| This dissertation is a critical feminist and historically revisionist study of the life and work of Puerto Rican poet Julia de Burgos. I situate her as a transitional figure who bridges the historical divide between the early writers of the Generacion del treinta and the later writers of Puerto Rican descent in New York of the 1970s, Rejecting traditional notions of Puerto Rican identity propagated by the writers of the 1930s, Julia de Burgos acknowledges the heterogeneity of the island and articulates a more inclusive Puerto Rican identity that enables her to be read as a precursor to the later Latino/a writers in the United States. While it is rare for a poet to become a cultural icon, Julia de Burgos has evoked feelings of bonding and identification in Puerto Ricans and Latinos/as in the United States for over half a century. Her experiences of migration, dissidence in relation to the nation island, and her fight for survival resonate with these communities. I propose that it is the Pan-American and Afro-Antillean ideas expressed in her writing that make her so popular today. In the opening chapter, I examine the work of Puerto Rican scholars such as Jose Luis Gonzalez, Juan Beauchamp, and Juan Gelpi who deconstruct the traditional Puerto Rican identity articulated by the Generacion del treinta writers. I contrast her public writing at the time, with her first collection of poetry Poema en veinte surcos and conclude that her poetry contradicts these conservative notions of Puerto Rican identity articulated in the public discourses of the Nationalist Party. In the second chapter, I examine the effects of voluntary exile on de Burgos' second and third collections of poetry, Cancion de la verdad sencilla and El near y tu. Finally, I study de Burgos' writings from New York, and her legacy among other Puerto Rican women writers in the United States such as Sandra Maria Esteves, Esmeralda Santiago, and Rosario Ferre. |
