The Ocho poetas mexicanos and the marginalisation of Catholic authors in post-revolutionary Mexico

Abstract

The group known as the Ocho poetas mexicanos were marginalised in post-revolutionary literary circles and remain largely forgotten by literary history because they were dismissed as Catholic authors by a literary establishment which favoured nation-building literature at a time when Catholicism was excluded from official constructions of nationhood. This article draws attention to the significant contribution made by group members to contemporary cultural life and re-evaluates the work they published in the 1955 anthology which announced their arrival onto the literary scene. An analysis of this collection demonstrates that there was scant justification within their poetry for labelling all group members as Catholic poets and suggests that as a collective they are best understood with reference to the “universal” strand of Mexican literature and as heirs to groups such as the Contemporáneos. The treatment of the Ocho poetas provides important evidence of the way in which Catholic authors were marginalised in mid-twentieth-century Mexico, even if they did not express religious beliefs in their work, and draws attention to the non-literary criteria which can come into play when evaluating texts.

Keywords:

• Mexican poetry
• religion and literature
• canon formation
• Ocho poetas
• Alejandro Avilés
• Roberto Cabral del Hoyo
• Dolores Castro
• Rosario Castellanos
• Efrén Hernández
• Honorato Ignacio Magaloni
• Octavio Novaro
• Javier Peñalosa

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Edward Bowskill for his help in gathering and transcribing some of the archival material that was used in this article and Professor Isabel Torres for reading and commenting on a draft of this article.

Notes

1. Unless otherwise stated, all quotations by Dolores Castro are taken from an interview with the author at Castro’s home in Mexico City in September 2009. A transcript of the interview is available from the author on request. The abbreviation “CNL/EXP” followed by the author’s initials is used to refer to documents from the Centro Nacional de Literatura Archivo Hemerográfico de Escritores, Mexico City.

2. Castro also summarised the beliefs of the group in an interview with Benjamín Barajas (2004, 144) stating: “Octavio Novaro era anticlerical y de izquierda; Roberto Cabral del Hoyo, creyente, pero anticlerical; Honorato Ignacio Magaloni era creyente, anticlerical y de izquierda; Javier Peñalosa era católico, de izquierda y abierto a las corrientes nuevas. Efrén Hernández era creyente, pero no católico; Rosario Castellanos era católica de las fiebres terciarias y yo que soy católica, pero no mucho.” Further evidence of Castellanos’ changing beliefs can be found in an interview with Emmanuel Carballo in which she spoke of experiencing “una fuerte crisis religiosa” following the death of her parents as a result of which, she said, “dejé de creer en la otra vida” (Siempre, December 19, 1962). However, she continued, at the time when the collection Poemas 1953–1955 was written, “[v]olví a una especie de religiosidad ya no católica, a una vivencia religiosa del mundo, a sentirme ligada a las cosas desde un punto de vista emotivo y a considerarl[a]s como objetos de contemplación estética” (Siempre, December 19, 1962). On the differing beliefs of group members, see Reforma, May 10, 1999.

3. On Avilés’ involvement and eventual split with the PAN, see María Marván Laborde (1988, 197), Francisco Reveles Vázques (1999, 16, 19), and El Día, July 26, 1991.

4. On Castro’s work at Radio Femenina, see Edna Aponte (2004).

5. Ruiz Abreu hints at a shift in attitudes to Catholicism when he says “hasta fechas muy recientes, declararse católico en el ámbito intelectual en México era una ironía” (2003, 18; italics added for emphasis). This change can also be seen in Vicente Fox’s use of a banner of the Virgin of Guadalupe at a political rally during his successful presidential campaign in 2000.

6. Unless otherwise stated, all subsequent references are to Alejandro Avilés, Roberto Cabral del Hoyo, Rosario Castellanos, Dolores Castro, Efrén Hernández, Honorato Ignacio Magalonia, Octavio Novaro, and Javier Peñalosa (1955).

7. As Castro’s poems are not titled in the anthology, first lines are given in place of the title. The same poem is entitled “Herida” in the collection Cantares de vela originally published in 1960 (Castro 1996, 62).