The Prison of Youth: Generational Viewpoints in Works by Gabriela Mistral and Rosario Castellanos

Abstract

This article addresses the mission of the poet and teacher as a bridge spanning future and past generations. The Chilean poet Gabriela Mistral and the Mexican poet Rosario Castellanos are studied. They help us remedy the ethnocentrism and lack of feminist perspective that sometimes mark studies of aging in the United States. Though separated by more than a generation in chronological age, and by the psychic distance of never having met, their work and lives exhibit commonalities of interest to us all: feminism, explicit and implicit; the quest for justice and reform; the permutations of love, whether maternal, pedagogical, or poetic; and the continuing, eternal dialogue among the generations.