context that Agustini
helped to create in early twentieth-century Latin American poetry.

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 197

I now turn to another important image Storni borrows from Agustini: that
of the female poet at the feet of the male to whom she addresses the poem. I will
begin by looking at a possible source poem from Agustini in order to observe
how Storni first appropriates and then revises the image within two poems,
"Luna llena" from El dulce da?o and "En una primavera" from Languidez (1920).
Agustini's most famous and most anthologized poem in which she presents
this image is "El intruso" (168). In that sonnet, she describes the nocturnal
encounter that marks the beginning of her relationship with the lover/intruder.
In the two quartets, she describes the past encounter, using thinly-veiled imagery
to evoke the passionate nature of the meeting. In the sextet, she describes the
relationship in the present, and writes: "Y si t? duermes, duermo como un perro
a tus plantas." The image connotes the blissful subjugation of the poet to the
masculine figure, not only taking the submissive role at the feet of authority but
amplifying it through the simile of the ever-loyal canine. It also evokes the
master/slave relationship that Agustini incorporates in "El intruso," "Tu amor,
esclavo" (287), and several other poems.
In "Luna llena" (92), Storni describes the attraction she feels towards a
potential lover under the full moon, only to question the existence of the
happiness she thought to find. In the first verse, Storni describes the call of the
lover, the invitation to pleasure represented in the line "La miel que no he
gustado." She pleads for him to wait as she prepares herself to meet him,
promising "caer? a tus pies bajo la luna llena." The following verses break the
optimism of the first verse as she returns silent and sad from an unfulfilled
encounter. The full moon that fills her with longing at the beginning of the poem
terrifies her at the end, where it has come to represent the solitude of her desire.
"Luna llena" acts as a mirror of "El intruso" in which objects reflect similar
but opposite images. In both poems, the masculine figure calls at night, yet the
night in the beginning of "El intruso" is "tr?gica y sollozante" while the night at
the beginning of "Luna llena" is filled with sweetness and happiness. Additional
ly, in Agustini the lover calls as he comes to the poet while in Storni the lover
requires that she approach him. The image of the poet at the feet of the male
lover functions in much the same way in both poems. Storni's promise, "caer?
a tus pies bajo la luna llena," suggests the same submission indicated by the
image of Agustini. The difference, the swerve, lies in the placement of the image.
While Agustini's "I" occupies the space at the feet of the male, Storni's only
promises, her desire for submission frustrated by the absent male. The
movements of the poems also follow opposite trajectories. As noted, both begin
at night, which moves from tragic to blessed and from solitude to companion
ship in "El intruso," while the night in "Luna llena" moves from happiness to
fear and from promised love to loneliness. Once again, we see the swerve in the
manner in which Storni employs Agustini's images rather than in any revision
of the images themselves. The images of honey as a symbol of pleasure and of the

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 198

poet at the feet of the desired male continue to maintain the semiotic functions
they fulfilled in Agustini. Storni seems to use Agustini's work as a dictionary of
images, altering the presentation of concepts without questioning the link
Agustini forges between image and concept. Even so, the alteration that does
occur suggests the attempt to create a poetic space within a nascent feminine
tradition.
Storni employs a revised version of the poet at the feet of the masculine figure
in "En una primavera" (193-94). In this poem from her subsequent collection,
Languidez, Storni describes a Platonic male/female relationship that distin
guishes itself from the relationship based on Eros described in "Luna llena." The
first lines establish the relationship with the words "D?nde estar? el amigo que
me dijo, / Acariciando su nevada barba." Rather than desire, Storni describes a
mentor/disciple relationship. The image of the poet at the feet of the male
appears in the penultimate stanza, "Estaba yo a sus pies humildemente, /
Humildemente y toda yo temblaba." Storni activates the submissive nature of
the image, while eliminating any non-Platonic aspect by applying it within a
mentor/disciple dynamic in which the young girl learns sad lessons at the feet of
the older male. The master/slave relationship suggested by Agustini and repeated
in "Luna llena" is nullified by Storni's revision of the image in which she makes
it her own in order to convey the condemnation of the young girl for simply
being female. As her poetry has progressed, Storni has expanded her poetic space
concerning this image, first inserting it within her own context, then adapting
its representational properties so as to free her use of it from Agustini's influence.
As Angelina Gatell has noted (592), with the publication of Ocre in 1925, we
see a marked shift toward vanguardism in Storni's poetry. While she continues
to use more traditional rhyme schemes and meters, she makes a break with the
borrowed imagery that we see in El dulce da?o, Irremediablemente (1919), and
Languidez. Horacio Armani has examined the culmination of this development
in El mundo de siete pozos, where Storni adopts structural aspects of vanguardism
and uses imagery and metaphors that are closer to the contemporary poetical
movements than to the (by then) more dated modernismo of Dar?o and Agustini
(432). This movement also reflects Bloom's suggestion that after a time of
expansion and revision poets move to a period of d monization in which they
break with the precursor in order to develop a more individual voice. Ocre is
therefore also significant as part of Storni's development as it marks the point at
which she feels confident enough to engage her precursors in dialogues of sorts.
She parodies Dario in "Humildad" (239) (note the initial phrase, "Yo he sido
aqu?lla ...") and dedicates a sonnet in alexandrines to him, "Palabras a Rub?n
Dar?o" (252). In this poem, Storni fondly remembers the poetry of Dar?o, once
forgotten and only recently remembered. While her attitude is generally positive
toward the Nicaraguan poet, the lines in the first stanza, "tus libros duermen.
Sigo los ?ltimos autores: / Otras formas me atraen, otros nuevos colores," serve

