Discover millions of ebooks, audiobooks, and so much more with a free trial

Only $11.99/month after trial. Cancel anytime.

A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words"
A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words"
A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words"
Ebook39 pages1 hour

A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words"

By Gale and Cengage

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars

()

Read preview

About this ebook

A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words," excerpted from Gale's acclaimed Poetry for Students. This concise study guide includes plot summary; character analysis; author biography; study questions; historical context; suggestions for further reading; and much more. For any literature project, trust Poetry for Students for all of your research needs.
LanguageEnglish
Release dateSep 28, 2016
ISBN9781535832854
A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words"

Read more from Gale

Related to A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words"

Related ebooks

Literary Criticism For You

View More

Related articles

Reviews for A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words"

Rating: 0 out of 5 stars
0 ratings

0 ratings0 reviews

What did you think?

Tap to rate

Review must be at least 10 words

    Book preview

    A Study Guide for Gabriela Mistral's "Serene Words" - Gale

    13

    Serene Words

    Gabriela Mistral

    1922

    Introduction

    Serene Words, by Gabriela Mistral, appears in her first book of collected poems, Desolacíon (Desolation), published in 1922. Mistral was a respected writer in her native Chile, and when Professor Federico de Onís of Columbia University, in New York, read her scattered poetry to his students, they wanted to see more in a book. He gathered her poems and had them published by the Hispanic Institute of New York. Mistral was impressive in her physical presence and in her emotional use of the Spanish language for a poetry of passion. The charisma of her person and book spread her fame to the public and to the diplomatic circles she worked in all over the world as a Chilean consul. Popularly known as the spiritual mother of South America, Mistral made important contributions to Latin American culture as a journalist, poet, diplomat, and human rights activist, winning her Latin America's first Nobel Prize for Literature in 1945.

    Mistral initially became famous for her frank portrayal of the emotions of romantic love. Her Sonnets of Death were a cry of grief for the death by suicide of her first lover. But the subject of Serene Words is her surrender to God, who was an even greater love for the poet. Mistral writes as passionately about her spiritual search as she does about romantic love, nature, motherhood, and children. Because she could have no husband or children, she said, she taught school and wrote tender poems for and about children, loving other people's children as her own. Serene Words can be found in several anthologies, including the one translated and edited by her literary executor, Doris Dana, Selected Poems of Gabriela Mistral: A Bilingual Edition (1971).

    Author Biography

    Mistral was born Lucila Godoy Alcayaga on April 7, 1889, in Vicuña, a small town in the Elqui Valley of the northern Andes Mountains of Chile. She grew up in Monte Grande, a village in that valley, with her mother, Petronila Alcayaga, her father, Juan Gerónimo Godoy Villanueva, and her older half sister, Emilina. The father was a singer, poet, and schoolteacher. He abandoned his family when Lucila was three. She

    Enjoying the preview?
    Page 1 of 1