Sense and Sensibility

doi:10.1017/CHO9781316050859.011

8 - Sense and Sensibility

Women’s Experience in the Nineteenth Century

from Part II - Women Writers in Creole Societies: Nation Building Projects

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 November 2015

Francine Masiello

Edited by

Ileana Rodríguez and

Mónica Szurmuk

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Ileana Rodríguez: Affiliation:
Ohio State University
Mónica Szurmuk: Affiliation:
Instituto de Literatura Hispanoamericana, Argentina

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Summary

The literature of the nineteenth-century Americas, considered both north and south, reveals a textured landscape of sensory material captured by the bodies of women. From the River Plate to Caribbean cities, this is revealed in the feminine cultural production not only in nation building narratives, but also in pamphlets, newspapers, and manuals registering female experience, situating women's sensory reach at the center of discussion. This chapter focuses on two mid-century romantics Argentina's, Juana Manuela Gorriti and Cuba's Gertrudis Gomez de Avellaneda, who take experience to be central to their writing, positioning sense and sensibility as essential for citizen engagement. The insistence on sensual experience is more than a path to explore women's interiority. The chapter describes a claim that individual perceptions, and a trust in the sentient being, work as part of a larger project both to define the bases of governabilty and to expose its shortcomings and flaws.

Keywords

colonial archives archival spaces Amazonian warrior woman historical discourses Iberian world

Type: Chapter
Information: The Cambridge History of Latin American Women's Literature , pp. 133 - 148

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CHO9781316050859.011 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2015

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