Can the Female Muse Speak?: Chacel and Poniatowska Read Against the Grain

Rosa Chacel's Teresa (1941) and Elena Poniatowska's Querido Diego, te abraza Quiela (1978) are two fictionalized (auto)biographical texts about Teresa Mancha, the famous lover of Spanish Romantic poet José de Espronceda, and Angelina Beloff, who shared her life for ten years with Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. Both texts subvert the patriarchal ideology of their sources. In addition to revising the historical image of their protagonists, the authors also attempt to correct the views of women prevailing in their own cultural milieu.