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 199

to place Dar?o firmly in the past of Latin American poetry. Indeed, Storni's
revisitation of Dario in the first tercet: "Ya te hab?a olvidado y al azar te retomo,"
suggests her freedom from canonical male precursors like Dar?o.
The poem in which Storni reflects on her precursors that most interests us in
this paper is the sonnet entitled "Palabras a Delmira Agustini":

Est?s muerta y tu cuerpo, bajo uruguayo manto,

Descansa de su fuego, se limpia de su llama,
S?lo desde tus libros tu roja lengua llama
Como cuando viv?as, al amor y al encanto.

Hoy, si un alma de tantas, sentenciosa y oscura,

Con palabras pesadas va a sangrarte el o?do,
Encogida en tu pobre cajoncito ro?do
No puedes contestarle desde tu sepultura.

Pero sobre tu pecho, para siempre deshecho,

Comprensivo vigila, todav?a, mi pecho.
Y si ofendida lloras por tus cuencas abiertas

Tus l?grimas heladas, con mano tan liviana

Que m?s que mano amiga parece mano hermana,
Te enjugo dulcemente las tristes cuencas muertas. (258)

In a view common to many of the critics who mention this poem, Myriam
Jehenson characterizes this poem as an act of sisterhood, the caress of an
admiring hand that will protect the memory of Delmira Agustini (90). This is a
telling characterization, and one that would seem to fit within the constellation
of admiration that we have seen in Storni's comments on Agustini as well as in
her poetry. The poem seems to provide ample evidence for the case of Storni
acting as Gilbert and Gubar's women poets, viewing Agustini as precursor/sister,
a chance for solidarity in her struggle against the male literary tradition rather
than attempting to break free of any anxiety of Agustini's influence.
Nevertheless, much of the imagery Storni uses subverts an entirely positive
interpretation of the poem. While Storni evokes the image of sister with her
"mano hermana," she also creates a dichotomy between her as the living, creative
poet and Agustini as the dead, silent sister. Storni firmly establishes Agustini's
state in the first line, "Est?s muerta" and continues to refer to her death
throughout the poem. Storni uses fire imagery in the first quatrain to underscore
the loss of Agustini's vitality: Agustini is now resting from her fire and cleansed
from her flames. Her voice can now only be heard through her poetry.

