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Chapter 12 - Women in the Poet’s Life

More than Muses

from Part II - Landmark Events and Relationships

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  27 February 2026

Ignacio López-Calvo
Affiliation:
University of California Merced
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Summary

This chapter focuses on the influence of women in Neruda’s life and poetry. Starting from the poet’s assertion that his life is made up of all lives, and the unfortunate passage in his memoirs that the Chilean feminist movement interpreted as the sublimation of a rape, it analyzes Neruda’s poetic work and the accounts of Teresa Vásquez, Albertina Azócar, Laura Arrué, Josie Bliss, Marijke Antonieta Hagenaar Vogelzang, Delia del Carril, Matilde Urrutia, and Alicia Urrutia, who accompanied him at different times in his life, to demonstrate that women always had agency in Neruda’s work and life. They were more than muses. It also shows how Neruda dialogued with the poetic work of women poets who preceded him, as in the case of Alfonsina Storni.

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