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200

As the poem continues, Storni establishes a pattern of referring to Agustini's

feelings and then undermining those emotions with stark images of her death.
In the second quatrain, Storni suggests a living Agustini, one whose ears can be
bloodied by hurtful remarks. Storni then follows this image with one of a dead
Agustini, shrivelled in her casket. She further diminishes Agustini's presence by
referring to her tomb as a "pobre cajoncito ro?do." The description creates an
imbalance between reality - Agustini's tomb was and is an important Uruguayan
landmark - and Storni's poetic construction in which Agustini occupies a small,
ruined casket. In the eighth line, Storni effectively silences Agustini completely,
emphasizing her inability to answer criticisms of her and her work.
In the tercets, Storni continues the aforementioned pattern by creating an
emotional scene as she describes Agustini's tears only to disrupt its tenderness
with a grotesque image of those tears flowing from the Agustini's fleshless eye
sockets. Storni repeats the disruption in the final lines as she lovingly wipes away
these tears by drying Agustini's skull. The poem ends on the image of cuencas
muertas, emphasizing death over the other themes and images introduced. What
develops is an interesting ambiguity in which Agustini is silent and helpless,
dependent upon the consolation of Storni as sister, while Agustini's emphasized
silence establishes Storni as the sole inheritor of the feminine poetic tradition.
Storni's actions of consolation come to represent her work within the poetic
space created by Agustini's absence.
While "Palabras a Delmira Agustini" firmly establishes the love and
admiration Storni feels toward Agustini, it also relegates Agustini to the land of
the silent dead. Indeed, one could even perceive Bloom's apophrades in this
poem. Storni assumes an almost maternal role in her care of Agustini, drying her
tears and placing her chest over the chest of Agustini. These acts load the use of
the sister relationship Storni employs explicitly to suggest a more maternal
stance. Agustini's cajoncito becomes the small casket of a child and, with the
reversal of roles, Storni becomes the precursor and Agustini turns into the
younger poet. The poem also marks an end in the poetry of Storni. In her
subsequent work, there is a marked decrease of images and themes borrowed
from Agustini. While this movement does not imitate exactly Bloom's state of
dcemonization, it does suggest a state in which Storni has created a poetical space
in which Agustini's images no longer resonate so strongly.
Criticism devoted to comparisons of Agustini and Storni has remained on a
fairly descriptive level, examining the themes and images important to these
poets as well as to Mistral and Ibarbourou.4 Dolores Koch notes that Storni
seems to pick up where Agustini left off, and in a sense she is right (726). Yet
there is considerable overlap, whereby Storni repeats, expands and revises
Agustini's work. It is in this overlap that we find poetical relationships that can
expand our understanding of the explanatory properties of Bloom's theories as
applied to a Latin American feminine poetics. Critics such as Gilbert, Gubar and

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 201

Kolodny, studying feminine authorship, are correct to question Bloom's choice

of language and allegory and to elaborate a model in which the woman writer
battles a male tradition. Nevertheless, by concentrating on Anglo-American
writers, they fail to consider instances in which female authors must create their
own poetic space within a well-established feminine tradition. In the case of
Alfonsina Storni and Delmira Agustini, we see a combination of the feminist
adaptation of Bloom with a more literal interpretation of his ideas. While Storni
sees Agustini as a sisterly precursor and respects her for the inroads she makes
in the masculine tradition, she simultaneously works to develop her own poetic
voice. While much of Storni's expansion and revision of Agustini's images can
be interpreted along these lines, many of Bloom's models have no bearing on
Storni. For instance, she makes no mention of a muse, a problematic issue with
which Agustini wrestled throughout her poetry. Additionally, an approach
emphasizing the intertextual nature of many of the poems and images analysed
in this article could produce similar readings to those provided in this study.
Indeed, the traces of Agustini's imagery that persevere in Storni could be read as
a function of a more Kristevian concept of intertextuality in which the latter's
poetry occupies a textual space intersected by the former's. In those situations,
present theories of intertextuality could well subsume a Bloomian reading of the
transference of images. Nevertheless, the poem that creates the need for both a
re-evaluation of Bloom's theories of influence as well as their feminist critique
in the case of the two poets under consideration is clearly "Palabras a Delmira
Agustini," where Storni kills her precursor figuratively and appropriates the
leading feminine poetic voice in her generation. The intersection here is one of
poetic persona? and a changing of the guard, rather than borrowed and revised
images.
The feminine canon created by the appearance of Delmira Agustini and
Alfonsina Storni in the Latin American canon of masculine literature decon
structs the now traditional view of feminine writing as a sisterly continuum while
vindicating various aspects of Bloom's initial theories. As we see in the work of
Alfonsina Storni, rather than female allied with female against male, we see a
female with/against female against male in a struggle for freedom from the
influence of both the masculine and feminine traditions.

University of Virginia

NOTES

i Bloom frames this struggle for an original poetic "stance" as dipal in which
the new poet works to develop this position of creation as he reinterprets and
hence removes the "stances" of poetic precursors.

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202

2 The inappropriateness of much of Anglo-American feminist criticism has been

examined by many Latin American women writers (see Castillo xiv-xviii).
3 See, for example, Myriam ]ehenson, Helena Percas de Ponseti and Angelina
Gatell among others. One should note, however, that two of the more import
ant recent books on Latin American feminist criticism, those of Debra Castillo
and Amy Kaminsky, do not include studies of either Agustini or Storni.
4 See Angelina Gatell, Robert Lima and Dolores Koch, among others. Also,
Lucrecio P?rez Blanco specifically notes instances of images that Storni borrows
from Agustini (378-79) and Mark Smith-Soto has studied uses of the image of
the head that Storni seems to have inherited from the same source (80-82).

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